Dorney Park 06/04/06 - Dutch Wonderland 06/05/06 Hershey Park 06/06/06

My wife, 2 year old son, and I went to Dorney Park on Sunday 06/04/06 and all we could say was WOW! What a great park, when we pulled in the park it looked small and we thought we would be done in 3-4 hours. Nope, we were there till closing begging for me. Very clean, nice variety of rides, they have the best log ride I have ever been on "Thunder Creek Mountain" if you ever have a chance stop in for a ride! We enjoyed it more than Cedar Point and we are big Cedar Point fans, visiting at least once a week.

We then went to Dutch Wonderland kids amusement park (owned by Hershey Park), that was a very good time, our 2 year old enjoyed running around trying to catch the train. If you have a little one this is the place to take them. This is a Memphis Kiddie Park on steroids.

We then went to Hersheypark, what a dump and disappointment, we left after 2 hours. This has to be the worst laid out amusement park I have ever seen. 5 rides on top of each other, narrow midways, restaurants and food stands plopped down in any old place is not for me!

If I had the opportunity to go to Dorney Park or Cedar Point, I would go to Dorney any day! Kind of the way Cedar Point was during the 80's.

OK...Cedar Point beats the crap out of Dorney Park...16 roller coasters to ...what 7, And Hershey Park is not a bad park...STORMRUNNER, whatever.

Dorney Park is what Cedar Point once was, a smaller park with the Cedar Fair management! That is why I like it so much.

The employees seem to be in fierce competition with Cedar Point and want to do a better job operating the park, park cleanliness, smiling faces.

Cedar Point goes to extreme lengths to do this and yet Dorney Park tries to outdo them, it does show!

Not that the employees at Cedar Point are lazy, the employees at Dorney want to impress Cedar Fair and this is how they can do it!

Dorney park is about 1/3 the size of Cedar Point, but I had more fun at Dorney than at Cedar Point.

Hersheypark is a DUMP! I thought Six Flags "Waste of An Afternoon" was bad, believe you me this is worse. The only thing they have going for them is Mr Goodbar, Hershey Kisses, etc, that is why it is popular. Get rid of Hershey and all you have is GHETTO LAKE all over again, but worse!

I must say I strongly disagree about hershey, but whatever. I havent been there since 2004, but I thought they had a great selection of coasters with plenty to do. And a ride on Storm Runner beats a ride on Dragster any day.
*** Edited 6/16/2006 8:04:56 PM UTC by Jason1***

Being that I have a strong feeling Cedar Point is building something similar to Storm Runner as we speak, how is Storm Runner when it comes to the head banging factor? I generally dislike most looping coasters because of this. I thought the restraint system on Manhattan Express would avoid the head banging because the harness was relatively far from my head. This couldn't be further from the truth. It was one of the worst out there. What do you guys think?

There is nothing wrong with Hershey's coasters they are fine The Place Is A Dump with rides on top of each other, clustered so close together you travel over multiple rides.

Concession stands put in odd places, the park was laid out with no rhyme or reason!

Dorney has less rides and is a better overall experience than Hershey will ever be!

Seems most either hate of love Hershey from what I have heard.

Just Coasting said:
There is nothing wrong with Hershey's coasters they are fine The Place Is A Dump with rides on top of each other, clustered so close together you travel over multiple rides.

Concession stands put in odd places, the park was laid out with no rhyme or reason!

Dude, if you feel this way about Hershey (which I love), don't even think about going to Indiana Beach then. :)

-Tambo (who has yet to be disappointed going to an amusement park)

So your calling hershey a "dump" because its not laid out to your exact specifications? A little harsh id say, but to each his own I suppouse.

Hershey is like that because It doesn't have the room most other parks do and it is very hilly. I went there and the layout is the best it can be. It's the best it can be. I'd rather have a whole bunch of rides close then just a couple far apart. Also it was very clean and there weren't just stands in the middle of nowhere.

Also your trip report was more like a review. Missing many details.

Also this is for CP trip reports.
*** Edited 6/18/2006 1:44:39 AM UTC by Turbo Jaw***

#1 - I'm curious as to why you're posting a trip report about 3 parks other than CP on a Cedar Point website. There are many other coaster/amusement park websites to tell everyone about your experiences. i.e. www.coasterbuzz.com

#2 - I visited Dorney and Hershey last weekend myself. Everyone's opinion is going to be different, but you're crazy!

The g/f and I liked Hershey more than CP and that's saying alot. Dorney was very clean but all the hills were ridiculous. The waterpark was OK at best and if you're going to talk about "GHETTO" this is the park you should have attached that tag to.

#3 - As someone else mentioned, you should probably have somewhat of a clue what a trip report is before you go spouting off about how bad a park is and follow it up by...."This has to be the worst laid out amusement park I have ever seen. 5 rides on top of each other, narrow midways, restaurants and food stands plopped down in any old place is not for me!" Maybe they had that much room from the start.

Have you even taken the time to actually learn why Hersheypark is in existence? Maybe then you'll see why they have such little room.

All the rides at HP are great. I was a little disappointed in Great Bear only due to Raptor being so intense but Stormrunner more than made up for that.

Are trip reports from other parks discouraged here? I'm going on a seven day trip through New York and Pennsylvania in July, hitting at least 8 or 9 parks. I was thinking about compiling a trip report and posting it, but if that's frowned upon I'd like to know.

Generally, this is a Cedar Point fansite (and most things written on the site are about CP). I love hearing about people's trips to other amusement parks, however, many do frown upon posting trip reports from other park on this site. Maybe someone else can give you the official view on this topic, I don't know for sure.

In other words, I was very surprised to hear this about Hershey. I've never been there, but I thought the general concensus was that it is pretty good. Guess I'll have to go up there one day and find out! *** Edited 6/18/2006 11:49:41 PM UTC by Top Thrill 182***

For the most part, only Cedar Point trip reports should be posted. If it ties in with Cedar Point, though, sometimes we let it go. But in most cases, coasterbuzz.com is the place for non-CP trip reports.

*** Edited 6/18/2006 11:59:23 PM UTC by Walt***

Thanks, Walt. Roger wilco on that.