Hershey, Pennsylvania

June 8th, 2018.

Hershey, Pennsylvania. Rumor has it that you can smell the sweet smell of chocolate just driving through the city. Okay, maybe not. However, what they do have is the home of the Hershey company, as well as HersheyPark. HersheyPark was established in 1907, I was personally one year too late to celebrate their big 110 year anniversary. But anniversary or not. It was still lots of fun and a great site to see.

This is where my good friend Taylor, the Pennsylvanian local, and I decided to spend our first full day together in Pennsylvania. We headed off early that morning for the over hour drive to the park. What are some of my first impressions you may ask? Well I was shocked at how expansive the area looked. It sort of reminded me of the themed parks in Wisconsin Dells. I did however felt like a kid again walking among the Hershey characters and having the my entire self surrounded by all sorts of candy. Upon the time when we were first entering HersheyPark, there were multiple long lines of people all throughout the entrance. Word of the wise, go later in the summer because schools start getting out towards the beginning of June and are taking their end of the year school trips. There were honestly so many school groups that I couldn't count all of them on my own two hands. However, due to the park being fairly large, everyone was fairly dispersed and there was plenty of room to move.

Right when you walk in, you have the Hershey's Chocolate World directly on your right. Inside there is a variety of things you can partake in. These things go from the chocolate tour ride, creating your own candy bar, the 4D Chocolate Mystery, the Chocolate Tasting Experience, or the Hershey Trolly Works. They also have a massive area within this building of all of Hershey's candies along with merchandise that go along with the their main candies like Hershey, Reeses, Twizzlers, etc. Taylor and I partook in the chocolate tour ride. Before you even get to the tour, they have a long walk way showing off some of the history of Hershey and a photo booth for photos with your family where you purchase them at the end of the ride. The tour ride actually ended up taking quite a bit of time to complete. You hop in one of their many candy themed vehicles and go along the process of how their chocolate is made. Along side you watch animatronics explain the process as well as a screen within your vehicle to follow along with some more of the extensive processes. Afterwards we stopped by the store to grab some goodies. I got a Hershey, Pennsylvania t-shirt (because I'm a sucker for location shirts), a small Hershey shot mug, and a bag of watermelon Twizzlers.

Immediately after Hershey's Chocolate World, you walk into this cute little old time Hershey village. There are a ton of small shops here that primarily carry HersheyPark themed goodies. I grabbed a few postcards to savor some memories, a Hershey stuffed dolled for my niece, a HersheyPark shirt for my mom and a HersheyPark off brand Monopoly game for my collection. As you go through the park, you're going to come across food stands, small rides like merry go-rounds and your bigger rides like roller coasters. Taylor and I decided to skip over all the rides towards the beginning and instead we went straight for the Boardwalk, HersheyPark's water park, that is located on the other side of the park.

The HersheyPark waterpark has a huge selection of water slides, a lazy river, a splash pad, a wave pool, and so many more awesome water rides. Before heading onto any of the rides, we grabbed a locker which had costed us near $15 for a small one that we could have all day. A little steep if you ask me, but what can you expect at major attractions? We managed to shove all of our things into the small locker and then we went on our way. We went on two water slides only because one ended up taking 45-60 minutes to get onto. Afterwards we took a few laps on the lazy river and then ended up at the wave pool for a little bit. This concluded our day, so we went to go grab our belongings and went to go back to the entrance of the park so we could do any final visits within the beginning.

All in all, I had a great time in HersheyPark. Would I go back again? Absolutely. HersheyPark has far more attractions in and around the park that I didn't even get to experience. Such as ZooAmerica, the all new Hershey's Chocolatetown coming in the Summer of 2020, Hershey Gardens, The Hershey Story museum and you can do all of these things while staying at the parks resort call Hotel Hershey. HersheyPark is great for all ages, young and old. I personally can't wait for my return in the years to come.