Hutch
Strata Poster
After the post-wedding brunch on Saturday morning, my plan was to spend the rest of the day at Hersheypark. On the way over, I ended up popping into another park that was never really on my to-do list.
I knew two things about Dutch Wonderland that don’t go well together: they have a few family creds, and they’re way too expensive. Normal admission is $70, which is basically theft, and parking is $20. That’s more than what I paid for in admission and parking at Hersheypark. Now Dutch Wonderland turned out to be lovely, but the fact that they view themselves at the same value as Hersheypark, which is in the same region, is just wild.
With that pricing, I NEVER would have bothered. Fortunately, I saw that Dutch Wonderland was offering half-off tickets for the Halloween season. Additionally, I realized there was a strip mall across the street from the park, so I could just park there for free and walk across the street. Admission ended up being about $40, which was about what I paid at Nick U for the same amount of creds. Still not exactly cheap, but I might as well check off this park while I can save $50.
As I mentioned earlier, the park was very charming.
What would be a bit of an afterthought at any other park, Merlin’s Mayhem is the centerpiece here.
I believe this is the only S&S suspended coaster? It’s a decent family coaster. There’s a pretty solid helix midway through, and there’s some decent theming in the queue and station.
It’s better than some of the older Vekoma SFC models, but it’s not as good as the Orkanen models. The seats in the train feel a little tight and hard, and there’s a minor rattle. Obviously that’s not a big problem since it’s not an intense ride.
I thought that Kingdom Coaster was like one of the kiddie PTC woodies (probably because of the color scheme), but it’s actually somewhat legit: full size trains with buzz bars! I found out after the fact that it was CCI’s first coaster, which explains the funky drop and corners.
Other than a fun surprise pop at the end, there wasn’t a whole lot of airtime. I did get caught off guard by the flat turn at grade though.
Being the bad good I am, I ended up passing on the other kiddie cred. Honestly, I felt kind of gross walking around this park being a grown adult by myself. Pretty much everyone I saw in the park were tied to a family or children, and I just didn’t feel right being there. It’s the same reason why I stopped riding kiddie coasters for the +1, unless I’m with others. I was actually planning to ride it anyway, but I just wasn’t feeling good about it. I considered it if nobody was around, but there were consistently families and kids queuing up for it.
So I ended up just getting a second ride on Kingdom Coaster, mainly to try to make that $40 ticket entry more worth it, but I also wanted to get going to Hersheypark.
Despite being one of my favorite parks with one of the best coaster lineups, it seems I can only get here once every four years. I'd love to visit more frequently than that… Definitely wanted to get back in 2020 for Candymonium, but obviously a pandemic happened. Was gonna try again in 2021, but Skyrush and I believe Storm Runner were broken, so that effort wouldn’t be worth it. And 2022 wound up being a pretty crazy year for parks for me, so I figured I’d wait another year. Plus, my patience rewarded me with a heavily rumored RMC addition.
Funny enough, a B&M hyper and an RMC of Wildcat were the two models I had loved to see Hersheypark get, and here we are now. Pretty sweet +2 if you ask me, and of course I’ll get to be reaquainted with Skybitch.
Since I’ve done some Hersheypark PTRs in the past (if I'm bothered to go back and find it I'll put the link here), I’ll mainly be focusing on the new creds, but also because I didn’t do a whole lot else anyway. I got to the park at around 2:30, with plans to stay until closing. You’d think that’d be more than enough time to do plenty of stuff, especially since I wasn’t cred running. But the park was absolutely slammed, being a Saturday at the start of their Halloween season. Everything—even stuff like Lightning Racer and SooperDooperLooper—were listed at hour+ waits. Now I love the coaster lineup here. Most everything here is pretty good and worth doing if you can, but with waits like these I’d much rather wait and get multiple rides on my favorites. It really shows how good the coaster lineup is when I didn’t even prioritize a single ride on either Storm Runner or Fahrenheit.
Dodging between the masses of people, I eventually made it to this thing:
And OH MY GOD, my Top 10 is in trouble.
I can only count on one hand the number of rides that became instant Top 10 material after a single ride. Wildcat’s Revenge is one of them. I was pretty shook on the brake run. The last couple of elements in particular really took me by surprise.
Everything hits. As expected, the airtime hill under the stall and the kinky double down were highlights. I love it when RMC just does simple mid-sized camelbacks, like you find on Storm Chaser, Twisted Timbers, or Goliath. With the hill being half the height of the first drop, you explode out of your seat, rising closer to that headchopper from the stall.
Speaking of the stall, that and the first inversion offer some nice floatyness and contrast very well with the more whippy and lateral-heavy rolls at the end.
The kinky double down is honestly a recipe for a hip replacement, but I didn’t find it uncomfortable at all. There’re some other elements on other RMCs that are a bit awkward, but this one works just right, adding a bit of spiciness to some already welcome ejector.
The wave turns in between are also very good. Perhaps not as memorable as other moments, as they serve as transitions in between the heavy hitters. But that extra shaping turns an otherwise simple turnaround into a playful pop of airtime. The second wave turn actually has a pretty strong yet brief pop.
Somehow, exiting the last inversion crunches you into some sharp positive g-forces, which I didn’t know RMC could even do. This is what caught me off guard on my first ride, with the ride folding me down before yanking me out in another wild airtime hill before the brakes. Amazing.
The other little surprise was that this has by far the best pre-lift section on any RMC. None of the dumb bunny hops, but it gets some decent speed and with the good use of terrain, the turns are actually pretty fun.
I only managed to get a couple rides on it. Both of my waits were over an hour, with my night ride being an hour and a half. The night ride in particular had the structure lights off too, and that's when it broke its way into my Top 5. Both of my rides were in the back car. I've heard great things about the front, but the back was so good that thought I’d stick with what I know.
I guess I’ll talk about the station setup. For the most part I think it’s some of the best we’ve seen for RMCs. For whatever reason, most parks, including Hersheypark, still like to do the “don’t pull down your lap bar until we check your seatbelt” method, which really slows things down (from what I remember Dollywood proved that it’s very easy to check the belt while the restraint is down). Thankfully the separate unload station really helps, allowing for three train ops. The throughput is still at the mercy of how fast the ops were, and they were generally inconsistent. During the day I saw the train sit on the brake run for a few minutes before moving, but in the station I saw some staff really moving. So they’ve definitely got some work to figure out. I can see it being really good.
The big problem I had with the queue was that the fast track can really slow down the standby wait. There’d be times where we’d sit in the main queue for quite a few minutes before moving a bit. It was especially annoying when trains were being sent out at a good pace, but the queue just not matching that efficiency. If it weren’t for fast track, you could probably shave off 20-30 minutes of wait time for everyone.
After my first ride on Wildcat, I wandered around trying to figure out what to do next. Went by Fahrenheit, Storm Runner, Great Bear, SooperDooperLooper, Skyrush… everything was just filled.
That brought me right back to the start with Candymonium. I need the cred… might as well wait for this one.
Ok so luckily the 60 min sign out front turned out to be an easy 20 min, so I got a couple rides, trying out both the back and front.
Aesthetically, I REALLY like the design of this. B&M hypers are naturally beautiful pieces of work, but this one had a couple other tidbits to make it all the more pleasant. Little river valley spanning the length of the course, solid architecture with the station building, and a panoramic helix welcoming your guests at the front of the park.
That might be the best thing I have to say about it unfortunately. It’s still a great ride, but after what I think is a home run in Mako, this just wasn’t hitting for me like it should.
It was all just middle of the road for me when it comes to B&M hypers. For a new ride, it already has a slight rattle, which is kind of concerning. Certainly nothing to ruin the ride (Diamondback and Goliath ride worse), but it was weird.
It has some great airtime, but perhaps not as many opportunities for airtime. You have the drop and big camelback, but the trim on the second camelback is distracting, and honestly the speed hill is a tad forgettable.
The only other airtime opportunities are another trimmed hill, and a gentle pop before the brakes. Hmmm.
The helices were okay. The first one has some minor positive gs, but the second one was all for the visual flair (which I don’t blame them for). I actually forgot about that funky banking exiting the first helix. They tried something different and it was a playful distraction.
It’s still a great ride (all B&M hypers are at the very least) and looks fantastic. Overall a great addition to the park (and perhaps the better investment than Wildcat). In my book, the RMC and I think all three Intamins are still my preferred choices.
With the new creds out of the way, it was time to reunite with my beloved.
Normally Skyrush wouldn't get a long queue, even on a busy day like this. But apparently they done f***ed one of the trains so it’s been on one train ops for some time now. Well, there’s another hour wait.
It was worth it though, and I got my back left wing seat. Went down that drop and first airtime hill. Yep. Still the second best coaster in the world.
I don’t know what it is, but everytime I visit Hershey and ride Skyrush the restraints get less and less painful to me. Maybe because this time it’s not the usual whore session I was hoping to get, but it was honestly fine. Hands up and all.
On the other end, it’s the first drop that somehow gets crazier and scarier each time. That shunt halfway down is a force of nature, unlike anything else in the world.
Luckily, after my nightride on Wildcat, Skyrush’s queue died down enough so I could get a few night rides. I stuck with the back row, and after what I thought would be my last ride, post-10PM, I managed to sneak onto the front for the next train they were loading. Great way to end the night!
Overall, today’s visit was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some not very fun waits, some aimless wandering trying to decide what to ride, and I missed out on a lot of the other good rides. I don’t regret skipping stuff like Storm Runner and Fahrenheit if it means I can get a few rides on Skyrush or a reride on Wildcat.
I’ll leave it at that. Unless I wind up doing another trip domestically this year, I think I may retire this thread. I’ve got a Netherlands trip coming up next week, but that’ll be its own dedicated thread as it’ll involve some city exploring as well. If you’ve kept up with me these past couple years, thank you!
I knew two things about Dutch Wonderland that don’t go well together: they have a few family creds, and they’re way too expensive. Normal admission is $70, which is basically theft, and parking is $20. That’s more than what I paid for in admission and parking at Hersheypark. Now Dutch Wonderland turned out to be lovely, but the fact that they view themselves at the same value as Hersheypark, which is in the same region, is just wild.
With that pricing, I NEVER would have bothered. Fortunately, I saw that Dutch Wonderland was offering half-off tickets for the Halloween season. Additionally, I realized there was a strip mall across the street from the park, so I could just park there for free and walk across the street. Admission ended up being about $40, which was about what I paid at Nick U for the same amount of creds. Still not exactly cheap, but I might as well check off this park while I can save $50.
As I mentioned earlier, the park was very charming.
What would be a bit of an afterthought at any other park, Merlin’s Mayhem is the centerpiece here.
I believe this is the only S&S suspended coaster? It’s a decent family coaster. There’s a pretty solid helix midway through, and there’s some decent theming in the queue and station.
It’s better than some of the older Vekoma SFC models, but it’s not as good as the Orkanen models. The seats in the train feel a little tight and hard, and there’s a minor rattle. Obviously that’s not a big problem since it’s not an intense ride.
I thought that Kingdom Coaster was like one of the kiddie PTC woodies (probably because of the color scheme), but it’s actually somewhat legit: full size trains with buzz bars! I found out after the fact that it was CCI’s first coaster, which explains the funky drop and corners.
Other than a fun surprise pop at the end, there wasn’t a whole lot of airtime. I did get caught off guard by the flat turn at grade though.
Being the bad good I am, I ended up passing on the other kiddie cred. Honestly, I felt kind of gross walking around this park being a grown adult by myself. Pretty much everyone I saw in the park were tied to a family or children, and I just didn’t feel right being there. It’s the same reason why I stopped riding kiddie coasters for the +1, unless I’m with others. I was actually planning to ride it anyway, but I just wasn’t feeling good about it. I considered it if nobody was around, but there were consistently families and kids queuing up for it.
So I ended up just getting a second ride on Kingdom Coaster, mainly to try to make that $40 ticket entry more worth it, but I also wanted to get going to Hersheypark.
Despite being one of my favorite parks with one of the best coaster lineups, it seems I can only get here once every four years. I'd love to visit more frequently than that… Definitely wanted to get back in 2020 for Candymonium, but obviously a pandemic happened. Was gonna try again in 2021, but Skyrush and I believe Storm Runner were broken, so that effort wouldn’t be worth it. And 2022 wound up being a pretty crazy year for parks for me, so I figured I’d wait another year. Plus, my patience rewarded me with a heavily rumored RMC addition.
Funny enough, a B&M hyper and an RMC of Wildcat were the two models I had loved to see Hersheypark get, and here we are now. Pretty sweet +2 if you ask me, and of course I’ll get to be reaquainted with Skybitch.
Since I’ve done some Hersheypark PTRs in the past (if I'm bothered to go back and find it I'll put the link here), I’ll mainly be focusing on the new creds, but also because I didn’t do a whole lot else anyway. I got to the park at around 2:30, with plans to stay until closing. You’d think that’d be more than enough time to do plenty of stuff, especially since I wasn’t cred running. But the park was absolutely slammed, being a Saturday at the start of their Halloween season. Everything—even stuff like Lightning Racer and SooperDooperLooper—were listed at hour+ waits. Now I love the coaster lineup here. Most everything here is pretty good and worth doing if you can, but with waits like these I’d much rather wait and get multiple rides on my favorites. It really shows how good the coaster lineup is when I didn’t even prioritize a single ride on either Storm Runner or Fahrenheit.
Dodging between the masses of people, I eventually made it to this thing:
And OH MY GOD, my Top 10 is in trouble.
I can only count on one hand the number of rides that became instant Top 10 material after a single ride. Wildcat’s Revenge is one of them. I was pretty shook on the brake run. The last couple of elements in particular really took me by surprise.
Everything hits. As expected, the airtime hill under the stall and the kinky double down were highlights. I love it when RMC just does simple mid-sized camelbacks, like you find on Storm Chaser, Twisted Timbers, or Goliath. With the hill being half the height of the first drop, you explode out of your seat, rising closer to that headchopper from the stall.
Speaking of the stall, that and the first inversion offer some nice floatyness and contrast very well with the more whippy and lateral-heavy rolls at the end.
The kinky double down is honestly a recipe for a hip replacement, but I didn’t find it uncomfortable at all. There’re some other elements on other RMCs that are a bit awkward, but this one works just right, adding a bit of spiciness to some already welcome ejector.
The wave turns in between are also very good. Perhaps not as memorable as other moments, as they serve as transitions in between the heavy hitters. But that extra shaping turns an otherwise simple turnaround into a playful pop of airtime. The second wave turn actually has a pretty strong yet brief pop.
Somehow, exiting the last inversion crunches you into some sharp positive g-forces, which I didn’t know RMC could even do. This is what caught me off guard on my first ride, with the ride folding me down before yanking me out in another wild airtime hill before the brakes. Amazing.
The other little surprise was that this has by far the best pre-lift section on any RMC. None of the dumb bunny hops, but it gets some decent speed and with the good use of terrain, the turns are actually pretty fun.
I only managed to get a couple rides on it. Both of my waits were over an hour, with my night ride being an hour and a half. The night ride in particular had the structure lights off too, and that's when it broke its way into my Top 5. Both of my rides were in the back car. I've heard great things about the front, but the back was so good that thought I’d stick with what I know.
I guess I’ll talk about the station setup. For the most part I think it’s some of the best we’ve seen for RMCs. For whatever reason, most parks, including Hersheypark, still like to do the “don’t pull down your lap bar until we check your seatbelt” method, which really slows things down (from what I remember Dollywood proved that it’s very easy to check the belt while the restraint is down). Thankfully the separate unload station really helps, allowing for three train ops. The throughput is still at the mercy of how fast the ops were, and they were generally inconsistent. During the day I saw the train sit on the brake run for a few minutes before moving, but in the station I saw some staff really moving. So they’ve definitely got some work to figure out. I can see it being really good.
The big problem I had with the queue was that the fast track can really slow down the standby wait. There’d be times where we’d sit in the main queue for quite a few minutes before moving a bit. It was especially annoying when trains were being sent out at a good pace, but the queue just not matching that efficiency. If it weren’t for fast track, you could probably shave off 20-30 minutes of wait time for everyone.
After my first ride on Wildcat, I wandered around trying to figure out what to do next. Went by Fahrenheit, Storm Runner, Great Bear, SooperDooperLooper, Skyrush… everything was just filled.
That brought me right back to the start with Candymonium. I need the cred… might as well wait for this one.
Ok so luckily the 60 min sign out front turned out to be an easy 20 min, so I got a couple rides, trying out both the back and front.
Aesthetically, I REALLY like the design of this. B&M hypers are naturally beautiful pieces of work, but this one had a couple other tidbits to make it all the more pleasant. Little river valley spanning the length of the course, solid architecture with the station building, and a panoramic helix welcoming your guests at the front of the park.
That might be the best thing I have to say about it unfortunately. It’s still a great ride, but after what I think is a home run in Mako, this just wasn’t hitting for me like it should.
It was all just middle of the road for me when it comes to B&M hypers. For a new ride, it already has a slight rattle, which is kind of concerning. Certainly nothing to ruin the ride (Diamondback and Goliath ride worse), but it was weird.
It has some great airtime, but perhaps not as many opportunities for airtime. You have the drop and big camelback, but the trim on the second camelback is distracting, and honestly the speed hill is a tad forgettable.
The only other airtime opportunities are another trimmed hill, and a gentle pop before the brakes. Hmmm.
The helices were okay. The first one has some minor positive gs, but the second one was all for the visual flair (which I don’t blame them for). I actually forgot about that funky banking exiting the first helix. They tried something different and it was a playful distraction.
It’s still a great ride (all B&M hypers are at the very least) and looks fantastic. Overall a great addition to the park (and perhaps the better investment than Wildcat). In my book, the RMC and I think all three Intamins are still my preferred choices.
With the new creds out of the way, it was time to reunite with my beloved.
Normally Skyrush wouldn't get a long queue, even on a busy day like this. But apparently they done f***ed one of the trains so it’s been on one train ops for some time now. Well, there’s another hour wait.
It was worth it though, and I got my back left wing seat. Went down that drop and first airtime hill. Yep. Still the second best coaster in the world.
I don’t know what it is, but everytime I visit Hershey and ride Skyrush the restraints get less and less painful to me. Maybe because this time it’s not the usual whore session I was hoping to get, but it was honestly fine. Hands up and all.
On the other end, it’s the first drop that somehow gets crazier and scarier each time. That shunt halfway down is a force of nature, unlike anything else in the world.
Luckily, after my nightride on Wildcat, Skyrush’s queue died down enough so I could get a few night rides. I stuck with the back row, and after what I thought would be my last ride, post-10PM, I managed to sneak onto the front for the next train they were loading. Great way to end the night!
Overall, today’s visit was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some not very fun waits, some aimless wandering trying to decide what to ride, and I missed out on a lot of the other good rides. I don’t regret skipping stuff like Storm Runner and Fahrenheit if it means I can get a few rides on Skyrush or a reride on Wildcat.
I’ll leave it at that. Unless I wind up doing another trip domestically this year, I think I may retire this thread. I’ve got a Netherlands trip coming up next week, but that’ll be its own dedicated thread as it’ll involve some city exploring as well. If you’ve kept up with me these past couple years, thank you!
