Alexander: For many, one of the highest-anticipated coasters of 2020 is Hersheypark’s Candymonium B&M Hyper. Eager to check it out for ourselves, we raced over to Hersheypark shortly after they reopened to the public in early July.
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The changes made to the park since our last visit (2017) are dramatic. 
Chocolatetown is a beautiful (and far more functional) entrance plaza for Hersheypark, though we do miss the quaint, Bavarian architecture and mature trees of the former 1970s-era entrance.
Lots of work is still being done in Chocolatetown, but once all of the touches are in place we expect it will look radiant. 
First order of business: the new guy.
First impressions of Candymonium were good. It reminded us fondly of Mako, which is only a few blocks from where we live. We’ve got a LOT of Candymonium photos throughout the report, so we’ll elaborate more on our opinions of the ride later. 
While initial rides on Day 1 of our visit were positive, we found park riddled with closed attractions as the day wore on. Storm Runner and SooperdooperLooper remained closed as expected, but Sidewinder, Wildcat, Wild Mouse, Cocoa Cruiser, half of Lightning Racer, the park’s new-for-2019 water coaster and mat racers, and numerous other rides and attractions were unexpectedly closed.
We realize that staffing on the park’s first Tuesday of the season (particularly given the circumstances of 2020) was a hard position to be in, so we simply crossed our fingers and hoped for more rides to be open the following day (Spoiler: Sidewinder, Wildcat, and the other side of Lightning Racer did in fact open and all 3 gave excellent rides). 
We want to point out that, with this being my 5th visit to Hersheypark in the last 15 years, most of the rides here are performing better than I’ve ever personally experienced. 
Great Bear, for example, was running incredibly and forced us to really reconsider our US B&M Invert Top 5. 
Hershey’s wood coasters and B&M coasters are pretty much best case scenario right now, and Skyrush still offers a thrilling (if a bit shaky) ride. 
It’s no surprise that the “Intamin Rattle” has found its way onto Skyrush, but we wouldn’t say it’s enough to really detract from the ride (unlike Farenheit).
We focused a lot on Candymonium, Skyrush, Great Bear, and Coal Cracker this visit, and really we can never have too man laps on these rides.
Our evening rides on Candymonium proved even more charming than our initial mid-afternoon rides, and with 3-train ops and low attendance, rerides were plentiful.
Are you enjoying this “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Sunset” as much as we are? It means the park is closing soon, but we’ll be back early tomorrow for more!
Click here for Day 2 of our Hersheypark 2020 visit!