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Hersheypark (HP) Discussion Thread

p. 438: Twizzlers Twisted Gravity announced for 2025!

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So Hershey is running a sale right now of $34.95 for a one-day ticket for Hersheypark in the Dark in October. How bad do crowds get on a Saturday pre-Covid? As bad as every other theme park for Halloween events? I notice they're only open 2-9.

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If the weather is nice, it can be very crowded but not as bad as Great Adventure. Last year Trailblazer had an hour posted wait in the middle of the day, the larger coasters had up to 90 minute waits posted. There were also a lot of rides closed during the event last year, mostly flat rides but it caused coaster lines to be longer.

 

Maybe with 5 weekends this year instead of 3, crowds will be more spread out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Locals/regulars! Where is the best place in the park to find magnets these days? I'd imagine the big new giant exit gift shop but I want coaster magnets not Hershey/chocolate magnets (OK if I can find a Kit Kat magnet I might buy it). We were there back in early Sept and I didn't see magnets anywhere, admittedly I wasn't looking that hard. But we're going back soon and I need new magnets! 

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I was at the park twice this weekend, one on a Friday and the other on a Saturday.  Friday saw me walking up and ride, but the park was only open for four (4) hours.  Saturday was open for seven (7) hours, but it was crowded [CROWD-DED!].  That's okay; I got everything I wanted to do and I am satisfied until next season where we can start relaxing the mask and social distancing, I can resume my season pass until June 30, the three rides that have been closed all this season will finally be reopened, and I can finally see what new attraction they are placing in that walled-up area to the right of the final helix of Candymonium (Flying Falcon?  Oh, please let it be so!).

For the record, I've been to Hersheypark five times this season, and I'm planning five more times next year.  If what I wish for comes true, you can bet your Reese's Cups I will be renew my season pass for many more seasons to come.

HERSHEY BARS - IT'S LEGAL IN ALL FIFTY STATES!   SWEET!!!  😊

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In spite of it being one of my absolute favorite parks, I usually only make the trip out to Hershey once a year. However, thanks to my 2020 plans going right into the crapper I'm working with what I've got nearby so after my visit with my buddy last month, we got a group of pals who haven't seen each each other in forever to meet up for a day of fun at The Sweetest Place on Earth once again the past weekend. I'm not doing a full on report but I figured I'd mess around with the new forum and throw up some photos we captured on Sunday and share a few thoughts about this awesome park.

If you've followed my reports leading up to now you no doubt of noticed a pattern of us making the trip out to Hershey, PA on a Sunday in October - we've done this almost every year for the last 5-6 seasons, and I've often screamed from the hilltops how this is the best time to visit this park. While Saturdays in the fall are usually busy-to-mobbed, Sundays have always been good to us and the crowds have always wound up somewhere between totally manageable to almost non-existent.

With the shortened Covid-hours, the park is only open from 2-9pm during this years Hersheypark in the Dark, so that allowed us to get a late start and plan a brunch at Troegs ahead of the park. However, car troubles had us scrambling for alternate plans and with a bit of a delay, we just headed right for the park and grabbed some food and brews there instead.

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Welcome to Hersheys clean new entrance plaza. As I learned last month, Candymonium is fantastic but as we all know people are dumb and will all run to that first to stand in a two hour line that will most definitely shorten by the late afternoon as the crowds spread out around the park. Skip!

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First up? Skyrush. One member of today's gang is not much of a rider and said she was up for anything so we really ripped the band-aid off in style with a front row ride on the best roller coaster in the state.

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Skyrush is just incredible. We waited for the front and were treated to one of the best ever rides I've had on this thing. As more of our group arrived, I managed to hop back on and closer to the rear and had another great ride but... Skyrush is a front seat ride. I will die on this hill. I know, back seat left side whatever. But the drop in the front is unreal. It's just so steep that even in the front you still lose sight on the track you're about to fly down. And I honestly feel like the majority of the airtime is considerably better here than it is in the back. The feeling of being pushed up into the hills with that much force is just perfection, so much better than being yanked around like a rag doll in the rear. Also, two rides and my legs were fine. I wish yall Thigh Crush pussies would STFU already.

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The gangs all here! From here we grabbed some beers (plus side of Covid? No more beer jail at Hershey!) and wandered around a bit trying to find something to ride and settled on Fahrenheit as it just had a relatively short 25 minute wait. I had a fantastic ride on this fun little Intamin last month, but either my belt in this seat was much, much shorter, or I've gained a crap ton of weight in just a month - it wasn't even close. Honestly, not even bummed. With not one but two attendants trying to staple me in and instructing me to relax my shoulders, I stared at the buckle willing it to close and knew there was just no chance. I told the attendants to forget it, made sure the missus was cool riding alone in the front (she was - she loves this ride) and hopped off to grab another beer. As a big dude, I've had many close calls with the walk of shame over the last 7 seasons of enthusiast life, but this was the first time I was denied a ride. Ah well, it was a good run.

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In addition to the manageable waits in October, another reason you need to get out here is the park itself. It's just gorgeous with the changing leaves. We made our way over to Lightning Racer and had ourselves a nice race with groups of our large party taking opposite seats on opposing trains. This was running really well in September and even better this weekend. It's absolutely one of my favorite woodies, maybe not the fastest, tallest, most airtime, whatever... but it rides really well and has a little bit of everything and the racing aspect just makes for a great time.

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The park doesn't do much in the way of decorations for this event, but there a re some and they're cute.

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Basically.

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At this point some of our crew rode some flats, did some shopping, wandered a bit, when a few decided to call it a day and the remainder of us made our way to the Sidewinder food court area in search of subsistence (aka Chickies crab fries). A few more beers and a check in of the app notified us that Candy was down to 15 minutes.

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We headed that way and while it was more like 20-25 minutes we were treated to a phenomenal night ride as it had gotten dark by now. Candymonium is another astounding ride, and with it, this park's line-up is just out of control stacked. Just need that RMC. I typed that not only because I believe it, but I know I just twisted some purist-panties. You're welcome.

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Even though after dark the air was quite chilly, our boy Bill was not happy about this.

With such a large group with us today we didn't ride a ton, and spent a lot of time hanging out, yapping, drinking, eating and that was fine. I love just being in this park. Missed Storm Runner and Sooper Dooper Looper something fierce on both visits this year but what can you do?

We ended the night with a trek up the hill to Great Bear and managed to snag a front row ride through the pitch black night. So good, it's really a shame that like the last 10% of this ride causes so many nerds to hate on it. I love basically this whole ride, it's a shame they couldn't figure out a way to do something with that short straight bit at the very end, but it's still phenomenal even with what's there.

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I did not get any photos of Great Bear, not that I could have since most of the ride area is dark AF, so here is a photo of the best roller coaster in Pennsylvania (suck it, Phoenix!) We would have ridden it again but a train got stuck on the lift about an hour before close and the park sent the crew home and shut the ride down. Ah well, the rides in the afternoon will suffice.

A quick stop for a giant bag of kettle corn to take home and we bounced right before park close. I did look out for magnets but all they have is candy related stuff, nothing for the coasters. Pretty lame. Beyond that and getting denied a ride on the 3rd-best Intamin in the park, we had an incredible evening at this wonderful park. Hersheypark in the Dark is still happening for the next two weekends, be sure to check it out! Thanks for reading and make sure to smash that react button!

 

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nice report. . tho sadly, notice the HP Op on Skyrush in your pic is wearing his facemask incorrectly!   sheesh.

 

glad y'all had fun tho, and this pic in particular is amazing!   

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oh, how I wish I could see stuff that that in person at this time of year - it just doesn't really happen in Texas.
 

 

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^ I reluctantly posted that as I knew someone would point it out. But, HP overall was pretty good with employees and guests wearing mask properly and social distancing. Definitely better than Six Flags, that's for sure.

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Awesome report!

^There was an employee at one of the coasters (I won’t say which... I’m not here to put people on blast) openly telling us (totally unsolicited) that masks were a bunch of crap and that employees needed to stop telling guests to wear them because “nobody freaking cares”.

If you care about covid, don’t go to Hershey.  They’re probably the worst park I’ve seen year with it and I’ve been to SeaWorld and Great Adventure multiple times. Great Adventure miiiiiight be worse but it’s close. 

That said, yeah it was an awesome day. I feel like I should go to this park more than I do. I’m totally on team Skyrush now. Candymonium was a blast. When the rest of the group bailed we got two more rides on it including the last one of the night.

It’s a front seat ride for sure but it’s fun everywhere. The banked drop is a blast and there’s a really well placed support that you’re convinced you’re going to crash into. To set expectations; I wouldn’t say it’s a top tier B&M hyper but it really doesn’t need to be. It’s still a ton of fun and if you like Hypercoasters that try to kill you it’s only a 5 minute walk. Compare it to something like the Carowinds Intimidator. I’m glad it’s there. I had a ton of fun riding it but if Skyrush didn’t break that’s where we would have been at park close. Lol

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32 minutes ago, boldikus said:

^ I reluctantly posted that as I knew someone would point it out. But, HP overall was pretty good with employees and guests wearing mask properly and social distancing. Definitely better than Six Flags, that's for sure.

to give credit tho..the Ride Ops behind him (on the other side of the station) *are* wearing their masks correctly.

had it just slipped down on him before you snapped the pic?  or is that just how he was wearing it?    (I mean, why bother if you aren't gonna wear it correctly).

at SFFT saw several "park guests" wearing masks this way, but at least all the ride ops were wearing correctly -  of course SFFT had issues in regards to Social Distancing.     At the end of the day, as Bill kinda implies above,  you gotta deal with what you feel safe doing.

from your pics, I'd feel totally safe at Hershey, and wish was close enough to go for a visit (and to see the trees).

but I would skip Skyrush :p

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2 hours ago, coasterbill said:

There was an employee at one of the coasters (I won’t say which... I’m not here to put people on blast) openly telling us (totally unsolicited) that masks were a bunch of crap and that employees needed to stop telling guests to wear them because “nobody freaking cares”.

I get that you don't want to put individual people on blast, but that kind of behavior from a ride op is completely uncalled for.

That being said, I'm glad you all had a great time at Hershey. I'm looking forward to visiting it again next year.

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I had a similar experience at Indiana Beach where one of the operators criticized me for wearing a mask saying it was useless.

I still think the craziest thing I heard from a ride op this year was the 9/11 joke one of them told at Holiday World.  That was after the same employee mentioned the comedy shows of today can't compete with the classics...like SpongeBob.

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I am convinced that Spongebob is the greatest kid/family animated TV show to air. And the memes that come from it are spectacular. But I guess people who grew up before the 2000s probably cannot relate as much.

But back on topic... I totally agree with what you said, Bill, about Great Bear. I think it is severely underrated and is a fantastic invert.

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So, I haven't been there since they opened up the new entrance. What did they end up doing with the old area that led from their former entrance to the carousel circle? Are any of those old buildings and shops still standing, or have they razed them all?

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