At the end of September I took advantage of the 2023 King-Sized Season Pass deal being offered by Hersheypark. I also added the remainder of the 2022 season for a few more dollars. After visiting the park 28 times throughout 2020-21, I’m sure some of you wondered why I haven’t visited as much this year. Well, when I renewed my pass for 2022, something went wrong with the submission process. My card wasn’t declined, I wasn’t billed, and my pass was ultimately never renewed. I didn’t realize this until April. By then, the same renewal deal was no longer offered, nor was the ability to pay monthly.
This year my funds have been a little tight. With the cost of gas and having to focus on other things, my Hersheypark pass became a casualty until a few weeks ago. I now have one again and on Sunday, October 9, 2022, I visited the park for only the third time this year.
A Mob Scene All Weekend
My hope was to visit the park Friday evening. The only problem was, the park wasn’t open. There was no way I was going to attempt to visit on Saturday. I know better. My hunch was right too. I saw several photos of the park entrance on Facebook prior to opening. It was insane. I read comments where people said they managed only a couple of rides that day and some even claimed to have turned around and left.
So how was it on Sunday, you ask?
Sunday looked just as bad when I arrived. While in line to get my pass and then to enter the park, I made conversation with a few people who came out on Saturday too. They claimed Saturday was worse. Sunday was still a mob scene nevertheless. It was so bad that I rode only three rides before leaving at 6:00 p.m. I focused mainly on taking photos and shooting a vlog for the We Were Inverted YouTube channel (above). Be sure to check out the photos at this trip report’s conclusion too. I was quite happy with how several of them turned out.
I honestly could have gotten in more rides had I put my phone down, or if I stayed until 9:00 p.m. when the rides closed. The park was open until 10:00 p.m. for the Dark Knight haunts, which I did not do. The Ravens, however, were playing the Bengals on Sunday Night Football, so I made the call to go ahead and leave after a quick stop to film a POV on the Hershey Chocolate Tour in Chocolate World. That will be hitting the channel soon.
Skyrush
I made my way to Skyrush for my first ride of the day. I ended up waiting about 45 minutes, which was easily shorter than every other coaster line I saw on the day. Yes, even shorter than Lightning Racer.
I boarded the back seat and had a phenomenal ride with tons of ejector airtime. I also noticed less rattle than usual in the turn around. It was still there, but just felt more subdued.
I returned again for a second ride before leaving the park, once again, in the back row. I didn’t care where I sat as I was trying to get on as soon as possible. The back had the shortest wait and I sure wasn’t complaining. For those wondering, I didn’t feel the rattle/vibration as much on this ride either. Maybe my butt and thighs thickened up since my last visit and absorbed it all?
Hershey Triple Tower
I had no plans to ride the Triple Tower Sunday, but the wait was about 20-25 minutes. I was itching to ride something and had just filmed some off-ride footage for the vlog. I asked myself, “Why not?”
The line would have been even shorted had two, or all three of the towers been open. Only the tallest tower, Hershey’s, was operating. I’ve seen that numerous times visiting the park. As a matter of fact, I’ve never rode the shortest of the three, Kisses, yet. That one is down during a lot of my visits. I’ve ridden Reese’s, but that one has also been down quite a bit for me. I wonder if Hersheypark regrets building all three at this point since they seem to favor just operating the Hershey’s tower?
Speaking of flat rides, the park had a lot of them closed Sunday, including the Ferris Wheel. This was a complaint I saw online and heard numerous times from people walking closed rides. For people not into coasters, or kids who cannot ride all of them yet, the offerings were pretty lackluster – even upon arrival. It wasn’t a thing of them closing when haunt began.
Final Ride Counts
Hershey Triple Tower (1)
Skyrush (2)
Will This Sunday Be Better?
When Renee originally asked me to visit Hersheypark for Dark Knights, she planned to go on Friday, October 21. Something came up on her end, however. While at the park Sunday, she asked me if I’d like to go on October 16th instead. So yeah, I’ll be back at Hersheypark two Sundays in a row. Fingers crossed the crowd isn’t as bad. I’m sure it will be busy, but hopefully smaller than last week.
I will be taking photos from this coming visit, but I’m not planning on doing a vlog. We will be doing the four Dark Knight haunts, so I’ll be doing a split trip report, here on the site – one for the rides and one for the haunts. That worked out nicely for my recent Dorney Park Halloween Haunt trip, so that’s my plan for Sunday’s too. Be on the lookout for those hitting the site early next week.
Hersheypark Photo Gallery - October 9, 2022
If you would like to use any of the images in the gallery above for your commercial and/or non-commercial projects, feel free to do so. I ask that you credit We Were Inverted whenever they’re used. I also ask that you do not alter the image or remove the watermarks. If you need any images/video resized or without the watermarks, please contact me directly.
CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): n/a
