We’re in Pennsylvania! Specifically the city of Hershey, named after Milton Hershey who was the guy who created the chocolate company. If you like Hershey chocolate (and I don’t!) then you should visit this place since it’s the epicenter of their empire 🙂
We’re here for Hershey Park, the amusement park. It’s big and loud and famous for its many rollercoasters, and we came here specifically to visit and ride them.
But first we had to ride the Hershey’s Chocolate Tour in ‘Hershey’s Chocolate World’, which is a gigantic shop/attraction right next to the main park. This tour consists of riding self-propelled carriages through a dramatization of one of their chocolate factories and is narrated by some of their super-creepy characters. With more than a hint of Disney, this ‘ride’ was fairly well done for a free attraction and I think would dazzle a child.
We lined up at the entrance gates before opening, and as soon as they opened we legged it to Fahrenheit, the coaster shown above. I picked this one first since it usually has the longest lines (2.5 hours yesterday!) and I was able to hop right on with no wait. It’s an intense ride with an initial vertical climb, a 97 degree drop and many inversions and once or twice I was pretty sure the car had derailed. One of the more thrilling coasters I’ve ever ridden, this was a great first ride and I highly recommend it!
Next was Great Bear, another monster coaster with many inversions and a high amount of disorientation. It’s an ominous ride that makes a distinctive roaring noise due to the wheel/track design and it includes many moments when your (hanging) feet feel only centimeters away from obstacles. But – perhaps due to the fact I didn’t have my glasses on or because I was hot and thirsty – when I got off I was very dizzy and light-headed, so it was time for lunch and a break!
The park is big and mazelike, and while it has a great app with an interactive map, it’s a real challenge getting around. There’s loads of rides (I think about 45?) including the coasters, and all the usual other attractions common in theme parks such as games, characters, food galore and even an attached mini zoo!
Oh and I couldn’t resist posing with a bunch of characters. They’re all hideous creatures of nightmare, but were I to pick a favourite it would be this Twizzler even though the red ones are abominations. But I suppose they wouldn’t make a black Twizzler mascot since everyone knows black Twizzlers are laxatives 😉
After lunch I rode Wildcat, which is a wooden coaster that closes permanently in less than a week. There was essentially no line and it seemed almost abandoned, and after I rode it I knew why: this was a seriously uncomfortable ride! It’s apparently infamous as one of the worlds roughest, and my body was thrown left and right like a boneless puppet as the car whipped around the track. It was painful, and put me off wooden coasters for the rest of the day! Only ride this if you have a deathwish!
While Kristin went on none of the three I’ve described (she waited patiently with my glasses since they don’t let yet you wear them on intense rides), we both rode many other rides, including two other coasters (the Wild Mouse was terrifying!), a crazy log flume and a few others. We also visited the zoo, which was underwhelming since half the animals are off-exhibit due to an avian flu and the others were hiding due to the extreme heat.
And when I say extreme heat, I mean the life-draining kind. There was a short rainstorm mid morning, but by noon the heat had returned with a vengeance, by mid afternoon it had become unpleasant, and by late afternoon we were both near exhaustion! It was time to leave so we could laze in the hotel room like blobs.
But there was still 4 or 5 other rollercoasters to try out, as well as some other rides and attractions. And there’s even an attached water park with its own series of water slides and other rides! We’d been going 8 hours but hadn’t seen everything…
It’s a good thing therefore we got two-day tickets so we can return to ride the rest tomorrow 🙂