June 13th, 2001 (8:30-10pm)

After my green tag let myself and another co-worker go home early, I suddenly felt very, very glad that I had brought some "normal" clothes with me. You see, I wasn't getting picked up until 10pm, so I had an hour and a half of ride time!

I made my way down to the restrooms between the Comet and the 'Looper where I switched clothes, put my ID card in my backpack, and pulled out a fresh stick of chewing gum. I headed up to the Great Bear in a good mood. After walking through and empty queue, I came to <gasp> and EMPTY station! The Great Bear was a walk-on... or would've been, had I not waited for the front seat.

The front seat is the ONLY way to ride the 'Bear. I only had a 6 train wait, which came out to be about 10 minutes. Not bad considering I had to wait 1:20min for my last front-seat ride! The Great Bear was "great" as usual. Not my favorite invert, not even my favorite ride in the park, but the 'Bear is still the only decent looping coaster in the park.

I decided to head down to the Comet for some re-ride action. I bolted up the queue ramp to the station, which was almost empty anyway. I grabbed a backseat walk-on ride. The back of the Comet is MUCH more intense and gives waaay more airtime than the front. After arriving at the station, there were other patrons waiting for the back seat, so I jogged around back to the entrance. I got in line for the back seat once again and hopped on the next train in the station for another excellent Comet ride.

Upon arriving back at the station, there were a few people, but none of them were waiting for the back seat! Re-ride.. here I come! ... or so I thought.

Me: "Can I re-ride, there's nobody in line for my seat."
Ride-op: "Sorry, no re-rides."
Me: "Fine."

So... I run around, back through the entrance, up the queue, and get on the back seat of the Comet for my third time of the night. Once again, I got back to the station and there was, literally, nobody at all in the queue or coming up the ramp!

"Nope, no re-rides, sorry."
I, of course, can't do anything about it, so I walk up the exit, but I linger around just long enough to watch an empty train make it's way up the lift. Grr....

After that annoying chain of events surrounding the Comet, I hurried over to the sooperdooperLooper to find <surprise> there was no line. I walked right on to the front seat and had a pretty good ride. I was going to re-ride it, but there were a few people waiting for the front seat, and I didn't feel like bothering to ride in any seat but the front.

I walked, once again, up the hill to the Great Bear for one last front seat ride. I waited for only 2, yes 2, trains before I was in the front seat climbing the hill. The Great Bear, unlike virtually every other rollercoaster I've been on does not seem to go any faster at night than it does during the day.

So... despite running into some odd Comet re-ride rule that I was unaware of, I still had an awesome hour and a half of riding at Hersheypark.