Many if not all of the reviews of the park mention trains every hour, all night long keeping them awake. If the trains are keeping you awake, you did not open and close Hershey Park with two teens, a tween and a 6 yr old. I know the trains ran because when I woke up in the middle of the night, I would hear one before I went back to a very sound sleep.
Since they are part of the "Hershey Family", there is a free shuttle bus every half hour. So we saved $12. parking every day. $24. a day when Tom and the kids were with us!
ALSO they have "Sweet Passes" which allow you into a portion of the park a full hour before it opens to the public. The section that opened early had three roller coasters and two of them were the only coasters in the park that my grandson, Ben was big enough to ride! By the time the common people were allowed in, he had 3 or 4 rides on each. We were so busy trying to keep up with Emily and the three grandkids that we only took one picture of the kids - a "glamour" shot of Casey and Emily about to get launched on the Storm Runner.
Tom did buy a picture from the Coal Cracker ride - Hershey's answer to a log plume. Here I am with Tom and all three grandkids, Casey, Sarah and Ben.
The 7 of us had a wonderful time. The very first coaster that Emily and I went on was the newest one, Sky Rush. We agreed that it beat anything that Busch Gardens Williamsburg had. We said that over and over as we sampled the other 10 roller coasters that we rode.
The third day the three of us were alone again. But we were pretty well done with rides. So we watched almost all of the shows and strolled around the park. Our favorite show, by far was "The Milkmen." And not just because that's the business my dad owned when I was a kid. They were talented and it was obvious that they were having as much fun doing the show as we were having watching it.
We got to meet many of the Hershey characters.
This picture of the three of us was taken by one of the characters who was out of costume and done for the day. It was funny that he was quite shy - out of costume.
The BEST picture, taken by Carol of course, is of this coaster at sunset.
Our cheapie digital camera has a VERY SLOW shutter response so this picture with the coaster upside down on the loop is an especially good shot.
I'm going to try to put at least one in-between in each and every blog.
Here are two from Hershey - When Tom and Ben and I went to ride on the Giant Swing, the gate attendant said Ben was too small. Never mind that he'd ridden earlier. Neither Tom nor I said anything. We just let Ben look at her with those big blue eyes. She had a measuring stick that looked like a shepherd's crook except with a right angle at the top. She asked Ben to put his heels together and stand real tall. Still too short. Then she asked him to step onto a platform so that the bottom of the stick and his feet were exactly even, By now the supervisor from the control booth was watching. The attendant turned Ben so that the supervisor was looking at the edge of the stick. Then she TILTED it over ever so slightly and it brushed Ben's hair. I said, "Thank you." She winked and said, "You're welcome. Have a great day at Hershey Park." I HATE IT when someone does something especially nice but you can't write a letter to their employer to commend them because they broke a rule to do it.
#2. Emily and I were in line for a coaster and got talking to the lady and her 6 yr old daughter. After a comment about the "Height Nazis" she said, "Yeah. Sarah is an identical twin. But her sister is a half inch shorter and can't ride most of the coasters. Dad has her in the Kiddie section." Nice lady. We talked about where you from, etc. Three or four hours later Emily and I were in another coaster line. We'd been in it about 15 minutes when it stopped moving. People from in front of us started pushing their way back to leave. They said the ride was closed and no one could tell them for how long. We waited another 10 minutes or so and decided to leave too. Halfway out of the cue we saw our lady with the twin daughter. I said, "Might was well give up on this one. It's stopped." She said, "No. NO. Get back to your spot in line. We asked before we got in line. Some kid got a bloody nose. They'll be running again in a few minutes." We pushed our way back to where we'd been standing and since so many people ahead of us had given up, we were on the ride in 5 minutes.
Up and out early Friday, the 17th to go to Patapsco State Park near Baltimore via Gettysburg.
Yes, I'll drive 34 miles out of my way to avoid I-695 around Baltimore.
Life is so good.
