Hersheypark and Six Flags Great Adventure TR - 4/10 and 4/11

[gad198]

Overview:

My brother and I, as usual, decided to do a last minute weekend trip. We decided to do Hersheypark for their Springtime in the Park special since tickets online were only $23 a piece after tax, instead of the well over $50 admission once the park opens for the full season. We were trying to add a second park, but couldn't figure out which way we wanted to go. Do you go the Hershey to Six Flags America (and possibly Kings Dominion) route and add a bunch of new rides, or do you simply go to Six Flags Great Adventure, a park we had both been to before but really liked? We ultimately decided on the Hersheypark and Great Adventure combo.

Unfortunately, my brother had to back out due to a family commitment at the last minute. I already bought the Hersheypark tickets and reserved all of the hotels, so I was in a quandary. Do I go to those parks alone so I at least get some value out of the money I already spent or just take the loss and stay home?

Enter Dave "The Big Sardine" Hester. Dave has become my go-to guy for these type of trips. 18 hours notice? No problem! Have parks will travel! We left on Friday night and eventually found ourselves in Hersheypark bright and early Saturday morning.

Hersheypark:

It seems as though it's popular thinking to head to Fahrenheit and Storm Runner first. It's not really evident as to why that's the case until you step in to the park itself. We were there right at park opening and we saw EVERYONE in front of us head to Comet and Great Bear, the two coasters you first see when you enter the park (more on this later). We did head for Fahrenheit, and in classic Intamin fashion saw that it was down. So much for that. Storm Runner is a very short distance away, so we hit that as our first ride of the day.

Storm Runner (one train wait for the front seat): your basic launch-top-hat-brake r...oops, wrong Intamin launcher! I'm really glad that they decided to add some other elements to this coaster. The launch is great and feels pound for pound more forceful than TTD's. The pop of airtime that you get in leading into the flying snake dive was an unexpected treat, but the barrel rolls were taken at a slightly lower speed than I was expecting so they didn't quite have the pop I'm used to from say, a B&M zero-g roll. The quick overbank and small float you get at the end were a nice end to a really solid ride. The best ride in the park IMO. Grade: B+

Sidewinder (walk on to the front seat): we saw one run of this and knew that if we were going to attempt to get this credit that we were going to be in for some pain. We should have taken something closer to the middle, but hey, the front seat is open with no wait! Why not, right? Wrong! Carolina Cobra was a great boomerang. No headbanging and very disorienting. This was on the other end of the spectrum. The ultimate "glad I got the credit but wouldn't do it again unless you tased me" coaster! Grade: D-

Wild Mouse (walk-on to the front seat): not much to say here except for the fact that the ride was brake-free except for one quick stop right in the middle. You run around the corners really quick, enough that I was thinking about safe it was! Probably the most fun mouse I've been on, but that's still not saying much. Bonus: the cars don't stop moving in the station, which improves the capacity a great deal. Not a big deal when you can walk right on but when the line is long I'm sure this helps. Grade: C

Wildcat (one train wait for the back seat): GCIs first coaster. My understanding is that these initially ran with PTCs but changed to the Millennium Flyer trains a few years ago. You can definitely see the GCI influence here with many of the now standard GCI elements, but it doesn't have that same fun factor that most GCIs have. It just doesn't have any outstanding elements or features. I wonder if this may have actually run better with the PTCs. Grade: C+

Lightning Racer/Lightning (walk on to the second seat): another GCI creation. We got in line and noticed that the Thunder side was not open. We saw a car on the transfer tracks but the other train was nowhere to be seen. Interesting. We hopped on Lightning, and about halfway through the course we notice a train sitting in the adjacent tunnel. Ah, at least we now know where the second Thunder train is! The functional side of the ride was good but because of the cooler conditions you could clearly tell that it wasn't running in top form. I'd actually like to get another crack at this because the layout was good but it wasn't running as fast as it normally might later in the season. Some decent pops of air and no deadspots anywhere. Is it or will it be better than Thunderhead or Prowler? No. It might sneak past Evel Knievel, but that's as far as I'd go as far in a best case scenario. Grade, for now: B-

Trailblazer (walk on to the last seat): nothing to see here, move along. Get the credit and move on. Grade: C-

Great Bear (30 minutes, back row): we finally ran into the crowds here, as everything up until now had been a one train wait max. This is a solid B&M invert. The pre-drop section was a good opening act, and the layout is in the Talon/Patriot mold with four inversions. Some of the layout is over water which does add a nice touch. Zero-g rolls still rule. I'd probably rank this a little higher than Talon but behind any of the Batman clones. Grade: B

Fahrenheit (20 minutes, second row): we saw this running and this was the last credit we knew we really wanted to get. The vertical lift is an interesting touch, although I will say that this loses some of it's novelty after you've already ridden one that has it (i.e., Mystery Mine). The course is nice and smooth and the inversions don't even come close to banging your head. I thought there'd be a bit more pop on the last airtime hill (ala Maverick) but there was only a small float at best. Rats! Good if not spectacular. Would I want to wait more than 30 minutes for this? No, but it was good for what it is. Grade: B-

Hersheypark is a solid park. It's got enough rides (and a variety of rides) to keep you interested. I had heard that operations on the coasters weren't that impressive but today that couldn't have been less true. I can't think of a single time where the ops weren't working and sending trains out as quickly and efficiently as possible. If I have one complaint it's that, IMO, Fahrenheit didn't add anything that the park already had. This park desperately needs a good star non-looping steel coaster with airtime. There are only two steels at Hersheypark that don't invert: a mine train and a wild mouse (three if you want to count Rollersoaker, which was not open). A mega-lite would have been the perfect addition there. The only drawback to a mega-lite is capacity, but it's not like Fahrenheit is a real people eater either. I'm just really happy we lucked out with the crowds because with the capacities of most of their coasters I would suspect that wait times during the summer would be pretty long. The employees were all friendly, the park was clean and the low crowds really allowed us to take things in at a comfortable pace. We definitely enjoyed our visit and will be back. Overall Grade: B

Six Flags Great Adventure:

I've written a couple of TRs for this park so I won't do a play-by-play. We arrived here Saturday around 5 and then did a Sunday visit. Just a few quick notes:

Kingda Ka. We've tried to get this credit during our last 3 visits to the park and failed each time (it is an Intamin launch after all!). We had a station wait that eventually took 25 minutes. The launch is noticeably more powerful than TTDs and the ride feels like it's going to rip your face off even in the backseat. The OTSRs aren't as intrusive as I would have imagined. However, the ride was really shaky and even borderline rough. The airtime hill also did nothing to add to the ride as there was ZERO airtime. TTD is a better ride IMO but man, Kingda Ka's powerful launch is unbeatable.

Operations on every coaster were great. We only ran into some small issues on Nitro, but every other crew including the notoriously slow Bizarro crew were really trucking. When Bizarro was running three train ops on Saturday night I'd venture to say that they were running through 1200 people an hour on this. The El Toro crew said that they were dispatching 34 trains an hour, which if the trains were all full would have been more than 1200 people an hour. Simply outstanding effort by both of these crews.

Speaking of El Toro, that ride gets better with each circuit. I had Thunderhead ranked ahead of El Toro but no longer. El Toro was FLYING around the course. Backseat rides on this are not to be missed! The only wooden coaster I like more is the Voyage.

Crowds were really light. In eight hours of park time we got in 10 rides on El Toro, 3 rides on Bizarro, 6 rides on Nitro, and one lap on every other coaster in the park. Sunday morning seems to be the best time to visit the park for short wait times, but this Sunday in particular was out of this world. We'll definitely be back on this weekend next year if we can help it and the weather cooperates.

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The word epic gets thrown around a little too much in describing park trips, but this trip was absolutely fantastic. Add in the fact that we managed to do this trip in a weekend makes it that much more memorable. There's nothing about the trip that could have made it any better except if it started raining 100 dollar bills . We did everything we wanted to do in a very relaxed pace and yet we did way more than we could have imagined because of the light crowds. It has certainly been a great start to the coaster season and I hope that it only gets better from here, but this trip will be a very tough act to follow. Happy coasting, and thanks for reading!

**Sidenote** For those of you who either do travel or will travel to the East coast make sure you get an EZ Pass. It's valid on all of the major toll roads and bridges in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and West Virginia among a few other states. You get reduced toll rates on the tolls in most states and you get to slide right through all of those toll booths in the EZ Pass lanes instead of waiting in those cash only lanes. I love it!

[DaveStroem]

Sounds like a great time.

[KI Kevin]

Nice TR! I'm hoping to get up to GAdv this year with my two remaining SF bring a friend free tickets from my SFKK pass.

The ultimate "glad I got the credit but wouldn't do it again unless you tased me" coaster!

HAHA! Can I put this in my signature?