Date:8/6/2021-8/9/2021
Destination: Eastern Pennsylvania; New Jersey
Goal: Dorney Park, Hersheypark, SFGAdv
Distance: 580 Miles
Means of Travel: Driving
Potential Credits: 3
Both Leilani and I were, once again, first to the saddest hotel breakfast ever. The last hotel was bougie, they had the waffle iron with 3 flavors of batter and everything, whereas this hotel my breakfast was just a cup of yogurt and an orange juice.
I woke up to this shitshow in a Cedar Point group, some lady lost her husband at the park and just left him there, and the story was just getting crazier and crazier! People were saying he started a fire at the park and there were drugs involved, it was a mess.
I woke up to this shitshow in a Cedar Point group, some lady lost her husband at the park and just left him there, and the story was just getting crazier and crazier! People were saying he started a fire at the park and there were drugs involved, it was a mess.
Knowing check in was at 10-ish, we didn't need to be up super early, but everyone got in the car and we made the drive to Hershey!
I forgot how much I hate Pennsylvania drivers haha. They’re the worst and these three pickup trucks had this little circlejerk going down the Highway for us to deal with.
Long time no see Hershey! I first went here in 2015, also on a Coaster Crew event, and ended up back in 2016 and 2017. It’s one of my favorite themed amusement parks, both for the pollish and uniqueness of it. Shame about Skyrush being down but it wouldn’t be a Coaster Crew event if the best coaster in the park was operational!
First stop of the day? Chocolate World! Park didn’t open til 10 so everyone and their brother went over to Chocolate World, and it was PACKED. And when I couldn't focus on what Drew was telling me on the way in because it was so packed and loud, I knew it was gonna be a tough day mentally. Fortunately we got on the ride no problem, singing cows and all!
…and may have dicked around in the gift shop a hot minute. Oops!
But it’s a good day to be at Hersheypark! Event lanyard is on let’s fuckin go!
Since I came last, a lot’s changed up front at Hershey. The old timey Tudor architecture is out, and postmodern brick and glass is in. The actual turnstile building gives me GateKeeper vibes without the coaster, but we still have a gate coaster nearby in Candymonium. But that’ll have to wait until later…
Laff Trakk kicked off our day, which yeah might not be the best spinner but my ADHD ass loves all the distracting shit glowing in the dark everywhere. Shame it barely spins, though I’ve not been on a single Maurer spinner that impressed me so I think the issue is more the ride model than it is Hershey.
The Three Stooges needed the Wild Mouse credit so they did that while I went and photographed Lightning Racer in all her glory. After they got off complaining about it, we rode Racer. The whole trip the joke was that Ben and Drew were the dads babysitting their two kids in Leilani and I, so we did it kids vs. parents and that was fun.
Laff Trakk kicked off our day, which yeah might not be the best spinner but my ADHD ass loves all the distracting shit glowing in the dark everywhere. Shame it barely spins, though I’ve not been on a single Maurer spinner that impressed me so I think the issue is more the ride model than it is Hershey.
The Three Stooges needed the Wild Mouse credit so they did that while I went and photographed Lightning Racer in all her glory. After they got off complaining about it, we rode Racer. The whole trip the joke was that Ben and Drew were the dads babysitting their two kids in Leilani and I, so we did it kids vs. parents and that was fun.
I love Lightning Racer. Sure the airtime isn’t quite Gold Striker or Renegade but the pacing and dueling/racing aspect makes the ride. It’s a raucous, chaotic chase to the finish and it’s perfect for it.
Oh yeah. And we smoked their asses both times.
Going back to the third GCI right next to the other two, this one was different. Lightning Racer has winners and losers. But on Wildcat? There are only losers. We sat up front and one of the ride ops actually talked about RMC with us before telling us we made the right choice avoiding the back. Wildcat is a hit or miss coaster in my years, I’ve gotten good rides and I’ve gotten terrible rides. Today was the latter, and to the literal extreme. It’s so rough and painful I hate it! Titan track, RMC, prefab, gravel under the laminate, anything is smoother than it is now. And to add insult to injury, Drew managed to staple himself riding so I had to spend the whole time with him squealing in my ear about his manhood being crushed as he was emasculated by the lap bar. Horrible, horrible ride!
Lines were kicking into high gear so we got in a half full cattlepen to knock out Fahrenheit. However, that got pretty annoying when we saw they were only running two trains with one on the transfer track ready to go.
Of the 3 Intamins at Hershey, Fahrenheit was always my least favorite. It’s pretty much all inversions all the time, and I’m not crazy into inversions unless it’s in an invert or a wing seat. They don’t bother me at all, it’s just a waste of an element I don’t find interesting. Furthermore, my last ride on this was super super rattly to the point I got a headache in the cobra roll, so I wasn’t too stoked for it but I went in with an open mind.
However, this was an important ride for us because Leilani hit 100 credits on it! I got the milestone photo for her and we got on the ride!
Color me impressed-ish! Not a new favorite in the park by any means, but certainly not the brain-jarring washing machine it was in 2017. I even got a bit of airtime here and there, and it really hauls ass through those corkscrews which I never noticed until now. Fahrenheit and I are cool now, 97 degrees cool and falling to be exact!
Wanting a break after this we headed over to Pio. Everyone else popped their food cherry for the day, I wanted to wait and save myself for the buffet but Drew talked me into trying his kettle chips. We also got souvenir bottles for the day.
The maintenance tour was next so we did that. I’ve done it before but I like STEM so I was excited to do it again. My favorite park was this machine shop similar to the one I work in. I totally geeked out over that Hershey insignia on the CNC cover.
At the end I asked a question regarding how advances in manufacturing technology could find their way into ride maintenance within the coming years, and our tour guide actually told us about these really cool PTC restraint covers in Chocolatier! They tried to buy these off of PTC, but at $130 a pop, it was ridiculously expensive. So they reverse engineered them and 3D printed them to stick to the booths in the restaurant, I found it pretty cool.
After the tour was the buffet, where we were served these awesome Philly cheesesteaks with a great view of Fahrenheit!
We went to put our name in at the Chocolatier next, but we were given a time that would conflict with ERT, so we sat on that and saw what would go down with it.
Think this video describes what happened with Great Bear fairly well...
After that? We had to GO GO GO get the credits! Our first stop was Great Bear, a quirky little invert with some interesting elements and terrain...but today we got no teddy bear! Great Bear, a coaster I know to be just fun and solid, is now my #1 invert after that ride. It was hauling ass! I've never seen it do this, it was like it was in fast forward!
Stormrunner was next, which is another favorite of mine at this park. Given my recent falling in love with Jurassic World Velocicoaster, I was stoked to experience the original Mosasaurus Roll again, as Runner's flying snake dive delivers the same offset heartline rotating airtime. That trick track at the end doesn't give as much airtime as I remember, but I still had a great ride on it! The first few elements kick ass on this!
We went to wait for the monorail next, some guy was carrying a crock pot around for some reason, but it went down due to electrical, as did much of the park for some reason. Ben, Drew, and Leilani all sat down with their souvenir bottles while I went and got photos of Stormrunner.
Whilst geeking out over lighting, SooperDooperLooper went back up so they went there and I raced to catch up with them, probably apologizing more in three minutes than the whole province of Quebec does in a week as I dodged the crowd, and we rode it! I love this Schwarzkopf coaster, but at the end this girl screamed "WHY YOU GOTTA HIT THE BRAKES SO HARD!?!?" and we got a good laugh out of that.
Having to walk past Skyrush while it was down was fucking crushing...
The Three Stooges went to make an attempt on Comet, knowing it's #RMCitorWreckit I went to get photos of Skyrush and Candymonium while there was still light.
I didn't realize how much I liked Candymonium aesthetically. When it was announced, I honestly thought that having a hyper themed to a Hershey bar of all things was pretty stupid, but it works. Both for low aperture close up shots and high aperture landscapes, you can get some great shots of this coaster. Would it ride well? Gotta wait for ERT to figure that out, but I like it visually!
So...my ADHD had been super, SUPER bad all day. It was crowded, everything was distracting me, the slightest thing could get me either super hyped or super pissed of, just a shitty mental health day that picked the wrong day to happen. Well we're waiting in the picnic pavilions after learning we can't join ERT while it's in progress (we put Chocolatier off for the last day), and it's super crowded, and all these extroverts are chaotically running around the cool kids table making noise. Not sure what about this set me off, maybe it was just because there were too many people, but I fucking LOST IT and had a full-blown mental breakdown, doubled over the picnic table hysterically laughing my ass off. "I think we broke him," Drew declared. "Yeah, Jarrett's lost it," Ben confirmed. But once I got that out of my system, I was strangely calm and felt like I was about to head back to Candymonium with a clear head, the first time it had been clear since waking up.
(Ignore the shitty selfie, this was taken in a bit of a struggle bus moment and I didn't give a FUCK.)
Candymonium's queue clears out, they walk us down the Skyrush path at night, I impulsively slapped the fence posts to burn off steam as we passed, and lowkey started to get hype. It's a beautiful night, air is nice and cool, they're playing Paramore, and we're at the front of the walkback. After a bit of confusion involving Leilani and I getting lost in the trippy pop art cattlepen, we made our way up to the station and got on, as Ben called it, Chocolate Mako!
One thing I missed about doing coaster events? ERT. Yeah, it's nice to just sit on a coaster and marathon it at night and switch seats, but one thing I never really realized I missed was simply the energy. After bottling up all that chaos in my head all day, I realized it was perfectly acceptable to let that shit out, clap, cheer, have a hell of a time, and just be super visibly excited in this context. So that's just what I did. Sometimes I struggle to accept that I deserve to let myself be happy but in this moment, I fucking threw that to the wind and let myself enjoy it. And it was fucking awesome.
Oh yeah. I should probably review the coaster.
Candymonium feels like the best textbook B&M hyper money can buy. First drop feels just like Mako's or Orion's, and is followed by a large camelback, which dishes out some of that wonderful floater/ejector we've come to know and love from late 2010's B&M. From there, you're jerked into this hammerhead with some gusto, very similar to the one on Leviathan. Coming out of that is like Orion's run back but in reverse, starting with the large Mako-styled camelback and then using all that energy you regained to just haul ass over the low float, and both toss you pretty well. Out of that you enter a helix, which isn't the most bone-crushing in terms of positives, I personally don't give a rat's ass about positives but maybe you do. But at the top of the helix, it does this really cool tip out maneuver, banking opposite the direction of the helix before diving out of it, not quite as forceful as Orion's little airtime kicker at the end but still pretty good, and it can feel pretty weird and freaky in some seats. After this there's a little airtime hill, not quite as good as the ones in the main out and back, and then you enter that lovely helix around the Hershey Kiss fountain, which will probably mist you. Finally, as we've come to expect from new school B&M, there are two little pops of airtime before slamming into the brakes.
All in all? I'm at the point as an enthusiast where B&M doesn't excite me as much as the edgier coasters getting built by RMC and Intamin, but I do still find their rides a ton of fun, and they're good quality machines that deliver for the parks that get them. Candymonium is no exception, and it's every bit as good as Mako, Orion, or Fury. Add in the beautiful night rides we were getting on it and you have an incredible experience!
After that, I was fucking done. ERT is so strenuous, especially if you've spent all day consuming caffeine and just spent an hour bouncing off the walls to burn it off, but I was somehow still fired up and ready to go. We got this photo with the sign, said goodbye, I foot raced Leilani in the parking lot for no fucking reason, and we got to our car and grabbed McDonald's on the way back.
Whew! What a day! It was chaotic, it was fun, both inside and outside my head, but ultimately I managed to power through it and have a ton of fun! Special thanks to Coaster Crew for putting this on and for the ERT photos above! I had a great time despite the lack of Skyrush and hope to have reason to come back here very soon! We've done it, guys. I like Hersheypark again.
UP NEXT: The four of us arrive in hell as Six Flags Great Adventure dishes out possibly the worst day I've ever had as a coaster enthusiast. Stay tuned, this day was CRAZY and I recommend drinking alcohol to get through the report as I will need it to write it.
