| Average Wait | Coastline Plunge - Riptide | Hershey Triple Tower - Reese's Tower | Tea Cups | Cocoa Cruiser | Sweet Swing | Skyview | Great Bear | Intercoastal Waterway | Kissing Tower | Coastline Plunge - Whirlwind | Tidal Force | Breakers Edge Water Coaster | Coastline Plunge - Surge | Hershey Triple Tower - Hershey's Kisses Tower | Coastline Plunge - Pipeline | Carrousel | Fender Bender | Coastline Plunge - Hydro | Tilt-A-Whirl | Trailblazer | sooperdooperLooper | Monorail | Wild Mouse | Livery Stables | Fahrenheit | Scrambler | East Coast Waterworks | Coastline Plunge - Vortex | The Shore | Shoreline Sprayground | Sandcastle Cove | Bayside Pier | Tiny Tracks | Mini Scrambler | Starship America | Ferris Wheel | Music Express | The Howler | Whip | Twin Turnpike - Classic Cars presented by Sunoco | Twin Turnpike - Speedway presented by Sunoco | Whitecap Racer | Lightning Racer | Comet | Mix'd Flavored By Jolly Rancher | Helicopters presented by Penn State Health | Granny Bugs | Traffic Jam | Red Baron | Laff Trakk | The Claw | Misfit Bug | Skyrush | Reese's Cupfusion | Candymonium | Frontier Flyers | Space Age | Hershey Triple Tower - Hershey's Tower | Mini Himalaya | Storm Runner | Balloon Flite | Convoy | Dizzy Drums | Pony Parade | Swing Thing | Minty Bees | Mini Pirate | Pirate | Dry Gulch Railroad | Wildcat - Closing July 31 | Wave Swinger | Coal Cracker | Jolly Rancher Remix | Frog Hopper |
Lines for major coasters (such as The Great Bear) were completely full. Line went out all the way across the street into the arcade area. Average wait times were 130 minutes.
Like the park but if you want to ride more than 4 or 5 larger rides during the day you have to buy fast track. It is not uncommon to se 1.5 to 2 hr lines. As a kid I don’t ever recall wait times like this ever at any of the parks I went to.
As a former employee – and season pass holder for over 10 years – I can tell you that the best times to go are during weekdays. As soon as July 4th rolls around it’s almost always full. Weekdays are usually good in July and August, but it gets busy beyond belief toward the later part of the week. A typical Saturday in July and August can attract upwards of 30,000 people so just don’t bother then. Sunday’s in June are usually pretty decent if you cannot make it in during the week.
When looking for rides, most people stop immediately at the front of the park. Candymonium, Comet, Great Bear are usually super busy to start. Farenheit, which is smack in the middle, is ALWAYS busy. The back of the park that houses the Wild Cat, Wild Mouse, Lightning Racer is usually always dead. The busiest rides for some odd reason are the Reese’s Cup Challenge and Laugh House. Laugh House is fun, but not sure if it’s worth a near two hour wait.
The biggest issue the park has now is that they will not reopen to normal hours from 2019. Normal hours were from 10am to 10pm, and you could get a good amount of rides done without worrying about lines. Even with passes, it feels like my wife and I have to make determined efforts on what we want to ride and focus on those. Anything beyond that is a bonus.
The “water park” is not worth it at all. It’s a small, jumbled mess that’s hard to navigate. And, again, with the condensed operating times, it’s almost not worth it to try to do the water park and the rest of the park in one day. Pick your battles. Dorney Park is not too much further away and has much better water attractions in my opinion.
Food service can be confusing as well, but that’s because there is literally no line control for anything. Food itself is what it is, and the pricing you’re paying isn’t great. But, there are a decent amount of options all around.
Hopefully someone finds this information useful and you can plan accordingly. These tips have helped me keep my sanity for the 20 years I’ve been associated with the Park in some form or fashion, so I hope they can be helpful to you.
5/31/2022 Ghost town rating for Hershey Park is not accurate and should be changed to “Yup it’s packed”. From 11am to 4pm there were lots of school field trips that were driving wait times to 45 minutes + on popular rides. Candymonium was over 135 min wait at one point. These groups are easily identifiable by their matching shirts signifying what school they are from.
Thursday, end of May. Overcast day. Mid-60s. Lines are awful.
The park is always overcrowded, there are lots of rides normally closed, the food is terrible, and everything is extremely overpriced. Go to Knoebels instead.
I bought a Season Pass, but definitely am regretting it so far… I go to a lot of amusement parks and have had season passes to several other theme parks including Six Flags, Disney, Universal, etc. Between the app telling me that the wait times are 5 minutes when the line took 45 minutes (this happened repeatedly), to the fact that the crowd levels were crazy for early May (larger crowds than I sometimes see at Disney in June) which is compounded by not many rides and places to eat being open (there were literally no places to eat with a line less than 45 minutes long), this park was poorly run. In addition, many times I witnessed children (not accompanied by adults) cutting in line with no consequences.
Way too crowded today. Every school in area must have field trips. Food lines are easily 45 minutes. App wait times are not even close to accurate. Candymonium is over 70 minutes, Comet is 60, Great Bear is 90.
Extremely Crowded
Packed on labor day. 2 hr wait on coasters