Hershey, PA: Hersheypark


We left Canada and headed for chocolate headquarters in southern Pennsylvania; the third park on our trip was Hersheypark.

On Tuesday, July 19th, we left Niagara Falls, Ontario, and crossed into Buffalo, NY, through what must have been the fastest-ever customs stop. We met one of Eric's friends, John, for brunch in Buffalo and started down to Hershey around 12 or 12:30pm. It is about a 5 hour drive (plus stops for food/gas).




We were trying to time entrance to the park to be around 5pm for their Sunset Pack tickets (turned out we wouldn't get into the park until 6 anyway thanks to Paul McCartney concert traffic). The Sunset Pack tickets are online-purchase only (no need to print them out - there are barcodes they can scan at the gate from your smartphone) and are valid for entrance after 5pm. The $31 package includes admission, a snack voucher (which included a ton of options including ice cream, which you can see we got above), and a game voucher for the game where you toss a ball and try to get it to stay in a ring. There is a sunset ticket (after 5pm) that you can buy for $30 that doesn't include the vouchers, and regular admission is $62, so we thought this was a pretty good deal. Parking was an additional $15.


We had probably an unusual experience with traffic getting into (and out of) the park because Paul McCartney was playing at their stadium. They used the same parking lot, that has only one road in and one road out, for both the concert and the park, so it took what felt like forever to get in and get to a parking spot. We also ran into traffic leaving since the concert got out at 11pm and Hershey's Chocolate World (which is right next door and we went to after the park closed at 10pm) also closes at 11pm. It took about 2 hours to get out of the parking lot. We weren't super happy about that, but we did get to hear a little bit of Paul McCartney live on the way to our car before the concert was over. Hopefully your parking experience is better!



We were very pleasantly surprised with Hersheypark (we didn't know what to expect) and (spoiler alert) if we hadn't gone to Cedar Point, this would have been my favorite park on the trip.

We rode 10 rides here:
We also went to Hershey's Chocolate World, a separate attraction that you don't need Hersheypark admission to (but I think you do have to pay for parking) that is right next to the entrance of the park. We did the free tour (there are lots of paid experiences to do, too) which is a ride in itself. 

We left the park about 10pm when it closed and went to Hershey's Chocolate World until almost 11pm (when it closed). We did feel rushed to do everything we wanted to in 4 hours (that extra hour we would have had if we had gotten here at 5 would have been nice) but we were able to do all the rides we wanted on a Tuesday night in the summer. I would enjoy coming back here (and am sad for all those years my grandparents lived in Harrisburg and we never went to Hersheypark!) and recommend it if you're nearby.

You can see Eric's roundup of Hersheypark here at his blog.
Hershey, PA: Hersheypark Hershey, PA: Hersheypark Reviewed by Maria on 1:00:00 PM Rating: 5

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