Yesterday was the fifth time I’ve been to Hersheypark this season, if you include the June 29, 2020 King-Sized Season Pass Preview Day. It was also the most crowded I’ve seen the park all year. It wasn’t insanely crowded like my visit to Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) just a few days ago with Sam and her friend, Alissa. That day saw hour-plus waits for numerous rides. If you want to read more about that day, be sure to read, “Summer of Sam – Six Flags Great Adventure.”
On this day, I was joined by my brother, Brian. We haven’t been to a park together since visiting Carowinds back in June 2018. The idea for going to the Hersheypark only happened a week ago when he stopped by for a visit. One of our conversations turned to We Were Inverted and I showed him some of the site. Along the way, he my Candymonium video from the preview day on the site’s YouTube channel. That’s when he mentioned how he’d like to go back to Hershey one day.
I said, “Let me know when and we can go.”
He looked at his phone and said he had nothing going on Saturday. I didn’t either, so we made tentative plans on that day. I wanted to wait to get his ticket, however, just in case the weather didn’t cooperate. Two days before, I saw the weather was supposed to be good all weekend, so I grabbed his ticket with my season pass perks.
When we were kids, our parents and Aunt Cheryl would take us to Hersheypark regularly. We rode rides like Comet, SooperDooperLooper, and Trailblazer many times over. On this trip, however, we would ride none of them. Our focus would be on getting my brother rides on coasters he had yet to experience. He wasn’t sure exactly when the last time he went to the park was, but he did remember riding Fahrenheit when it was new, so I used 2008 as the cutoff. That meant Candymonium, Skyrush, and Laff Trakk would be new experiences. Laff Trakk, however, would not end up happening. More on that later.
Mobile Ticketing Down!
Getting into the park on this day would be quite interesting. Hersheypark’s site went down, so no one was able to access their mobile tickets to be scanned at the gate. This set us back about half an hour because we had to go to the ticket window and have our tickets physically printed. Of course, the site would be back up and running while in line for our first ride of the day, Candymonium.
Candymonium & 16 Line Jumpers
The line for Candymonium went outside the queue building and wrapped all the way along the fence, around the sign, and back toward the ride photo building door. I thought it was going to be a long wait. The line was moving at a good pace though and we were in the building quicker than I expected. Once in the building, I realized that the park wasn’t using all the bullpen lines, so the wait was misleading from the outside. Then it happened…
About a quarter of the way into the building’s queue space, a group of eight women walked up to the employee monitoring the line. They were yelling and pointing at their friends who were almost to the staircase portion of the wait. They were trying to join that group and the employee let them! I was like, “Really?” Then it happened again…
Four more people walked up about two or three minutes later and did the same thing, joining the same group. Yes, a total of 12 people were allowed to jump in with their friends. They all skipped about a half an hours worth of wait time. This annoyed me. But wait… There’s more!
Another group of four people got to do this too about five minutes later. This group didn’t join the same group, but a different one. These four went through the line, with the employee’s permission, back to blue walled in section of the queue line. This allowed them to skip about half of the wait for the ride.
Yes, 16 different people, without any kind of skip the line passes, were allowed to just waltz into the Candymonium line, ahead of others. I don’t understand how that could be allowed. So far, a weird day at Hersheypark, a park which which usually operates as smooth as that milk chocolate they’re known for making.
Eventually we would get up to the loading station, after the line grew both behind and in front of us during our wait. Knowing my brother’s love for Apollo’s Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW) I figured he was going to love Candymonium. My hunch turned out to be right as he said he loved how much he was floating during the ride and how smooth it was from start to finish. Ahh, the joys of a Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) coaster. It was now time for some contrast, however. Skyrush would be next and it was actually the ride he was most looking forward to on this visit.
On the way to Skyrush, I asked Brian if he wanted to give Comet a ride for old-time’s sake. He said we could skip it for now, just so we made sure we could get on the newer rides for him. I said okay, and we walked right past the classic wooden coaster.
Back Row Ride on Skyrush
Skyrush, for the first time in a while, had a wait down in the bullpen area. Like with Candymonium, this was deceiving because they weren’t letting people line up on the steps. With a few people ahead of us electing to wait for the front seat ride, we were to the front of the bullpen area in about 10 minutes. That’s where that park employee let a boy from outside, jump in line, to join his group. His mom was yelling from the line entrance that he had to go to the bathroom, and the employee just nodded. The employee had already motioned for us to go, then told us to wait. Instead he let the boy go and I said, “Getting quite used to this today.”
The employee said, “I saw him leave to go to the bathroom.”
I replied, “Yeah, his mom just told us all that.”
I was a little snarky, but after Candymonium, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Once the boy walked past, we were allowed to go up to the station. We were told to pick one of the last three rows that were open. We went directly to the back and my brother took the wing seat. I told him there are many who say that the seat he was in is considered one of the wildest experiences on the train. He looked forward to it.
After the typical ejector filled airtime experience, we pulled back into the final brake run and my brother was saying how different that was than Candymonium. He loved the ride as well and was singing its praises as we moved back into the station. It’s always fun hearing what a non-coaster enthusiast thinks of a ride, especially one like Skyrush, which can be so divisive.
With the two hypers out of the way, it was time to head to Great Bear. But first, we squeezed in a ride on Coal Cracker, the park’s log flume. We had been on this too many times to count as kids, but the line wasn’t long and we both thought it would be cool to relive some memories.
Great Ride on Great Bear
After exiting Coal Cracker, it was onward to Great Bear. We were greeted to a line back to the queue entrance, but once again, it was deceiving. They were holding people away from the platform and running multiple trains. On my past visits to the park this year, it was mostly one train operations on everything except for Candymonium and sometimes, Skyrush. So this line moved quicker than it had been those times.
Brian was looking forward to this ride when he saw it making our way down into The Hallow area of the park earlier. He couldn’t remember riding it, even though it was built before Fahrenheit. Maybe he never rode it? Maybe he just couldn’t remember? Who knows, but he did end up loving it.
Great Bear turned out to be his favorite ride of the day. As I do, Brian has a love for Alpengeist at Busch Gardens Wiliamsburg (BGW), so his admiration for the ride didn’t surprise me at all. It seems like a lot of my non-coaster enthusiast friends, or ones like Sam, who was just getting into this hobby, have a fondness for Great Bear. It’s easy to see why.
With Great Bear finished, it was time to put my meal plan to use. We stopped for some pizza as we made our way over to the Boardwalk section of the park to try to get rides on Lightning Racer, Laff Trakk, Wildcat, and if it was open, Wild Mouse. Wild Mouse, however, has been closed each of my four previous visits, so I wasn’t holding out any hope for that one.
Wildcat Has a Line?
After finishing up our pizza, we walked out of the Boardwalk region and to Wildcat. Surprisingly, there was a line. Even though the day was more crowded than I’ve seen all year, I haven’t seen a line on Wildcat in years – not even during pre-Covid days. Usually it’s a walk-on, or a station wait at worst. Today, however, there were three of the bullpen lines full of people, plus those waiting up at the station.
I warned my brother that this ride might be a little rough. He was still game, since we were all the way over on this side of the park. We waited about 20 minutes and we took our seats.
As for the ride… It was bumpy! Not the worst I ever had on it, but I heard my brother yell, “Ouch!” two times on the second half of the ride. When we were walking off the platform, he said as much too, claiming to get bumped hard twice.
Finally Catching that Wild Mouse!
As we walked off Wildcat, we walked right across the pathway to Wild Mouse. Yup! It was running today. I noticed that it was when we sat down to eat earlier. If the lines weren’t long, we were going to get this in real quick. And speaking of real quick, that’s how the line went too – real quick.
We were up and off the ride in a matter of minutes. It was great getting in this little coaster for the first time in 2020. I even made sure to stop and get some footage of it afterward. It’s the only one, other than Laff Trakk, that I haven’t shot this year. I’ve even shot video of both SooperDooperLooper’s and Storm Runner’s tracks, even though both have been down all season.
With our ride on Wild Mouse over, we walked up to Laff Trakk with only a few people in the outdoor portion of the queue. Upon walking up, however, the group in front of us was told that the ride was currently down. We overheard the conversation and turned around to go to Lightning Racer instead.
Losing to Lightning on Lightning Racer
On Lightning Racer, we decided to just ride the one side. We picked Thunder. Our reason for this was to save enough time to hit up Fahrenheit and get a re-ride on Great Bear before we left. We sat down after waiting no more than 10 minutes in line. We ended up losing to Lightning, although we appeared to be ahead most of the way through. Oh well!
As we made our way toward Fahrenheit, we checked out Laff Trakk one last time. The line filled up and was snaking all throughout the outdoor portion. From experience, I know that wait would have been about 45 minutes. We decided to skip it and move on.
Temperature Goes Down Waiting for Fahrenheit
Walking into Fahrenheit’s queue, it looked like we’d have about a half an hour wait and thankfully, a large cluster of clouds passed in front of the sun and things actually cooled down. I found that odd since we’re on a ride that is themed to rising temperature.
During our wait, I took some awesome photos of the vertical lift. I love how they came out and I’ve shared some to the site’s Instagram account (@WeWereInverted_IG). Be sure to check those out.
The ride on Fahrenheit was one of the best I’ve had on it so far this year. I’ve always liked the ride, but it just feels like it’s been riding a little better in 2020. Not sure if the repaint did anything to the ride experience, but it just feels better. It might be a mind over matter thing.
A Great Bear (Again) & Chicken Tenders
At this point, we had a little less than an hour to get Brian’s one re-ride on Great Bear, so that’s where we went. The wait this time around was much shorter and we were on our way, a back row ride, in less than 10 minutes. Since we made such great time, we decided to use my dining pass one last time before we left the park. Hey, why not? We grabbed some chicken tenders and sat down for a few.
We finished the day out in Chocolate World before heading home. It turned out to be a great day, even with the way things began with the ticket mishap and 16 people butting on Candymonium. I’m glad my brother had some time off work and we were able to head to Hersheypark for the first time in ages. We’ll have to certainly find time to do another park or two before long. It was a great time. We should take Aunt Cheryl to the park like those old days!
Even though I’ve already been to Hersheypark five times this year, I’m always down to make it six. If you’re heading that way, let me know…
You can be my wingman anytime! (Top Gun, 1986)
Patrick
CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): n/a
