HersheyPark

Visited: September 5, 2026

Attending: Just Brian

The sweetest place on Earth, so they say.

I've had a season pass to HersheyPark for a few years now. It made reasonable sense, as it's one of my "home" parks. (Hershey is 90 minutes west of my house; Great Adventure is 90 minutes east. Maybe calling both my home park is cheating, but geography supports me.) Unfortunately, I didn't make it out there at any point during summer of 2026. HersheyPark has a pretty good subscription service; they send me an email every month, and every time I start thinking that I haven't been there in a while, they send me a bring-a-friend ticket. However, I failed to find any friends to bring, and not for lack of trying. So when Labor Day weekend came around, I decided that I would just go by myself, and if I only spent an hour or two, that would be fine. I had some other errands in the area, more or less.

So I headed out on Saturday morning, hoping to arrive in time to take advantage of Sweet Start, when passholders get early admission. Unfortunately, I didn't get myself in gear quite in time, and then when I arrived, I ran into a bit of difficulty ensuring that my pass was properly activated. By the time I got all that settled, it was reasonable to just wait by the gate to the back half of the park, and head for Wildcat's Revenge as soon as it opened.

Wildcat's Revenge

Who's a cute baby Zadra? You are!

I've only had a couple of rides on Wildcat's Revenge in the past, neither from ideal seats. This time around, being solo, I decided to bring all my enthusiast savvy to bear. Which isn't much, really. I simply made a beeline for it and stowed my bag in a locker efficiently. The park was running three trains, and this early in the morning, it was a station-wait. I decided to go for the next-to-last row, and only had to wait one cycle. At this time of day, I'd have to say it was running "really fast" as opposed to "crazy fast," which was fine by me. I'm still a fan of the overly aggressive pre-lift, even by RMC standards. The underflip is fine; I wouldn't have minded if it were a standard roll. The airtime on the second hill may be my favorite bit; it's 100% pure air, no stunts, no tricks. The wall stalls are decent; RMC always does those right. And then there's the strange ejector hill with a small jerk to the left. That one makes me laugh every time. I don't think it's a deliberate reference to the sudden jerk the original ride had, but I like to imagine that it is. And then the ride gets angry for the last couple of inversions and ejector pops. It got my heart rate going, but was still tolerable enough that I went right back around.

Now that RMCs have been around for over a decade, it's easier to marathon one than it used to be. But I can still remember times when getting another round on Steel Vengeance or Twisted Timbers would mean another hour in line. So if I could lap an RMC, I was gonna do it. The ops were still cranking out trains, so I went for a front-seat ride, and only had to wait two cycles, perfect for catching my breath. It was more or less the same experience, with the exception of the first drop. That had a few seconds of hang-time, as one would expect. After that, more or less the same. It's kind of fun to go through the inversions with nothing in front of you, but it's not super-extreme.

I decided to go for one more lap, and figured I'd just take whatever row seemed open. To my surprise, not only was the next-to-last row available, but the air gates were still open, so I ended up getting a walk-on. Not much to report from that lap, but after three rides in the space of a few minutes, I felt satisfied.

Candymonium

No, I didn't ride it, but I went to the trouble to take this photo, so here it is.

I thought that getting a ride or two on Candymonium would be nice, and then I'd go run my errands. The HersheyPark app gave a 20 minute wait time when I got off Wildcat, but by the time I made it back to the front of the park, the wait had grown to 100 minutes. I like a good B&M hyper as much as most enthusiasts; more than most, I think. But over an hour and a half for a coaster at my home park? I think not. So I hit the gift shop, then Hershey's Chocolate World, bought way too much chocolate, and headed out for the day.