Hostage in Hershey://Lap 1500, Puke, Pee, E-stop (Day 4-5)

[Jarrett]

So the time has come for the first of two big trips for Emily and I, and this was hers! Being the Queen of Skyrush, she decided to return to her kingdom for another week to continue her regime on the edge, and I was invited to come along. However, I didn't want to just do Hershey that week and wanted to get extra credits while I was at it, so I did what I could. We eventually added another day on because our works were awesome, but I actually enjoyed the Hershey portion more than I thought I would!

Day 1
Emily and I got into Pittsburgh pretty late the night before, but I still woke up early enough for us to get on the road at a decent hour. On the way over, we picked up Emily's friend Lindy and headed to the park!

I struggled to get into marathoning first, understanding Hershey's reride policy and the whole concept of having to run around and what to do and not to do. However, I eventually got it and ended up darting off that platform right alongside her majesty the Queen of Skyrush herself!

Around lunch, her, Lindy, and I went off to go get some Moe's and I loved it! Kids, if you go here, get the kiddie meal, it's the best food deal at any park I've been to! For $6.50, you get a small cup of pop, a bag of chips, a big cookie, and a small burrito or taco, it's a steal!

And now, I will entertain you with some pics I got of Skyrush!

I always loved how this ride played with the terrain a bit but wasn't really a terrain coaster. Just enough to give it that kick in the aggression category that you can get with terrain, but not so much that it limited the design.

Slammed back down into your seat!

Emily being narcissistic in front of bae!

There is nothing that isn't absolutely wonderful about this machine. It's big, it's powerful, it's dominating, yet it's beautiful.

You have no idea how many times I was off by like a second trying to get this stupid shot all week...

S'cuse me while I kiss the sky!

Shear mechanical insanity surging with kinetic energy. No other way to describe this beast of a contraption.

My favorite part of the ride right here! By far the most aggressive element to exist on any coaster anywhere!

Some Comet porn for those of my readers who aren't man enough to handle a little pressure on their thighs.

Afterwards we went back over to Skyrush and marathoned for a bit more before Lindy and I decided to go ride a few other things. We got rides on Runner, Fahren, Racer, and Looper as the sun went down and it was incredible! Runner and Fahren rock with the new restraints, though Runner was the coaster to really take the improvement and run with it. Wasn't nearly as rough as I remembered it being, and aside from the occasional tick of vibration, it was glass smooth. This catapulted it ahead of Lightning Racer and SooperDooperLooper as my second favorite coaster in the park.

Back to Skyrush as the sun went down!

Good evening Skyrush!

Great Bear under her starry skies! (THERE IS A CONDITION THAT CAN TRANSFORM THIS PRETTY AVERAGE YET UNIQUE B&M INVERT INTO SOMETHING ABSOLUTELY SPECIAL WHICH I WILL GET TO LATER THIS WEEK IT IS AMAZING)

Later that evening, we went back for Skyrush night rides and stayed at the park until close, nabbing the final rides on Skyrush in the front row. Emily and I then went back to the hotel, ready to chow down on crappy canned food eaten cold before the next day at Hershey.

Lined up for the last ride of the night!

Good night, Skyrush!

Special thanks to Emily for getting on her hands and knees right there on the midway and acting as my human tripod to get this shot.

Good night, Hershey! See you tomorrow!

Day 2

Emily and I got to the park just in time for opening and as you guessed, headed right for Skyrush! After a Sweet Start of riding it, we went back to the car and ate some more canned lunch before getting back to the park. Later that afternoon, the ride had a sensor failure which shut it down for about an hour as we waited about and talked to ride supervisors and maintenance about stuff in general, we had some pretty good conversations.

After they got it up and running for a bit, some idiot ran onto the platform and managed to e-stop the ride. The ride supervisor chewed him out but it still took maintenance 45 minutes to get the ride back up and running. Finally they did, and it was good to go! Emily then continued to ride and ride and ride until...

She finally hit 1300, putting her at her first hundred since we got there!

https://www.facebook.com/TheHoNDQueen/v ... =3&theater

I filmed them announcing it over the PA system for her. <3

We continued to ride until I decided to go grab some action on Comet and SooperDooperLooper, which ended with me getting lift stopped (a theme for this trip) on Comet for about two minutes. But after that, we got last rides on the coaster and went back to the hotel to celebrate!

NEXT UP: The Skyrush gang splits up, Emily racks up even more laps, Jarrett decides to be a filthy whore, watching the tram car please, the most soul-crushing spite since Outlaw Run, and the nastiest cred of all!

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Nice trip! I'd really like to see how Storm Runner is like with the new restraints. I didn't really like it when I rode it, but hopefully it'll be better this time around.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Special thanks to Emily for getting on her hands and knees right there on the midway

Whoa there, settle down

 

[TilenB]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Just a quick question, how far from Hersheypark does Emily live? I gather she is not exactly local to the place, I always thought she was, considering the Skyrush lap count.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Skyrush looks so much smaller than it really is. Whenever I see the lift hill I can't help but wonder how that can possibly be taller than Mako I know that's partly down to the thickness of the lift hill, but still...

 

[Hixee]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

^Yeah, I was quite surprised (and dare I say underwhelmed) by the size of it in person. It looks of a comparable size to Fahrenheit I think.

Frankly even when you're on it it doesn't feel that big. The lift and drop happen so fast that you don't get any time to notice how high up you are.

 

[Jarrett]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Nice trip! I'd really like to see how Storm Runner is like with the new restraints. I didn't really like it when I rode it, but hopefully it'll be better this time around.

You'd like it more if the headbanging was the issue, it doesn't hit your head at all anymore.

Special thanks to Emily for getting on her hands and knees right there on the midway

Whoa there, settle down

At least there was no skiing on this trip...

Just a quick question, how far from Hersheypark does Emily live? I gather she is not exactly local to the place, I always thought she was, considering the Skyrush lap count.

Emily's actually Canadian! She lives in London, Ontario, which is about a 24 hour Greyhound trip there, probably about 8 hours in a car. She travels there for Skyrush.

Skyrush looks so much smaller than it really is. Whenever I see the lift hill I can't help but wonder how that can possibly be taller than Mako I know that's partly down to the thickness of the lift hill, but still...

Yeah the thick lift spine makes it look way smaller than it actually is, and the fact that the actual layout is crammed into a shoebox really doesn't help.

^Yeah, I was quite surprised (and dare I say underwhelmed) by the size of it in person. It looks of a comparable size to Fahrenheit I think.

Frankly even when you're on it it doesn't feel that big. The lift and drop happen so fast that you don't get any time to notice how high up you are.

That drop rocks! That's the best part it just sucks you down so fast your body doesn't have time to go with it so you just kind of get yanked and it's awesome!

-x-

Day 3

Not about to spend a week away from home without getting a single credit, I had set aside a day to hop out of Hershey and get credits, that ended up being Wednesday. John, a friend of Emily's from the ex-TPR group she's a part of, had offered to meet me at the Jersey Shore for some filthy whoring of crappy credits so I decided to do it that day.

We got in for Sweet Start and spent the first hour letting Skyrush do whatever she wanted to us, but something was off. When we walked in, I heard this awful sputtering noise coming from the creek and noticed it was partially drained. You could even see the fountain hardware just kind of resting on the creekbed.

Skyrush: Drained Edition

It was drained, the fountains could barely pump water, and it smelled!

After Sweet Start, I sat down for a bit to buy my Morey's ticket with my ACE discount and grab the occasional bit of Skyrush porn.

Sexy!

Kind of an interesting shot...

Probably the hardest shot on the coaster to time.

The sky was all gray and nasty and crap but I like how these pictures turned out.

While I was finishing up, John texted me informing me that to my dread, two of the piers wouldn't open until 6, and I needed to complete a 3.5 hour drive back to Hershey to get Emily at the park by 10. I went over to discuss it with her and she found a place to wait until 11, giving me a bit more time. I gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye and got on the road.

Stupidly, and by that I mean very stupidly, I decided to be a cheapskate and avoid tolls. Bad idea! Drivers in this area were horrible. Drivers in Lancaster were darting all over the place in a way that could make Cincinnati look like, okay, nothing's worse than Cincinnati drivers pulling Cincinnati lane changes and darting all over Kings Island drive, but it was still really bad! I drove right past Dutch Wonderland (also known on this trip as Douche Wonderland or Dutch Runnerland) but didn't want to fork over $40 for two kiddie creds. Finally, I got to Delaware (one of I think only 4 states in the US with no creds at all), clipped through, and took the bridge into Jersey. Bam! New state cred for me, never been to Jersey before!

From there, I ended up taking cheap country roads through an area known to Jersey locals as bumble **** . Bumble **** was basically really packed farmlands divided up by country roads bumper to bumper with traffic, it's the worst place in the world. Despite all the traffic bumble **** sees, there's not a single gas station or restaurant or hotel to be seen. Finally, I started driving through salty estuaries and ended up in Wildwood, seeing the ferris wheel and twin spikes of the boomerang peeping out from behind hotels.

Wildwood in general was just awful to drive in. However, it could have been a lot worse. The only person I had to honk at on this trip was a driver in Wildwood and it was a big stupid truck with a Jersey plate, so I knew the guy was bad news even if he had a clean driving record. After straighting it through a few lights, I ended up at the signature Wildwood sign welcoming me to America's infamous Jersey Shore!

I looked around for parking and was lucky enough to find that if nothing is going on, parking at the convention center is completely free. I stepped out of my car, asked a guy if that wooden path from the sidewalk lead up to the boardwalk rocking my Kentucky Kingdom hat and Outlaw Run shirt looking as landlocked and from a flyover state as possible and was told it did. I set up shop between a few buildings and texted John, who in turn told me to look for someone in a Wicked Cyclone shirt. Finally, I saw him step out from behind the tram car and he joined my party!

Notice the RMC theme going on today?

John wasted no time getting me into the park so we could start our day. To me Morey's was just a credit run designed to add 6 to my count and maybe give me a unique experience I couldn't get in Ohio, to him it was a return to his childhood. Apparently if you lived in Jersey, your childhood was going to the boardwalk at night in the summer and seeing all the colorful lights and riding the roller coasters and eating fried food. He hadn't been here since he was a kid and was eager to show somebody who lived in a different region a typical childhood from his.

John explained to me that Morey's was three piers, each with a big coaster as its signature attraction. Mariner's Pier, the middle one we were on, had Sea Serpent and Rollies Coaster. Mariner's Pier (furthest from my car) had the SLC, mouse, and Flitzer. And Aventure Pier, closest to my car, had just Great White and the upcharges with a few kiddie rides.

Surfside Pier with 3 creds and Adventure Pier with 1 didn't open until 6, and I needed to be out of there by 7:30. And it was like 4 so John and I had an easy time on Mariner's Landing before having to furiously cred run the rest of the pier. But John said that Great Nor'Easter was worth it, wasn't like the other SLCs, and was in his top 25. So that gave it a degree of excitement.

First I got in and showed the PDF of my ticket to the lady at the ticket window who couldn't scan it on my phone. I was then directed to customer service as John ranted about my awesome ACE discount that he forgot to use. Hadn't even experienced the park and I already had the Guest Services cred! Luckily, however, the lady there was really nice and just zapped the barcode and wristbanded me.

First up of this credit whore's paradise of a substantial lineup of crap was this nasty **** contraption, Rollies Coaster! Coney Island, a small park in Cincinnati back at home, has a cheap knockoff of these Pinfari Zyklons but it was my first time riding an actual one. And my god was it awful! The worst thing Hurricane Sandy did was not throwing this pile of junk into the ocean too! I would have felt safer walking about Disney with a box of gator food. Between the shoddy track, unnecessary OTSRs, and terrible "engineering" behind this, this was the start of many one and done credits of the day!

Next up was the major coaster for Mariner's Pier, Sea Serpent! I saw streamlined trains on this Vekoma boomerang and was hoping they were MK-1212 trains like Winder or Carolina Cobra had...nope! Same trains as on Canyon Blaster in Vegas! Now Canyon Blaster is my favorite classic Arrow, but the reason that ride works is because Arrow did a good job with it. There's nothing good about a boomerang without vest restraints, and this one, like Canyon Blaster, had rigid restraints. And it hurt!

Take just the ride experience into account, it's hands down the worst of the boomerangs I've been on. Got T3 blows to the back of the head, Flight Deck lateral headbanging, it was bad. Not to mention it took them ages to get our train out.

This coaster is awful, it's rough, it's ugly, but there's only one reason I'm reluctant to rank it below Boomerang KBF for my least favorite, location. John wanted to ride in the front so we rode in the front later and the location really comes to life. Watching the vast ocean to one side and the bustling Wildwood boardwalk on the other side was really cool and really can't be gotten on any other boomerang I've ridden. And in the front, it provides the visual illusion that it could fall off into the ocean on the second spike. John didn't see it, but we're pretty sure that's just him having seen the ocean probably hundreds of times more than I have.

With two of the six creds ut and the other four out of commission until 6, we decided to experience the boardwalk and get pictures. The first of two photo op rides we did was this stupid sketchy "pedal a plastic seagull on a single rail" thing that felt like it was going to tip off the rail. But it made for some good pictures!

It was kind of nice how it went around Mariner's waterpark.

Cute setting for a play area.

Getting a straight shot on these sketchy things is really hard, but I do love how this one turned out!

Easily the best one I got from this thing.

And the last time we had to stop to get a picture and risked the ride op shooting us for stopping our seagull so many times!

Next we did the sketchiest ferris wheel ever!

John loved the view of downtown Wildwood from the top, but insisted it was better at night. Meh, I'll take his word for it.

It was only like 70 degrees out but apparently when it gets warmer this beach is absolutely slammed.

Great White spent the day silent over there, kind of acting as the grand finale.

Some offensive imagery for you here. Avert your eyes.

John showed me some of the rather interesting flats (including Malestrom that had tight restraints that spent the entire ride tightening on my bladder after spending 4 hours in the car, it was brutal on such an intense ride), but this was my favorite. These weird things can be found in pairs at both Dollywood and Silver Dollar City but Morey's had my favorite one as a standalone. Dollywood's are themed to lumberjacking, SDC's to farm silos, and Morey's to a lighthouse. The fact that I just like lighthouses in general combined with the gorgeous view you get of the boardwalk from these secured its spot as my favorite of the trio. Anybody know where else these can be found or even what they're called?

John went back to put money in his parking meter while I got a few ground level shots and bought myself a Morey's shirt and a lanyard for Emily's collection.

After some lunch and being nearly murdered by seagulls, John and I made our way up the boardwalk to be at Surfside Pier for rope drop to get their three credits. Emily sent me a text that she was approaching 1400. On our way up, I noticed this weird Wildwood icon, the infamous tram car. As this little parking tram thing goes up and down the boardwalk, there's a loop of a voice saying "Watch the tram car please....watch the tram car please...watch the tram car please..." that got really really annoying after about twenty seconds.

John and I want them to build an RMC with cars themed to the tram car that has "watch the tram car please...watch the tram car please...watch the tram car please" over and over and over again as on ride audio the entire time. Barrel roll...watch the tram car please...airtime hill...watch the tram car please...step up under flip...watch the tram car please! At least I got a selfie with it!

Possibly the most ridiculous rule ever, John laughed at it too.

Mariner's Pier looks pretty cool from afar!

Ticket booth at Surfside Pier. Look at the banners. All coasters. Except the yellow one on the far right. Yes, that is it. That is the **** tram car AGAIN.

Rope dropped about ten minutes before they started operating, and Nor'Easter was testing.

First coaster to start operating was Flitzer, and my first one to boot. After deciding that John and I were, under no circumstances, sitting in each other's lap, we rode this separately.

So this coaster isn't bad. It isn't bad at all. It was jerky but not enough to talk about, mostly I got a smooth, enjoyable ride on this Zierer. I bet the lower heartlines of the cars have a lot to do with that taking out room for error, but whatever the reason, I liked it. Compared to the trash on Mariner's Pier, this became my favorite coaster of the day.

Waiting patiently on Doo Wopper and Nor'Easter to open their gates, John and I snapped the absolute **** out of these King Kong-themed flyers! There was a nice ocean breeze and we were getting a crap ton of slack in the cables, and the ride op didn't even care! We tried the dark ride too since it looked Pretzel-ish, but it wasn't.

Next up...Doo Wopper!

You are seeing correctly, do not adjust your screen. It is exactly what it looks like. A wild mouse themed to fast food.

Almost as good and even more operational than Lightning Rod's trains!

The seal of quality!

For a wild mouse, it actually wasn't bad. Wasn't sure how okay Emily was going to be with how close and intimate John and I got cramming into those seats and the plastic seatbelt buckles seemed a bit sketchy, but all in all, it was enjoyable. The theme was funny and the location was nice, not to mention the illusion of falling off the edge worked really well. Not as smooth as Flitzer, but I liked it.

After that it was onto the most controversial coaster of the day, Great Nor'Easter! I hated it from the second we waited for them to open up. They opened it fifteen minutes later than the rest of the pier, took a train off for no reason, and made everybody wait outside as the same announcement played on a loop. You had to put everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in a locker that was only free for a 20 minute period, which held you to a two dollar ultimatum, screwing you if there was a line. Once they opened it, they proceeded to, I kid you not, wand every single person in line individually before letting you onto the coaster to make absolutely sure that you didn't keep any wallets, phones, keys, or change in any pockets, even a button or zipper pocket. It took forever. Not to mention once you got in the station, it took them ten minutes to dispatch the first train. Operations at Morey's were bad, but that was ridiculous.

Yeah, its bad. Really bad. Stay away. I was pleased to see the trains weren't like the sketchy ones on T3 and were at least Vekoma-made with vest restraints, but it's still really bad. Felt like T3 with a bit less rattle on the beach. John was practically Joker laughing the whole time at how much I was swearing on that horrible contraption. An instant addition to the bottom ten, avoid this thing at all costs.

After John ripped Great Nor'Easter out of his top 25 like a seagull tried to rip out my eyeballs, we pushed through the pain into the sunset towards our cars by Adventure Pier. John was appalled to hear that Flitzer was my favorite coaster of the day and did not, under any circumstances, want me walking away with that as my favorite coaster from his childhood. But luckily, there was one more shot. Great White, the last of the three "boss coasters" of Morey's Piers. And the only one that isn't a clone.

Adventure Pier had the least life of the three of them, housing only upcharges. John was saddened to see how much it had changed since he was a kid and said it used to be rocking at that time of day. But Great white was still there, and sported the coolest entrance ever.

Just when you thought it wasn't safe to cred run near the water! This coaster was easily the biggest surprise of 2016 so far, and hit my wooden top ten, knocking Thunderbolt right out! The first thing I noticed was that it's glass smooth, easily the smoothest wooden coaster I've ridden that wasn't RMC. Second, the unique yet surprising drop under the pier to start the ride was awesome. From there, it's just a mess of wild turns overlooking the ocean and boardwalk and pops of floater as you dive down the drops. Love this coaster, shame there's nothing to do around it. Definitely the highlight of the day.

Needing to get Emily, I said goodbye to John and headed back to my car with the Wildwood experience now firmly under my belt. Is it the greatest park ever? No. But did I have fun? Yes. Going with a local was fun, even though it apparently shattered his childhood when he saw how much it had changed. But I would like to thank John for showing me about Morey's and I had a great time!

From there, I sucked it up and took tolls back to Hershey. On the way I had to drive past Gale Force, which had officially spited me at that point. It was silent but that little knot of steel looked awesome on the beach like that, I was so crushed I couldn't ride it. But after crying at Gale Force for a bit, vowing for a rematch with it next year, and braving Phili traffic, I got back to Hershey as it poured down rain and got Emily.

I got Emily back to the hotel as she gave me all the graphic details about the kid that puked on Skyrush that day and how close she was to 1400. We got back ate some leftover BW3 I brought with me, and hit the hay for another day at Hershey the next day!

UP NEXT: A major milestone for Emily, where chocolate comes from, the worst zoo ever, and the condition that makes Great Bear extraordinary!

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Rush to Skyrush (Day 1-2)

Nice report! I find it odd how Morey's Piers didn't open the other 2 piers until 6. Great White looks great though, and I'm quite interested to see how Great Bear is 100x better.

 

[davidm]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Wildwood Day at Morey's (Day 3)

Bonkers report Jarret - enjoying it ; and your pictures are getting better too, some good ones here

 

[Jarrett]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Wildwood Day at Morey's (Day 3)

Nice report! I find it odd how Morey's Piers didn't open the other 2 piers until 6. Great White looks great though, and I'm quite interested to see how Great Bear is 100x better.

Actually from a lot of my trip planning I found that a lot of Jersey's stuff doesn't open until later. John said that it's due to the fact that they want to be able to hold tourists as long as possible, and they were hoping that Mariner's Landing would be able to keep parkgoers entertained from 1 to 6 so that they wouldn't have to keep the other two open when they didn't need to be. I actually understood why Adventure Pier (the one with just Great White and the upcharges) wasn't open, but Surfside had by far the most to do on it so I would have opened that one instead.

Bonkers report Jarret - enjoying it ; and your pictures are getting better too, some good ones here

OMG thanks so much! Coming from you, compliments on my photos mean a ton! I'll make sure to bring it again for New England in two weeks!

-x-

Day 4

Emily and I woke up on a rather gloomy morning and headed to Hershey in the rain. Or should I say, in the Chocolate Rain.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA[/youtube]

We got there and saw no activity from the creds, so decided to just sit about in the car, prepared for a potential rainout. We looked at maybe going to Six Flags America, Kings Dominion, or Knoebels, but it was raining there too, and if we had a day when coasters wouldn't operate, wanted it to be at Hershey. We waited around in the car for a bit, but then Skyrush opened up, so we headed into the sprinkling rain and started doing our thing.

The day started with Emily hitting 1400 on Skyrush, and deciding to go for 1500 right after. And of course, being the good boyfriend I am, I made sure to drop to the ride ops that it was her 1400th lap so they could announce it.

Rain picked back up again and shut Skyrush down, but Great Bear kept running, so I went to ride it, and OMFG IT WAS AWESOME!!!!

You start the ride in that station precariously perched over a waterfall that's now roaring with gushing overflow from the rain, which echoes through the station over the occasional low rumble of Bear's roar. When you start the ride, the wheel assembly starts dripping water onto you, clearly because it's pooling up in the mechanical assemblies above. This, my friends, is what makes Great Bear even greater in the rain. You zip, flip, and fly over Hollow and the adjacent hill, all of the many water features around nearby Coal Cracker are gushing, and water's splashing out of the wheel assemblies, hitting you in the face and getting you soaked. I was drenched when I got off but it was so worth it, it made the ride so much more aggressive (and not just from the slick tracks) and I had way more fun on it than I ever thought I could. Rain really makes Great Bear great again!

After that I decided to grab rides on Wildcat just to see if it needed RMC as badly as I remembered (which it did, Mildcat is so boring), and grabbed a ride on Lightning Racer. We get to the top and BAM!!! Lightning Racer leaves us stuck at the top! The ride supervisor came up to wait for mechanical to fix it, but when she saw I knew the guy fixing the ride, she asked how. I said that he was a friend of the Queen of Skyrush and I was her boyfriend, she knew Emily! It was hilarious, this ride supervisor just kind of ran into me and knew who I was because of my girlfriend!

Hershey looking sexy in the rain!

We waited around because it had stopped raining and the ride was bound to reopen, so I got this picture of Em looking cute as always on the platform.

After the rain stopped, it washed the crowds away. Skyrush was almost a walk-on all day, there was nobody there, it was in sight for her. Not to mention we ran into Art, who's a friend of both of ours.

The time to hit that goal of 1500 had come.

Emily and I spent the entire day riding, running off the platform, and getting back in line. It rained just long enough for Art to destroy me at Reese's but other than that the day was spent at Skyrush. Over, and over, and over again. It got a little annoying having to run around all day but after a while, but eventually, it was in sight. The ride was running really well, there was no line, we had it!

Sadly, that night, just as she was about to hit 1500, Skyrush broke down and we left. But not in vain. She still had a whole other day to get only six more laps.



Day 5

Emily and I woke up that morning and checked out of the Days Inn at which we were staying. We threw our crap in the car, and got to Hershey for our last day there. When we got to the park, we ran right to Skyrush. There, we met up with John (same guy I did Morey's with) and Art, who was marathoning with us the day before. Neither of them wanted to miss Emily getting her 1500th, it was a huge deal!

With a few more laps for her, she finally hit that coveted 1500! She wanted to ride up front for it so she, John, and Art went there as I did what I do best and photoragphed/filmed for her.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG9D4r3412I[/youtube]

And with that, the goal of this trip was met! She hit 1500, so from there, the four of us went off to do a lap about the park! The day started with Looper, which was fun, but the best thing ever happened at the end. We got off, tried to push through the mass to get to the exit stairs, when in front of me, out of nowhere, comes this kid just standing there holding his own beige lumpy vomit spilling out of his cupped hands onto the platform. The smell was disgusting and we tried to push through the crowd to no avail as the ride ops had to guide this kid over to the trash and clean up the train, station, and everything else he vomited on. So yeah, pretty much everything. There was vomit everywhere and I, being the one person on this earth that thinks somebody reacting so violently to something they regurgitate their lunch, is the funniest thing ever, was laughing so hard I was crying and gasping for air.

After a good laugh at puking Sooperdooperlooper kid, we headed to Runner for John's first time with the new restraints. I'd ridden it a few times with them but it was an improvement so I didn't mind doing it again.

From there we did Fahrenheit as well (which rattled like crazy) and Lightning Racer. By then, Skyrush's wait was becoming absurd so we grabbed Moe's.

You are SEXY in the rain...

Art said the antique cars used to be here.

We spent a bit more time with bae after Art had to leave the park to go to work. I got so good at running off the platform (and loudly and obnoxiously slamming the exit gate) that I had started beating Emily back to the entrance, but I was just being a **** considering the line.

With how scorching hot it was starting to get, John and I decided to do the Hershey thing that we'd never done, Chocolate World!

Chocolate World is a free dark ride that shows how Hershey's chocolate is made. Pretty simple, but really awesome.

Your experience starts taking a photo in front of a green screen to buy later. Nothing unusual, but wait until you see what happened in ours...

It uses an omnimover system, so there was no line even on a Friday.

First thing you see is this **** . Pretty normal for something like this, but considering how I had a rather, erm, unfortunate experience with singing and dancing cows as a child, I just about died laughing at this.

I'll admit, it was pretty nice.

Off we go! (Notice John's neon green Fury shirt? Remember that...)

The choice between this really cool food factory experience that I've seen on Food Network and Travel Channel or possibly the worst city to drive through ever? Hmmm...

To me, this was HILARIOUS.

All of Em's Hershey friends waged WWIII on Facebook over these cows being replaced or something a while ago.

Ever get that feeling you're being watched?

This bit reminded me of Test Track's environmental test scene.

This dark ride was pretty interesting to me but one thing I loved about it was its use of screens.

On a dark ride that's all props like Boo Blasters, you have to work with limited space and animatronics. On a ride like Wonder Mountain's Guardian that's all screens, you have limitless possibilities to the theme mechanically but it lacks authenticity and immersion. Chocolate World uses screens only where necessary in conjunction with the mechanical chocolate-making props they have and it's phenomenal. This is how a modern dark ride should be done.

They used the props to show us what was going on while it was explained by the Hershey characters on the screen.

However, the mechanical props, like this chocolate stirrer, were really well done too. Loved how they had a crock pot of chocolate behind the cars on this scene for the smell, too.

It's cool...but don't ride it when you're starving on the travel diet!

At the end of the ride, all the Hershey characters stand next to their respective candies as they roll off the line and get shipped around the world.

I seriously wonder how much fake chocolate was used in this ride...

I work at a grocery store and I've never, not once, seen these on our shelves. Does this package actually exist on the market? LOL

After that scene the ride goes to **** You spend about three minutes in this room full of just screens playing this song looking at flying chocolate on a colorful background. It exists just to fill up space, it's obvious, and it does nothing for the ride. This is literally the only negative thing I have to say about the experience, though.

Afterwards came the touristy thing where you go to buy your green screen photo! That green screen loved John's Fury shirt!

Everybody, this is my friend John. He's a floating head, pair of forearms, and a Fury logo. He likes to hang around cow pastures.

(We didn't actually spend forty bucks buying it but still, that was a really good laugh!)

Picture with the giant $40 chocolate bar! Apparently one of these sent John's school into anarchy at lunch once because everybody wanted a piece...

Back to Skyrush!

After that John and I decided to do Zoomerica since we hadn't done it before. This guy was nowhere to be found, maybe meeting with the other Canadian in the park.

This weasel thing was really hyper!

Porcupine! This thing terrified John, he didn't know they were this big!

Can we train these guys to find people we don't like and crawl up inside their arses while they sleep? I can think of a few people on this list...

White-tailed deer! One of Ohio's state animals, we hit these guys driving all the time back at home!

Ew /insidejoke

Bobcat!

We have these otters at this kids' museum north of town I went to as a kid, they're adorable.

It wouldn't be Hershey without bears!

Parents, it is advised that you don't watch your children so they can climb in and get mauled to death as parkgoers cheer like they did when Christians were ripped apart by lions in ancient Rome!

They picked the worst light to hang out in which made for some bad pictures...

John had never seen a prairie dog before, so this was a first for him.

This elk was Mr. Photogenic today!

John noticed this. If elk are so nimble and can just hop out of that pit if they want to (as the sign says), what's to keep them from hopping out of the fence that's practically the same height? Does Hershey want to join Cincinasty Zoo and Disney in the animal publicity lounge?

Struggled to get close enough to the fence to get a good pic of this Mountain Lion in focus.

Watching the monorail cross the creek over this expanse of enclosure was really cool I have to admit.

Aww this owl looked like the one from Harry Potter!

Within seconds of watching the wolves play, it was obvious this guy was the alpha.

And that was it, really.

Opinion on Zoomerica: Really cool thing to see, had a great time and I'm glad I did it. This works really well as part of your Hershey day and I'm glad the park includes it. However, it's $12 to do it if you aren't at the park, and that's $12 for something that takes no time. John and I spent about half an hour there and we did pretty much the whole thing. If you wanted to take your time this would still take no more than an hour. Compare that with Columbus Zoo, which is $14 for a full-sized zoo that takes the whole day to do and includes a small park (oldest cred in Ohio included!), a water park, and live entertainment at the zoo. It's ridiculous. My thinking is that Hershey should try to open up the path to Zoomerica more, kill the second gate, and include it as a complete section of the park. They should also expand it a little, maybe add a small aquarium or aviary or something indoors that can be done when it rains. It was dead when we went, I'm surprised this hasn't been a money pit for the park in all honesty.

Back to Skyrush for the rest of the day!

Love this shot!

Bae!!! <3

She was right where you can always find her!

Some dirty Intamin curves for your viewing pleasure.

After a few on Skyrush I got a final lap on Sooperdooperpuker.

Interesting shot of Great Bear over here...

Looper and Kissing Tower!

Look who's adorable on the best ride ever!

So the sun went down and I got this sick, and I mean, SICK picture of Great Bear! <3

We spent the rest of the night riding the edge!

Well Emily then crossed something off her bucket list, we got stuck on Skyrush! As they dispatched this train, you guessed it, some dumb **** ran onto the platform and they e-stopped us...but it didn't actually happen until we were at the top of the lift! So Emily, John and I were stuck at the top for like ten minutes. Emily was FREAKING OUT with excitement (as was I), the view as the sun went down was gorgeous, John was terrified of getting evaced out of the wing seat, and making a theme of childrens' bodily functions on rides, some kid behind us (whose friend knew Em from Instagram) peed himself up there.

After they got us going, we took one more lap and left the park. On our way out, Emily was able to find and introduce me to her friend Chris, as in the infamous Christ of Keystone Thrills! She talks about him a lot and acts as her main contact at Hershey, so it was cool to finally meet him. I loaded him down with maps I had brought and we joked around for a bit before Emily and I hit the road.

Hersheypark, I cannot thank you enough for the wonderful week you gave me! It was a blast! Between learning to marathon Skyrush, the two free things we got (not to mention a third one we didn't even use), the new restraints on Runner and Fahren, fab employees, making kids make fools of themselves so I can laugh and go to hell for laughing, that awesome kids' menu at Moe's, and everything in between, I had a wonderful time that will stick with me for the rest of my life! My temp season pass will be proudly displayed as a reminder in a shadowbox on my wall in a place of high honor. There's a reason this is my second favorite park.

However, I feel like the park has a lot of running around to do if they want to stay in the big leagues. The phenomenon of regional parks going destination has been seen at both Cedar Point and Dollywood now, and I feel Hershey has the potential to jump on that bandwagon. It's just about as well-known as both were before they decided to take the jump, they have the market to support it, they're close to a major airport, there's just a few things they need to fix that happened to be scattered about the park. First, the Zoomerica thing I mentioned. That has a ton of potential but should be tapped fairly soon. The rumored drop tower near the entrance for 2017 could help bring people into this, so making something special out of it could really help now that it isn't in a dead corner of the park near a useless flat. Wildcat obviously needs RMCed, the fact that they have such a weak coaster next to such a strong one of exactly the same type feels really problematic in that park, especially when the superior one can absolutely rip apart any cattlepen in a matter of minutes. Finally, yes, they're expanding, but whatever they're doing by Skyrush, is it really that important that it should come before Zoomerica and Wildcat?

Emily started the trip at 1206 laps and left with 1534, bringing her to a grand total of 328 laps on this trip.

After parting with Chris we got on the turnpike. The goal was to make it to ArmPitt that night but I got tired so we stopped at a Roadway Inn about halfway instead. They were really nice to us, we got in no sweat, and the two of us just kind of collapsed and passed out on each other.

UP NEXT: The dumbest ride ops ever, insane archaic ejector, the parking lot from hell, ballsy copyright infringement, and the most isolated credit to hit my top ten!

 

[JSMarsden]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Lap 1500, Puke, Pee, E-stop (Day 4-

Just a quick one as I'm unaware of anything like this - How do you get to 'marathon' sky rush as such (And whats to learn?) Is it a case of simply running around back into the queue and queuing back up? (I can't imagine this as there's no way you would fit that many rides in!) Sorry for the silly question that most people would probably know!

Ride looks ace, loving the seats!

 

[CanobieFan]

Re: Hostage in Hershey://Lap 1500, Puke, Pee, E-stop (Day 4-

The lighthouse ride at Morey's is a Heege Tower (now sold under Submit) (( the same company that builds all those butterfly coasters across Europe)) http://www.sunkidworld.com/sunkid-produ ... chnik.html

The towers are rather common around parks in Europe. As far as in the US, there's also one in Atlanta they just opened at a mall. Legoland in Florida also has three of them.