Mmmm... Chocolate

Hershey is truly the town that chocolate built. There are many attractions, but they all have Hershey in the title and at least some chocolate connections.

First and foremost is Hershey Chocolate World. This is the place where you get to take a tour of a pretend chocolate factory (it's more like a ride than anything). They have lots of opportunities to spend money (on photos and yummier things), but the tour is free (includes a free chocolate sample) and even the parking is free if you stay less than 2 hours. It is open year-round.

Hershey Gardens is also open year-round. The cost of admission is about for adults, less for kids. It is a collection of gardens with different themes. But, remembering this is Hershey, they also have a chocolate sidewalk and, of course, a chocolate-scented geranium. They have an awesome butterfly house, much better than several I've been to.

Hershey Park shares a parking lot with Hershey World. Hershey Park is an amusement park that has chocolate-based rides and games (they even gives kids candy names based on their height to know how tall they have to be to go on rides—you might need to be a Peanut Butter Cup to go on a ride, for example.) It is quite expensive (but standard theme-park pricing), and it is open seasonally.

There is a Hotel Hershey, but it is quite expensive. There are also Hershey outlet shops right behind Hershey Park (you can see the roller coaster from the parking lot). There are a few non-chocolate-based restaurants, etc.

Of course, all of these things came about because Hershey is the home of Hershey's real chocolate factory, and both it and the town are named after Mr. Hershey, who founded the chocolate factory.

Quick Tips:

If you go to Hershey World, there is free parking, but only for up to 90 minutes. After that, the price is about , so it is well worth it to get out before the free period is up.

We went around 9:30am. This was a great time to get because there were no lines. We were there on Labour Day, so school had already started up, and I'm sure that helped too. It was a beautiful day, though, and Hershey Park got quite busy later. We went straight on the Factory Tour "ride." There was no line at all. We decided to go on it again about a half-hour later and there was a line starting. The line moved quite quickly, though.

Getting on and off the tour ride is kind of tricky because it involves walking across a moving platform. You step off the stairs onto a revolving floor that is in sync with the cars going around on the tour. This means that the ride is continuous and doesn't need to stop to let people on and off. It is a bit tricky to navigate though.

Another free thing is the "factory worker" game for the kids. They each get a free hat and get to pretend to be factory workers. The line for this moves very slowly, though, because only four kids can go at a time. This one you want to make sure the line is short.

There are several places where they will try to convince you to buy things that are quite overpriced and unnecessary, like photos, for example. Save your money for the chocolate in the gift shop. Heck, save even more money and just eat the free samples from the tour.

The gift shop at Hershey Gardens sells butterfly guides for .50. If you have kids, though, splurge for the laminated version. They will loan you one at the butterfly house so you can identify the butterflies you see.

There are great hotels just a few miles away from Hershey central that are much less expensive than staying at Hotel Hershey.

Best Way To Get Around:

Pretty much the only way to get around is by car. Hershey Park and Hershey World share a parking lot, and you can walk from one to the other. The outlet mall is right beside the park, but because of the way the roads and parking lots work, it would not work well to walk there. Hershey Gardens is even farther away and uphill. A car definitely helps.

There is a tour, but that leaves from Hershey World and drives around the garden so you can get a glimpse. It costs about a head.

We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Harrisburg near Hershey so we could go visit the Hershey World attractions.

We checked in without any problems, got a cot and a playpen in our room. We had reserved a crib when we made the reservation, so it was already there. The cot was brought right down and the clerk helped move some chairs out of the way so we could get it set up next to the wall.

Then we tried to turn on the TV. The TV remote control didn’t work. We went to the desk, got another one, which also didn’t work. Went back to the desk, got a 3rd and finally 4th zapper. The 4th one was the charm, and it worked fine.

We were there on Labour Day, so the first morning breakfast was a zoo. They had the standard Comfort Inn fare, including eggs and waffles. The waffle line was huge, and continued to be huge throughout the morning. Most of the customers seemed to be families with kids going to or coming from Hershey.

One nice touch they had was flavoured creamers for the coffee, which was good because the coffee wasn’t.

The second morning there was much less traffic. Labour Day was over, Hershey Park was closed during the week.

The desk offered Hershey items for sale including t-shirts ($15) and teddy bears ($10).

The second night we were there I asked the desk to print out some directions for me, since we didn’t have Internet in the room. The desk clerk said she would do it, but it would take about ½ hour because their Internet connection was extremely slow. It was. I came back in about 1/4 hour and she did not have the printout yet. I came back a while later and she had it for me.

For comparison with other Comfort Inns:

Sign on the microwave: none
High-Speed Internet: none
Swimming pool: inside
In room extras: fridge and microwave
High Chairs at breakfast: several
Cost of room: $119
Cost of cot: $10

We decided to try Perkins Family Restaurant because it was right across the street from the hotel we were staying at. Perkins is a chain in the US that we'd never heard of before.

We were not sure what to think when we saw the portable church in the yard. (I have never seen one of those before, it was a converted 18-wheeler with a big sign that read "Mobile Chapel"), but we decided to give it a go anyway. As it turned out, Perkins is a combination family restaurant and bakery. They have several different varieties of pie in a cooler just inside the door. They all looked delicious. They sell pies by the slice or the whole pie to take with you.

The kids menu is great, with all day breakfasts, (our favourite). The 4-year-old had a Perky Bear Pancake, a pancake shaped like a bear's head covered in chocolate chips. What's not to like? The 8-year-old had a hamburger and side salad. The kids meals come with a choice of about 8 different sides, a drink, and a cookie. The cookies are excellent, and come in a few different varieties. My kids both chose the specialty cookie, which was half chocolate chip and half sugar stuck together. The kids could also trade in the cookies for an ice cream sundae, but for an additional fee. The kids meals were under $5 each.

Although I really like breakfast, we'd been eating a lot of waffles on our trip, so I had the steak tips and noodles. There were lots there for me to share some noodles with the baby. It was quite tasty, and the gravy was good on the noodles and the buns that came with it. Mom had some soup, which she also enjoyed. The steak tips were about $9.

The prices were quite reasonable, the waitress even gave the baby a cookie even though he didn't order a kids meal. We enjoyed it, but I again, didn't have room for pie. I have to start ordering dessert first, that's all there is to it.

We opted for the free ride through the pretend chocolate factory. Although Hershey World is right next to Hershey Park, and the 8-year-old wanted to go on the roller coasters, we convinced him that that was not the best option considering our group. Anyway, he liked the chocolate tour ride, so it was OK.

We got there around 10am, which is when the park next door opens, but there were no line-ups. (It was labour day and things were winding down a bit.)

There were several rides and things that cost a lot of money at Hershey World. There was a trolley tour that went up past the actual factory, a 3-D movie, etc. With the baby, we decided we'd just skip most of that and take in the free stuff.

The Factory Tour ride was lots of fun for everyone. Getting onto and off of the ride is a bit tricky because you have to walk across a moving floor. The floor is moving at the same speed as the ride (not very fast) so getting on the ride is fine, but getting onto the floor is weird. If you stand still, you keep moving, hard concept for the munchkins.

The ride takes you through the process of making chocolate from getting beans shipped from all over the world right up through packaging. My kids especially liked the 'singing cows' ... animatronic cows that kept singing "Hershey's Milk Chocolate tastes so good" and that my kids still sing whenever possible. The ride is really well done, sort of like a ride at Epcot centre or something, but about chocolate.

At the end of the ride you can buy a picture of yourself that was taken on the ride (expensive, we skipped it), then you get a free sample of chocolate on your way to the gift shop. The chocolate was a Halloween sized Take 5 bar. Quite yummy. You can't get off the ride without going through the gift shop ... they make you smell chocolate and then walk you right into a chocolate store .. hmmm.. marketing genius! :)

After that we went to a section where the kids got 'factory worker' hats and got to pretend to be on a production line. They got id card pictures taken, then filled little boxes with Hershey Kisses and shook them up. We were then given the option of buying the photos and chocolates. We passed again.

Next, we went back on the factory tour ride because we liked it (and it was free :). The line had picked up a bit but it was still only a couple of minutes wait. On the way out we did buy some chocolate bars and a mug as souvenirs. We got 4 giant bars for $7.99, and each bar was worth $2 easily.

Parking is free for the first 2 hours, so we didn't have to pay. If you stay and play at Hershey Park you do have to pay.

Hershey Gardens was a place we could go with the kids without paying an arm and a leg and get some exercise and fresh air. It is not far from Hershey Chocolate World and it overlooks Hershey Park.

When we first went in, there was a sign that told how Mr. Hershey had been asked to donate a public garden to Washington, DC. Mr. Hershey decided he'd rather plant a garden closer to home where the locals could enjoy it and Hershey Gardens was born. They have a beautiful collection of gardens, rose garden (based on Mrs. Hershey's rose garden), rock garden, herb gardens, etc. Of course, the kids were more interested in things they could do.

There was the best butterfly house that we've ever been to. We've been to several, one in Halifax, one at the National Zoo, but this one blew them away. There were hundreds of different butterflies of several species, many just hatching. (We got to see a butterfly hatch when we were there.) They even had a butterfly spotting guide that they give you on the way in so you can tell what kinds they are. You can purchase the guides in the gift shop (about $0.50 for paper, or $2 for laminated).

The best flower, in our opinion, was definitely the chocolate geranium. You could smell its chocolaty aroma from the Hershey Bar sidewalk. I don't think it would work so well in a home garden, because the smell could be overpowering, but beside a 'chocolate' sidewalk, it is perfect.

The kids also liked the Hershey Kisses that squirted air every couple of minutes. The kisses were about 2-3 feet tall. There was a Japanese water garden with a bridge. As you walked over the bridge you could see goldfish in the water. The human sundial was popular with my kids, as were the playground, the musical instruments, and of course, the animal statues. All of these things are in the Children's Garden area. The kids enjoyed wandering down the paths, trying to figure out if we'd already seen things.

There is a building where they have preschool classes, which require registration. There were none on the day we were there. We were there at the end of the season (Labour Day), so a lot of things were closing up. The restroom facilities were open, but the cafe was not. The park is open year round, however. Admission is not cheap, at $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, $6 for kids (free under 3). But much less than Hershey Park. They are open from 9am to 5pm normally, but later in the summer, earlier in the winter.