
We have always thought about Parkcation as a site about our adventures in the national parks and other sites in the national park system plus related organizations (national forests, national wildlife refuges). But from time to time we like to visit other “parks” with our family – zoos, amusement parks and urban/suburban parks for example. The Saturday of Labor Day Weekend this year was one of those times, as we stayed close to home and headed out to Hershey to celebrate my parents 50th anniversary at Hershey Park.
Hershey is an unincorporated community east of Harrisburg that became the home of the Hershey confectionary company’s corporate headquarters because of the many dairy farms in the area. It is also home to Hershey Park, a large amusement park in Central Pennsylvania, and Hershey Lodge, a hotel, resort and convention center. Hershey is about 90 minutes from our house outside of King of Prussia.
My father really wanted to go, and the kids love parks, so we tagged along for an evening at the Hershey Lodge the night before, followed by a full day at Hershey Park. The hotel has a water park that the kids spent more than an hour at and loved. Before we had dinner and collapse in our hotel room to get some sleep before the big day.
The hotel has a shuttle to the park, which we took to save the parking fee. It was pretty convenient for us, and dropped us off not far from the entrance. I had never been to Hershey Park, and I was very excited as we headed there to be able to enjoy some good chocolate throughout the day. I am not sure that really worked out until the end of the day when we stopped at Chocolate World. But I didn’t know that until much later.
We took some photos of the family at the entrance to the park, and then headed toward some of the rides for small kids. The next stop was to continue into the park and we ended up wandering into ZooAmerica to explore. It was included in our admission so why not!
The Hershey Park Zoo covers 11 acres and has more than 200 animals so it took some time to get through, and then we headed back to the main park to find some lunch. Since it was Labor Day weekend, it was pretty crowded and we ended up grabbing Subway near the 1806 Grill because it had a shorter line then everywhere else. My dad also picked up some chocolate to snack on, and I was thrilled.
After lunch, we checked the weather and it looked like it was going to rain later so we made the executive decision to hustle over to the water park area and change into our swimsuits. After a little bit chasing the kids around some of the children’s splash areas, we settled into some inner tubes on the lazy river and went around about three times until we were chased out of the pool by the lifeguards concerned about rain.
We grabbed an afternoon snack while it was raining and sat under the sun shades. Not long after the rain paused with another storm coming in, and we decided to head for the entrance and Chocolate World. Chocolate World was pretty busy at the time but we decided that we had plenty of time left in the day in order to wait in the half hour line and do the chocolate tour, and after getting our Hershey kiss at the end we split up to buy some chocolate. I ended up standing in line for a chocolate milkshake with a fun commemorative 50th on the cup in order to give it to my parents to keep to celebrate their anniversary.