Photo TR: Hersheypark - Sept. 5th Labor Day Weekend

[JDo217]

I went to Hersheypark this past Saturday with my family and a friend. Despite the fact that it was labor day weekend, the wait times for the rides weren't that bad even though the park was pretty packed.

 

We started off the day at 6am and it took us about 3.5 hours to get there. Someone needs to remind me to go to Dorneypark sometime because I live pretty close, which I just realized. I think it's actually only 1.5 hours away from me (Long Island, NY).

 

Anyways, I won't bore you with my spiel - onto the photos then.

 

Hope you guys enjoyed this. Took me forever to resize the pics and upload. I uploaded to imageshack then saved the image to my computer from there. Please let me know if there's a faster way. As i said, this is my first TR. I don't usually take that many pictures at parks and have no idea where to stand for the amazing shots some of you guys have, not that I tried to hard to get any

 

I've also got a ton of pictures from my visit to Cedar Point this summer. Hopefully I can get those up soon

Thank you for visiting Hersheypark!

We went for a night ride on SR. The station was even MORE packed this time if that's even possible. At least the wait was about the same though. Last row again for us and it was absolutely amazing. Everything seemed 1000x faster at night

Sidewinder. We opted not to ride it since I had a nasty headache after the last time

I think this is supposed to be the Boardwalk+Fahrenheit but who knows?

I will now present to you a crappy trio of night shots. It's a pity my camera doesn't do these too well because I could've gotten some awesome ones from the ferris wheel

LR with the lights on. I didn't know the they had lights on every part of the track :o

We settled down after dinner in the park with a ride on the Ferris Wheel. The line went sort of slow but we weren't complaining - we had a full stomach of Nathan's to digest!

CHOCOLATE FACTORY! At least, I think...

2nd ride on SR we had around a 30 minute wait, which we gladly took. We rode the very last row and found that it was about 1000x more forceful and intense and fun. Seriously, the airtime we got on the tophat was insane, even by El Toro standards

Did I mention that the park was packed?

As I said, the park was pretty packed but at least the lines were decent

Nerd shot! No TR is complete without one of these

The Cobra Roll. Beats me how it made it PAST the Norwegian Loop but valleyed in the Cobra Roll on opening day ?_?

Norwegian "that looks awfully like a pretzel" Loop

Nice overview shot if I don't say so myself

Yikes! That's a lot of twisted track

Vertical goodness in all it's glory

97 degrees!

Fahrenheit at last! Actually, no. We waited until sunset to rided this. The line was a little over an hour (which is not bad by any standards - I'm not complaining about that) everytime we checked and we just said "Hell no!" to waiting in the unshaded queue with the sun directly overhead.

Obligatory Kissing Tower pic

More of the area. I think Great Bear was one of the worse waits we had at HP. Our first ride of the day had a little under an hour wait. The line itself wasn't that long (only about 2 of the switchbacks in the main queue area filled) but it moved horrendously slowly. I was a little disappointed at how slow the ride ops were going, especially since there were about 6 of them in the station and the sun was sweltering in the back part of the queue. The night ride was absolutely breathtaking though

The pre-drop helix and one of my favorite parts of the ride.

A good overview of the area

Vertical loop sweetness. GB is pretty much THE smoothest B&M invert I've been on so far. No head banging, rattling, or traumatizing whatsoever, and I rode it a fair number of times too.

Is that Great Bear I spy?

Next stop was Lightning Racer. Needless to say we got a walk-on. Figures the one time we rode lightning we'd lose. Both sides had full trains too.

 

Anyways, Alyssa had a pretty hilarious (for me, at least) experience with this one (and Wildcat too for that matter). She had a bit of a nasty tit problem where they kept smashing into the lapbars and she had to shield them by wrapping her arms around herself. 'Twas hilarious but unfortunately I didn't get the picture. Needless to say, she's not a fan of wildcat and LR (practically a sin)

...and again.

More SR goodness. This time from the Kissing Tower POV. This really gives you a good idea of how much taller the exit of the tophat is than the entrance.

Great Bear meets Coal Cracker meets SDL: that's a lot of steel!

Good thing the fish were big because the geese/ducks/whatever looked more than capable of washing them down after a hearty meal of Hersheypark corn kettles

Caution: some people in the park won't be able to get over this bridge

I don't even know what this is called, now that I think of it

Flying snake dive goodness

I'll humor Intamin and call this the "Cobra Loop"

First stop: Storm Runner! We entered the actual park around 11 and were pretty surprised to get a virtual walk-on SR. We sat row 7 or 8 I believe and got a pretty intense ride, although our other 3 rides on this thing were way more intense (and better)

You can just taste the chocolatey goodness now. Although we did have a debate about whether that was real cocoa paste or just brown paint. Anyone wanna answer that one?

Gabby, Harmony, and Olympia wish you good day at Hersheypark! Best part of the tour hands down

Yup, you guessed it: the chocolate tour! We had to while we were here, especially since it was Alyssa's first time on the tour. Just sinful...seeing as how she's been here plenty before

Looks like we've arrived! All in good time too. We left around 6 and made one 1/2 hour stop, arriving at 10

Being all proud of her creation

Next up: an elephant. She made a seal too but unfortunately I didn't take a shot of it

We were bored on the road and Alyssa decided to wow me with her money-folding talents :o

Just a bit of "on-the-road" stuff. We were confused why this guy had to use the carrier for one kayak

[yankees15]

Great report! I'm trying to head out there one of these weekends since I haven't had the chance to visit yet this summer.

 

I'm glad you loved Storm Runner so much! It is one of my favorite rides and the airtime on the top hat in the front and back is amazing.

[DiSab]

Awesome pictures. I really need to make a trip to Hershey soon. It's been on my map for a while but I haven't made it yet...

[hobbit]

nice pictures!

the stormrunner looks almost pink!

[JDo217]

Thanks guys. Here are a couple more shots that I forgot to upload last night

...LR again.

The awesomeness that is Lightning racer. Taken from the Kissing Tower I believe

Aesthetically speaking, the Boardwalk area is a visual masterpiece. Realistically speaking though, the lines were absolutely horrendous all day