Forbidden Rush | USA CF-Live | Trip Reports
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Mysterious Sue
Strata Poster
Making my way through the floods in Southern England is making me miss you guys and the sunshine and the happy times so much. What an amazing week, and what amazing people to spend it with. The trip opened my eyes to a whole new set of coaster experiances. Woodies running better in the heat! More airtime up front! Plus a newfound love of B&M hypers! Stand out coasters for me have been Phoenix, Nitro and dare I say Skyrush (even though I'm sure it was trying to kill me!)
Sorry for not saying goodbye properly to everyone, we ended up leaving earlier than expected. Still, as Taylor says, it saved our tears. Plus it's not really goodbye, just a wait till next time...
I strated a proper trip report on the plane but need sleep before I can sort it properly. Till then, hugs for all
Sorry for not saying goodbye properly to everyone, we ended up leaving earlier than expected. Still, as Taylor says, it saved our tears. Plus it's not really goodbye, just a wait till next time...
I strated a proper trip report on the plane but need sleep before I can sort it properly. Till then, hugs for all
kimahri
CF Legend
I'm back. I partook in the conspumtion of not grease on the the plane. It was glorious dispite being plane food.
From my perspective I thought it was a **** amazing trip. Wanna say thanks to all the appropriate people but there's a lot of people to say that to so have a big collective one :3
Also, I **** love Knobels. It's just so, retro and in the middle of nowhere and has so much charm. Hershy and Busch Gardens were also **** awesome, SFA and Kings dominion however were the actual worst parks I've been to, ever. Other stuff, comments about things and ehat not.
Going to go die now.
From my perspective I thought it was a **** amazing trip. Wanna say thanks to all the appropriate people but there's a lot of people to say that to so have a big collective one :3
Also, I **** love Knobels. It's just so, retro and in the middle of nowhere and has so much charm. Hershy and Busch Gardens were also **** awesome, SFA and Kings dominion however were the actual worst parks I've been to, ever. Other stuff, comments about things and ehat not.
Going to go die now.
Well got home at 3am this morning and now sat at work suffering from massive lack of sleep, aching body and mild jet lag. Can't wait for a good nights sleep tonight!
Amazing week though. Met loads of new people and it was good to spend some more time with those that I hadn't chatted to much at previous lives.
Passed my 300th coaster somewhere at either Six Flags America or Hershey - need to sit down tonight and work it out!
Amazing week though. Met loads of new people and it was good to spend some more time with those that I hadn't chatted to much at previous lives.
Passed my 300th coaster somewhere at either Six Flags America or Hershey - need to sit down tonight and work it out!
Antinos
Slut for Spinners
I won't be posting a full blown trip report as I'm sure nobody wants to read through that. Instead, I'll post highlights.
Leap the Dips is a left field coaster. The entire thrill of the ride is that you think you're going to die and you can't believe that the ride is still operating. It's loads of fun and an absolute gem nostalgia wise. One of the coolest parts of riding the ride was I also got to operate it.
Phoenix is glass smooth. It honestly rivals a steel coaster in terms of smoothness. It's also an airtime MACHINE! I was literally standing at least a dozen times during the course of the ride.
The ERT on Fahrenheit, Storm Runner, and Skyrush was awesome. It really allowed for us to have a chill day and it was something worth experiencing, as not many of us have had that opportunity.
Skyrush is a hell of a ride.
Intimidator 305 is also better than when I first rode it with trims two years ago.
Verbolten is the sleeper coaster of the trip, without a doubt. I wish we could have ridden it again.
The faffing was great for the most part. Chilling under Dominator and soaking everybody on the water rides was so much fun.
Hershey was my favorite day. Busch Gardens is still my favorite amusement park.
It was awesome seeing Danny and Kevin at King's Dominion. They're both awesome guys and fun to be around. It was also great trying to hook Aidan up with Kevin's sister
To all who jumped the pond for this endeavor, I enjoyed every moment with you guys. You're all awesome to be around and I hope I'll be able to attend a European live sometime in the future. It was great to meet you all, and as Sue said, it's only until next time.
To all those who I already knew, it was great to see you all again. Reliving memories and creating new ones, especially with people as fun as you guys, are what these trips are really all about. We'll definitely have to figure out how to get together more often.
Lastly, special thanks to Marcus for organizing the Live. You put in an incredible amount of work and it paid off. The trip was fantastic and the I305 ERT was great. Thank you to Jerry for organizing the ERT at Hershey and just being that old fart that makes sure everything's going well, whether it has to do with the trip or not.
Unfortunately, my computer is still at the store getting upgraded, so I won't be able to post my photos for a few days. I'll be sure to do so asap.
Leap the Dips is a left field coaster. The entire thrill of the ride is that you think you're going to die and you can't believe that the ride is still operating. It's loads of fun and an absolute gem nostalgia wise. One of the coolest parts of riding the ride was I also got to operate it.
Phoenix is glass smooth. It honestly rivals a steel coaster in terms of smoothness. It's also an airtime MACHINE! I was literally standing at least a dozen times during the course of the ride.
The ERT on Fahrenheit, Storm Runner, and Skyrush was awesome. It really allowed for us to have a chill day and it was something worth experiencing, as not many of us have had that opportunity.
Skyrush is a hell of a ride.
Intimidator 305 is also better than when I first rode it with trims two years ago.
Verbolten is the sleeper coaster of the trip, without a doubt. I wish we could have ridden it again.
The faffing was great for the most part. Chilling under Dominator and soaking everybody on the water rides was so much fun.
Hershey was my favorite day. Busch Gardens is still my favorite amusement park.
It was awesome seeing Danny and Kevin at King's Dominion. They're both awesome guys and fun to be around. It was also great trying to hook Aidan up with Kevin's sister
To all who jumped the pond for this endeavor, I enjoyed every moment with you guys. You're all awesome to be around and I hope I'll be able to attend a European live sometime in the future. It was great to meet you all, and as Sue said, it's only until next time.
To all those who I already knew, it was great to see you all again. Reliving memories and creating new ones, especially with people as fun as you guys, are what these trips are really all about. We'll definitely have to figure out how to get together more often.
Lastly, special thanks to Marcus for organizing the Live. You put in an incredible amount of work and it paid off. The trip was fantastic and the I305 ERT was great. Thank you to Jerry for organizing the ERT at Hershey and just being that old fart that makes sure everything's going well, whether it has to do with the trip or not.
Unfortunately, my computer is still at the store getting upgraded, so I won't be able to post my photos for a few days. I'll be sure to do so asap.
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
Kennywouod was a nice park, but surprisingly busy (thought I'd get done by 6 or 7!), until I got delayed by a couple of thunderstorms, both when I was in the queue for the same coaster- ironically thunderbolt", and both times just as I was about to get on, first time I waited an hour b4 getting on, second time was getting close to leaving time! I thought people would leave the place after the first one, but no luck - got on all the coasters but missed their noah's ark
Would probably have missed the train to sandusky if it hadn't been delayed - an hour of bus delays, and then mcdonalds of all places, took 20 minutes to get my mushroom and cheese burger!! and that was before another 30 minutes waiting for the "every 10 minutes" bus to the hotel to get my luggage! I was all prepared to resort to the greyhound coach, was quite impressed by the comfort on the train though.
just in the hotel lobby atm - apparently I can check in at 7 - so just 20 mins listening to this infernal music in the lobby!
Would probably have missed the train to sandusky if it hadn't been delayed - an hour of bus delays, and then mcdonalds of all places, took 20 minutes to get my mushroom and cheese burger!! and that was before another 30 minutes waiting for the "every 10 minutes" bus to the hotel to get my luggage! I was all prepared to resort to the greyhound coach, was quite impressed by the comfort on the train though.
just in the hotel lobby atm - apparently I can check in at 7 - so just 20 mins listening to this infernal music in the lobby!
LiveForTheLaunch
CF Legend
I know the add-on isn't exactly part of this Live, but considering it's mostly the same people I think I'll just post my trip reports in here.
Part 1- BOSTON
After I got home from work around 3 in the morning, I quickly finished packing and took a fast shower, and then we were off to the airport. We got there before Southwest even allowed us to check in, so we waited around for a while and saw some unfriendly people to say the least, who decided to complain about the employees being about 5 minutes late. The check-in process went really quick and soon enough we were in the terminal. I wanted breakfast, so after a long walk up and down the entire terminal, we decided to get sandwiches since it was pretty much the only thing open that wasn't McDonalds:
After that, I slept for pretty much the entire time at our gate until we boarded. The weather was really gross, so I was happy we didn't get delayed or anything considering our connection was pretty tight as far as timing was concerned.
Soon enough, we landed in Baltimore:
After another hour and a half of uneventful flying, we made it to Boston and were greeted by a bit of confusion with the public transportation. For those of you that don't know, I am directionally challenged and I'm not very good at navigation either, so it was a bit of a struggle but I eventually figured it out. Once we dropped our bags off at the hostel, we went to the Charleston Navy Yard.
Even though I'm a history major at university, I know absolutely nil about American history, so I took a trip into the museum where I was hoping to get a bit of information regarding the boats and such.
Then we went onto the USS Constitution!
The next stop on the Freedom Trail was the Bunker Hill Monument.
Ciall decided to climb it, but I was tired and I can't do stairs even when I'm energetic, so I relaxed on the grass!
On the way to our next stop, I saw a harbour and the stadium where the Celtics play.
Boston has a lot of cemeteries, and the first one we hit on the trail was Copp's Hill Burying Grounds. All of them seem to be in odd locations and you're not actually allowed in them which was kind of disappointing!
There was also a church.
The church was a bit underwhelming after having been to places like Rome, but it was still cool.
After the church we went through an alley where there was a memorial for all the soldiers lost in combat, which included all of their dog tags.
Paul Revere!
We walked around the historic North End for a while, looking for something to eat, but everything was so damn expensive so we gave it a miss for the time being.
We made our way to the more modern part of Boston after our failed food finding and visited places like the Quincy market, which made me even more hungry.
We found a small pizza place near the market which ended up being our saviour. We got a massive pizza for just $6 each, and as much as we tried, we couldn't finish it all!
I saw an interesting statue of a macaroni noodle and also got a funny picture of a woman's face!
Next up was the site of the Boston massacre, and the thing about Boston is that even in the modern areas, there are still a lot of historic sites mixed in which I thought was really cool.
Old City Hall was also in the middle of the city, as was another graveyard.
When we got to the new city hall, I noticed they had a gay pride flag flying around which I thought was a pretty bold statement.
Granary Burying ground was the third of three graveyards along the way. Three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried there.
Boston Commons was the last stop, and we were pretty tired so we just sat around for a little bit and relaxed.
We finally mustered the energy to make it back to our hotel room. We got there around 7 at night, and the woman at the front desk gave us free cookies which was a nice way to round off a good day . Although it was early, I hadn't slept in nearly two days and Ciall was tired too, so we just went to bed and had the longest sleep ever.
Part 1- BOSTON
After I got home from work around 3 in the morning, I quickly finished packing and took a fast shower, and then we were off to the airport. We got there before Southwest even allowed us to check in, so we waited around for a while and saw some unfriendly people to say the least, who decided to complain about the employees being about 5 minutes late. The check-in process went really quick and soon enough we were in the terminal. I wanted breakfast, so after a long walk up and down the entire terminal, we decided to get sandwiches since it was pretty much the only thing open that wasn't McDonalds:
After that, I slept for pretty much the entire time at our gate until we boarded. The weather was really gross, so I was happy we didn't get delayed or anything considering our connection was pretty tight as far as timing was concerned.
Soon enough, we landed in Baltimore:
After another hour and a half of uneventful flying, we made it to Boston and were greeted by a bit of confusion with the public transportation. For those of you that don't know, I am directionally challenged and I'm not very good at navigation either, so it was a bit of a struggle but I eventually figured it out. Once we dropped our bags off at the hostel, we went to the Charleston Navy Yard.
Even though I'm a history major at university, I know absolutely nil about American history, so I took a trip into the museum where I was hoping to get a bit of information regarding the boats and such.
Then we went onto the USS Constitution!
The next stop on the Freedom Trail was the Bunker Hill Monument.
Ciall decided to climb it, but I was tired and I can't do stairs even when I'm energetic, so I relaxed on the grass!
On the way to our next stop, I saw a harbour and the stadium where the Celtics play.
Boston has a lot of cemeteries, and the first one we hit on the trail was Copp's Hill Burying Grounds. All of them seem to be in odd locations and you're not actually allowed in them which was kind of disappointing!
There was also a church.
The church was a bit underwhelming after having been to places like Rome, but it was still cool.
After the church we went through an alley where there was a memorial for all the soldiers lost in combat, which included all of their dog tags.
Paul Revere!
We walked around the historic North End for a while, looking for something to eat, but everything was so damn expensive so we gave it a miss for the time being.
We made our way to the more modern part of Boston after our failed food finding and visited places like the Quincy market, which made me even more hungry.
We found a small pizza place near the market which ended up being our saviour. We got a massive pizza for just $6 each, and as much as we tried, we couldn't finish it all!
I saw an interesting statue of a macaroni noodle and also got a funny picture of a woman's face!
Next up was the site of the Boston massacre, and the thing about Boston is that even in the modern areas, there are still a lot of historic sites mixed in which I thought was really cool.
Old City Hall was also in the middle of the city, as was another graveyard.
When we got to the new city hall, I noticed they had a gay pride flag flying around which I thought was a pretty bold statement.
Granary Burying ground was the third of three graveyards along the way. Three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried there.
Boston Commons was the last stop, and we were pretty tired so we just sat around for a little bit and relaxed.
We finally mustered the energy to make it back to our hotel room. We got there around 7 at night, and the woman at the front desk gave us free cookies which was a nice way to round off a good day
. Although it was early, I hadn't slept in nearly two days and Ciall was tired too, so we just went to bed and had the longest sleep ever.
nadroJ
CF Legend
So, the hotel we stayed in the night before Hershey was actually VILE. Some people had cockroaches in their rooms and at one point in the night a terrifying man stuck his head through our window and went MERGH at us. It turned out to be Richard but that's not the point ;] Anyway, after a breakfast of chocolate donuts (well themed of course), we headed out on our 15 minute drive to the park.
What I've noticed about lots of American's working in customer service is that they don't actually listen to what you say, but instead just stick to the script of things they usually say in order to try and answer your question. When we arrived at what the satnav was telling us was the carpark for Hersheypark, we were unclear whether we were in the right place, so we asked the parking attendant if this was indeed the carpark we were looking for, to which he replied '..........All day parking is $25'. Richard had rage and then we decided this was the right place and made our way over to the group.
After excitable hellos and lots of hugging etc, we minced on through the park towards Fahrenheit. For some reason this was one of those coasters that I've always always wanted to ride, so I was quite excited. The right was fun, a bit excessively vibratory in some places but had an interesting array on inversions and some pleasant pops of airtime.
Once we'd all had a few turns on Fahrenheit the staff informed us that Storm Runner was open so we all ran in that direction. I absolutely adored this ride. I love Intamin launchy things anyway but the layout after the launch is really what makes the coaster awesome. Fabulous ejector airtime in places and, again, an imaginative layout with minimal roughness (although I'm sure Sue will disagree given her yelps of pain ;]). I really had a great time on this coaster, not top ten by any stretch but a really rerideable and fun coaster for me.
It's been a long few days so you'll have to forgive me if this is in the wrong order, but I believe next we went over to RollerSoaker as the park was now open to the public and this cred was notorious for its vile queues. This is the only cred I've ever purposely sat out of. I didn't really want to be soaked and sodden for the rest of the day so I minced at the bottom of the cred spiting everyone with water cannons and other splashtastic paraphernalia, which to be honest was totally worth missing out on the plus one. However, a few people did get off dry so part of me does regret it, but hey, I'll probably return one day so I can get the cred next time!
After this is a bit of a blur, so I'll just give a brief analysis of all the other coasters we did up until lunch (in accordance with my memory anyway).
Wildcat was a rough bag of bums woodie, but it did manage to produce one of the most disgusting ride photos ever which I'm sure Taylor will post at some point ;]
Wild Mouse was nothing to write home about, it was a wild mouse. It did wild mousey things.
Sidewinder was an interesting one to ride because it is a Boomerang with new style restraints, so supposedly involves less pain. Somehow, the thing managed to make me smack my head on the hard metal hand rail, despite it living on the other side of my shoulder. Really violent, gash boomerang.
Trailblazer is definitely the world's most boring mine train, the only memory of it I really have was the ride op checking Taylor out as we returned to the station.
After this I *believe* we went to guest services to purchase our meal tickets, which were SUCH good value. We all headed over to the barbeque place and I have a barbeque pulled pork sandwich and corn on the cob. It was really yummy, the only complaint I have is that they're such slop it makes them difficult to eat. I am a bit of a bread fiend and to find the bun turned to a meat soaked mush was trés disappointing.
Next I think we made our way over to Great Bear. The queue was the longest we'd had all day so antics happened. Sue and Richard discovered the straws on out souvenir cups doubled up quite well as whistles, I had rage with the stupid souvenir cup because it pissed in my bag, there was some kind of gang bang action at some point as well. Once we got into the station chaos ensued, it was all a bit of a free for all but we all managed to siphon off into some kind of row. In the row I was in we were surrounded by stupid children trying to sneak through who I yelled at and a stupid man telling his way too short to be riding a B&M Invert to just sneak past the ride-op with the measuring stick. I told him that probably wasn't a good idea as his child might, you know, die, but he ignored me. His child got spited anyway so HA.
So the ride, I thought it was fantastic. Such a unique layout with some really lovely transitions and just consistent goodness. It does peter out a bit towards the end but I quite like an ending that lets you down gently so it worked for me. The ORP cam was in a silly place but other than that, awesome coaster.
As we all got off the ride the stupid man confronted me and accused me of telling on his daughter to a ride-op, meaning she couldn't ride. Stupid man obviously didn't realise that the op was just doing their job correctly, had nothing to do with me and that actually, for all I cared, his child could fall out and die next time if he insisted on being quite so burdenous and stupid all his life. Hurrumph.
Epic rapids of airtime happened next, which were fun because they didn't actually get you that wet, hooray! Then there was SooperDooperLooper which was MUCH better than Revolution at SFMM because of less pain.
Next we rode Comet which was a fun but forgettable kind of coaster, especially since it trundles along in the shadow of the mighty Skyrush, and I can bet I wasn't the only one whose mind was firmly fixed on riding this beast whilst getting the cred on Comet.
So, we finally joined the queue for Skyrush! Honestly, I was really expecting anything much. The layout looked really tame and I hadn't read up anything much on it. All I knew was that it was Jerry's new number one steel coaster and that every seat was good. So with that in mind I plumped for a wing seat close to the front of the train on the right hand side and began my ride.
I was a little nervous when I first sat in the restraints. I just didn't feel....secure, it all felt too loose and free, like casually sitting on a park bench. At first the restraints felt really comfortable. What first took my breath away was the speed of the lift hill. It hoists you up the thing so fast you get a pop or airtime as you crest the peak. Nice work. The first drop is the best first drop I've ever been on by a million miles, the sheer terror at feeling like I was being flung out of my seat combined with the speed was exhilarating. The screams were truly ones of fear and I rode the remaining layour clinging to my restraint for dear life as Skyrush continually tried to be rid of me. As we rolled into the breaks I realised quite how tight the restraints had become on my thighs, to the extent that they were actually quite painful and so I re-entered the station with extremely mixed views on the ride.
I have no idea what order we did things after this so I'll just write about everything haha.
Lightning Racer was SUCH a fun racing coaster, I think Grand National still beats it for interaction and madness, but the pacing of Lightning Racer is so thrilling and enjoyable that we all kept riding again and again, eventually at night too where Richard determinedly rode until the right hand train, Lightning, won.
At some point there was a really fab **** dark shooter that didn't really make much sense but it was a nice way to get out of the sun.
There were dodgems at one point, so I opted out and got ice-cream instead, which was delicious.
We also left the park at one point to do the Hershey Chocolate factory tour. The beginning of the tour pretty much emulates the Cadbury's World tour, you start off with some history, then you go through a jungle themed bit, then it changes. We got on a train and were herded through the 'Hershey Factory' whilst cows sang at us in racist voices about how Hershey makes their chocolate. It was really really dire, you couldn't really hear the narrator telling you about the chocolate making process and Hershey's chocolate is vile so the free samples at the end of the ride didn't even make up for its ****.
So after everybody faffed about in the gift shop buying disgusting chocolate we headed back into the park for some night riding. Hersherpark looks FANTASTIC at night and I felt all warm and fuzzy as we walked through past the coasters lit up with twinkling bulbs in the warm summer heat <3 Again, I can't remember what order we did them in, but we had night rides of Lightning Racer and Great Bear before heading over to Skyrush for some ERT in the dark.
The ERT changed my mind, and after I'd gotten over the initial terror of Skyrush and learned to ride comfortably the immense awesomeness of the coaster was undeniable. Despite the long day and it now approaching 11pm, I was ready to ride the thing all night long, in every seat, over and over and over again. To me what makes a coaster great is its rerideability and the size of the smile on my face when I get off of it, hence Skyrush neatly slotting in as my new number one coaster!
I absolutely adored Hersheypark. Despite having a lot of coasters, the park manages to maintain a quaint feel to it as opposed to the vulgarity of other parks with a high number of coasters such as some of the Six Flags parks. I found it to have quite a magical atmosphere akin to that of Alton, especially at night, and add to that the sheer awesome of some of their coasters and this park is definitely one of my new top 5.
After screaming and driving away from The Swarm of insects surrounding Richard's car, we all got in and proceeded with the vile 3 hour journey to our hotel.
What I've noticed about lots of American's working in customer service is that they don't actually listen to what you say, but instead just stick to the script of things they usually say in order to try and answer your question. When we arrived at what the satnav was telling us was the carpark for Hersheypark, we were unclear whether we were in the right place, so we asked the parking attendant if this was indeed the carpark we were looking for, to which he replied '..........All day parking is $25'. Richard had rage and then we decided this was the right place and made our way over to the group.
After excitable hellos and lots of hugging etc, we minced on through the park towards Fahrenheit. For some reason this was one of those coasters that I've always always wanted to ride, so I was quite excited. The right was fun, a bit excessively vibratory in some places but had an interesting array on inversions and some pleasant pops of airtime.
Once we'd all had a few turns on Fahrenheit the staff informed us that Storm Runner was open so we all ran in that direction. I absolutely adored this ride. I love Intamin launchy things anyway but the layout after the launch is really what makes the coaster awesome. Fabulous ejector airtime in places and, again, an imaginative layout with minimal roughness (although I'm sure Sue will disagree given her yelps of pain ;]). I really had a great time on this coaster, not top ten by any stretch but a really rerideable and fun coaster for me.
It's been a long few days so you'll have to forgive me if this is in the wrong order, but I believe next we went over to RollerSoaker as the park was now open to the public and this cred was notorious for its vile queues. This is the only cred I've ever purposely sat out of. I didn't really want to be soaked and sodden for the rest of the day so I minced at the bottom of the cred spiting everyone with water cannons and other splashtastic paraphernalia, which to be honest was totally worth missing out on the plus one. However, a few people did get off dry so part of me does regret it, but hey, I'll probably return one day so I can get the cred next time!
After this is a bit of a blur, so I'll just give a brief analysis of all the other coasters we did up until lunch (in accordance with my memory anyway).
Wildcat was a rough bag of bums woodie, but it did manage to produce one of the most disgusting ride photos ever which I'm sure Taylor will post at some point ;]
Wild Mouse was nothing to write home about, it was a wild mouse. It did wild mousey things.
Sidewinder was an interesting one to ride because it is a Boomerang with new style restraints, so supposedly involves less pain. Somehow, the thing managed to make me smack my head on the hard metal hand rail, despite it living on the other side of my shoulder. Really violent, gash boomerang.
Trailblazer is definitely the world's most boring mine train, the only memory of it I really have was the ride op checking Taylor out as we returned to the station.
After this I *believe* we went to guest services to purchase our meal tickets, which were SUCH good value. We all headed over to the barbeque place and I have a barbeque pulled pork sandwich and corn on the cob. It was really yummy, the only complaint I have is that they're such slop it makes them difficult to eat. I am a bit of a bread fiend and to find the bun turned to a meat soaked mush was trés disappointing.
Next I think we made our way over to Great Bear. The queue was the longest we'd had all day so antics happened. Sue and Richard discovered the straws on out souvenir cups doubled up quite well as whistles, I had rage with the stupid souvenir cup because it pissed in my bag, there was some kind of gang bang action at some point as well. Once we got into the station chaos ensued, it was all a bit of a free for all but we all managed to siphon off into some kind of row. In the row I was in we were surrounded by stupid children trying to sneak through who I yelled at and a stupid man telling his way too short to be riding a B&M Invert to just sneak past the ride-op with the measuring stick. I told him that probably wasn't a good idea as his child might, you know, die, but he ignored me. His child got spited anyway so HA.
So the ride, I thought it was fantastic. Such a unique layout with some really lovely transitions and just consistent goodness. It does peter out a bit towards the end but I quite like an ending that lets you down gently so it worked for me. The ORP cam was in a silly place but other than that, awesome coaster.
As we all got off the ride the stupid man confronted me and accused me of telling on his daughter to a ride-op, meaning she couldn't ride. Stupid man obviously didn't realise that the op was just doing their job correctly, had nothing to do with me and that actually, for all I cared, his child could fall out and die next time if he insisted on being quite so burdenous and stupid all his life. Hurrumph.
Epic rapids of airtime happened next, which were fun because they didn't actually get you that wet, hooray! Then there was SooperDooperLooper which was MUCH better than Revolution at SFMM because of less pain.
Next we rode Comet which was a fun but forgettable kind of coaster, especially since it trundles along in the shadow of the mighty Skyrush, and I can bet I wasn't the only one whose mind was firmly fixed on riding this beast whilst getting the cred on Comet.
So, we finally joined the queue for Skyrush! Honestly, I was really expecting anything much. The layout looked really tame and I hadn't read up anything much on it. All I knew was that it was Jerry's new number one steel coaster and that every seat was good. So with that in mind I plumped for a wing seat close to the front of the train on the right hand side and began my ride.
I was a little nervous when I first sat in the restraints. I just didn't feel....secure, it all felt too loose and free, like casually sitting on a park bench. At first the restraints felt really comfortable. What first took my breath away was the speed of the lift hill. It hoists you up the thing so fast you get a pop or airtime as you crest the peak. Nice work. The first drop is the best first drop I've ever been on by a million miles, the sheer terror at feeling like I was being flung out of my seat combined with the speed was exhilarating. The screams were truly ones of fear and I rode the remaining layour clinging to my restraint for dear life as Skyrush continually tried to be rid of me. As we rolled into the breaks I realised quite how tight the restraints had become on my thighs, to the extent that they were actually quite painful and so I re-entered the station with extremely mixed views on the ride.
I have no idea what order we did things after this so I'll just write about everything haha.
Lightning Racer was SUCH a fun racing coaster, I think Grand National still beats it for interaction and madness, but the pacing of Lightning Racer is so thrilling and enjoyable that we all kept riding again and again, eventually at night too where Richard determinedly rode until the right hand train, Lightning, won.
At some point there was a really fab **** dark shooter that didn't really make much sense but it was a nice way to get out of the sun.
There were dodgems at one point, so I opted out and got ice-cream instead, which was delicious.
We also left the park at one point to do the Hershey Chocolate factory tour. The beginning of the tour pretty much emulates the Cadbury's World tour, you start off with some history, then you go through a jungle themed bit, then it changes. We got on a train and were herded through the 'Hershey Factory' whilst cows sang at us in racist voices about how Hershey makes their chocolate. It was really really dire, you couldn't really hear the narrator telling you about the chocolate making process and Hershey's chocolate is vile so the free samples at the end of the ride didn't even make up for its ****.
So after everybody faffed about in the gift shop buying disgusting chocolate we headed back into the park for some night riding. Hersherpark looks FANTASTIC at night and I felt all warm and fuzzy as we walked through past the coasters lit up with twinkling bulbs in the warm summer heat <3 Again, I can't remember what order we did them in, but we had night rides of Lightning Racer and Great Bear before heading over to Skyrush for some ERT in the dark.
The ERT changed my mind, and after I'd gotten over the initial terror of Skyrush and learned to ride comfortably the immense awesomeness of the coaster was undeniable. Despite the long day and it now approaching 11pm, I was ready to ride the thing all night long, in every seat, over and over and over again. To me what makes a coaster great is its rerideability and the size of the smile on my face when I get off of it, hence Skyrush neatly slotting in as my new number one coaster!
I absolutely adored Hersheypark. Despite having a lot of coasters, the park manages to maintain a quaint feel to it as opposed to the vulgarity of other parks with a high number of coasters such as some of the Six Flags parks. I found it to have quite a magical atmosphere akin to that of Alton, especially at night, and add to that the sheer awesome of some of their coasters and this park is definitely one of my new top 5.
After screaming and driving away from The Swarm of insects surrounding Richard's car, we all got in and proceeded with the vile 3 hour journey to our hotel.
LiveForTheLaunch
CF Legend
Haha, Richard giving the peachy old ride operator a heart attack when he pretended his restraint wouldn't go down. Poor little peach </3
And UGHH I forgot about all the nasty bugs around the car and in the Skyrush station. However, I don't feel bad for you being disgusted by them as you PUSHED me into the black widow at Six Flags America
AJ
Giga Poster
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlVD4TJsE-Y[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZkpAkSQwbY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCM9c4AmiX0&feature=related[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Af5zi1jbLk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPnSoH1qe_o[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHIo4VruGZY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNjkuHQGa2w[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdhAMXjuMU4&feature=related[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bob4PIu6P7Q[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4R9T8CP5s[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHOxCmbs-8[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZkpAkSQwbY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCM9c4AmiX0&feature=related[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Af5zi1jbLk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPnSoH1qe_o[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHIo4VruGZY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNjkuHQGa2w[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdhAMXjuMU4&feature=related[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bob4PIu6P7Q[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4R9T8CP5s[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHOxCmbs-8[/youtube]
LiveForTheLaunch
CF Legend
LOL AJ, best trip report ever. I'm so glad you're back to posting That gave me a good laugh!
That gave me a good laugh!
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
will write more later - but I'm pleased to say I fitted on TTD and MF - even got one go on wicked twister which was awesome(far better than dorneys) - had to do walk of shame on my second go though
all in all - great day - fast lane was ace, and I needed it - hour+ queues fpr the main stuff!! just got a few hours for piccy taking before i leave!
all in all - great day - fast lane was ace, and I needed it - hour+ queues fpr the main stuff!! just got a few hours for piccy taking before i leave!