Hershey Park

What could be better than a city full of roller coasters and chocolate? Perhaps eating chocolate while on a roller coaster!?! On second thought, maybe that isn’t such a good idea…

Two weekends ago Steve and I had the opportunity to enjoy a city full of both of those things. That’s right, Hershey, Pennsylvania – a city full of chocolate and roller coasters! I’m guessing you knew that Hershey, PA is home to the famous Hershey’s Chocolate factory, but did you know that it’s also home to a theme park? That’s right, Hershey’s Park is a theme park located in the famous Hershey, PA, and I’m guessing you can figure out what the theme of the park is. That’s right…chocolate! Instead of life size characters walking around the park, there were chocolate bars. They also put a fun twist on ride height requirements. When you first walk in the gate, you measure your height to determine what “brand” you were. I’m a little under 60″, so I was a Twizzler, meaning that I was tall enough to go on all rides with the Twizzler marking. Steve was a Jolly Rancher, and my favorite “brand” was the Hershey’s Miniatures for kids under 36″.

Not only did we just get to go to Hershey Park, but we got to go to Hershey Park before it was officially opened for the season. That’s right, we had the park to ourselves! Okay, maybe not completely to ourselves. Steve’s company, Northrop Grumman, rents the park every spring as an employee appreciation event, meaning the park was only open for Northrop Grumman employees. There were still a decent number of people there, but it was nowhere near the traffic of a normal Saturday.

A view of the park from the top of the Ferris Wheel!

Steve isn’t a big roller coaster guy, but I love them. I got him to go on one, but as soon as we got off he remembered why he doesn’t like roller coasters. Luckily we were able to meet up with one of Steve’s co-workers, Joel, who happened to love roller coasters. And just like Steve, his wife was not a fan. While we would have loved to ride the coasters with our spouses, Joel and I realized that wasn’t going to happen, so we ventured on a few coasters together. My favorite was called Fahrenheit. It has to be the fastest and smoothest roller coaster I have ever been on. And to add to the thrill, we managed to find our way in the very front car. Needless to say, it was AWESOME!

That’s right, that drop is steeper than straight down!

Physics buddies!

After a day full of rides, we headed over to Chocolate World. You used to be able to tour the actual Hershey’s Chocolate plant, but due to health regulations you can’t do that anymore, so they have created a mini-factory that you can tour. You simply get on a moving cart and it takes you through the process of making chocolate, and the best part is you get chocolate at the end!

Singing animatronic cows…you don’t get better than that!

And now for some Hershey fun facts!

• Hershey Park was founded in 1905 by Milton Hershey for the employees of Hershey factories to enjoy
• Milton Hershey founded a school for underprivileged kids in Hershey, PA which is still operating today
• Milton and Catherine Hershey, Milton’s wife, had tickets for the maiden voyage of the Titanic, but had to cancel their reservations because Catherine was sick

Milton S. Hershey

Until our next adventure,

Amanda