I visited both Hershey and SFGAdv in 2020 when both parks were under strict COVID restrictions, so keep in mind that my experience may be different from what yours would be. But, based on my experience, I would recommend SFGAdv. The park is massive, has so many coasters that I couldn’t even ride all of them in one day, and surprisingly, has several decently landscaped and themed areas. It’s still a Six Flags park through and through, don’t get me wrong, but I enjoyed exploring the park as well as the many different and unique rides they have to offer. They also have some rare attractions including a parachute tower, a Vekoma Madhouse, and a sky ride that travels across the park’s central lake. I think the lineup is even stronger now with the addition of Jersey Devil. Even if Kingda Ka is down, I don’t think that single ride makes the park. Also, in 2020, I thought the park generally had good operations.
By contrast, Hershey has some good rides, but I didn’t think the park itself is amazing amazing. Outside of a few areas, I didn’t find it particularly charming. There’s not much shade, and the layout is essentially an L-shape which requires a lot of backtracking. The big asterisk here is that when I visited, several of the coasters were closed, including Stormrunner and Sooperdooperlooper — I knew they were closed so it didn’t bother me much, but maybe without those rides, I missed out on some of the highlights. The rest of the coaster lineup is fairly solid, but nothing spectacular enough in my opinion that you can’t find elsewhere, including at SFGAdv. That said, Coal Cracker and Laff Track have my heart.
If you had time for both, I’d say go to both. Neither park is a bad park. But if I could only go to one again, I’d easily choose SFGAdv.
