Amusement Park Bucket List: Hersheypark

I have wanted to visit Hersheypark in Pennsylvania so bad, since I was a kid! I’ve always been a chocolate gal. One of my first creative writing assignments was a fourth-grade essay on my dream birthday party. It was a chocolate-themed party taking place at Hersheypark, which I had just learned about through my research for a short (again, fourth-grade) autobiography on Milton Hershey. Lol.

Having fallen in love with theme parks in the last few years, my desire to visit this place has been rekindled. I was delighted learn that there are plenty of great roller coasters at the park, as well as good food and of course desserts! I want to note that as of now, they are planning to reopen post-COVID closure on July 3rd.

I super love watching Iconic Eats on the Delish YouTube channel, and their Hersheypark episode was very exciting. More on that later. First, let’s get into rides and attractions.

The parks website boasts more than 70 attractions. That includes 14 coasters, as well as water park attractions. The 15th roller coaster, a B&M hyper coaster that’ll be called Candymonium, will open later this year as part of the parks Chocolatetown expansion. Do I even need to say how excited I am about this or can you guess based on any other hints you’ve been given in regards to my personality? I just read up on the ride on the website, and I have to share some super fun tidbits. Candymonium will go up to 210 miles high and 76 miles fast, have 3 different candy-themed trains, and make a panoramic bank around the park’s Hershey Kisses fountain. Whaaaat

Another coaster in the park, Skyrush, was named #27 on the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards’ list of 2019’s Top 50 Steel Roller Coasters. Lightning Racer scored the #14 spot on the list of 2019’s Top 50 Wooden. The park also hosts shows and entertainment, but there is not a list of them available currently due to the closure for COVID-19.

This park’s environment… oh man. The whole place is obviously themed after some of the most popular candies in the world, which you’ve seen all your life (so it seems to be somewhat nostalgic even if you’ve never actually been there). It also has a monorail! There are even costumed characters, which are your favorite candies. How cool is it that you get to have your picture taken with Milk Duds, Rolos, Twizzlers, Jolly Ranchers, and others? I think I would say extremely. There’s also a water park and a little zoo on property.

Let’s now go over my always favorite category. It’s food, obviously. For savory stuff, there are plenty of options. There are chains present like Chic-fil-A, Subway, Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs, Moe’s Southwest Grill and even Dunkin Donuts. I think my picks would be from a couple of the following!

Chickie’s & Pete’s offers chicken and burgers, of course, plus some crabfries which are known to be pretty iconic (featured in that Delish video I mentioned above! Heck, I’ll just link it here). The crabfries sound like fries topped with a scoop of crab meat, which doesn’t sound bad at all, but they’re actually just covered in Old Bay and served with a cheesy dip. Cool! Tower Fries also has some great options, like BBQ Chicken Fries and Buffalo Chicken Dip Fries, the latter of which I obviously need in my life as soon as possible. Grilled Cheese Beach Shack serves fun spins on grilled cheese sandwiches like chicken bacon ranch, pizza, and bacon BBQ alongside kettle chips. There’s also a gyro shop, and I’m pretty much always down for a chicken gyro.

There are, as you would expect, many many many offerings at Hersheypark when it comes to sweets. Some of the ones I’m most excited to see/try are: everything at The Bakery in Chocolatetown (like s’mores made with Kit Kat Mint Duos, Reese’s Cups, or Cookies & Cream Bars, and cookie dough scoops, cookies, and milkshakes designed around popular candy bars), SUPER fun sodas at BBLz (PLEASE see the above photo), a custom-built whoopie pie from Makin’ Whoopie Pies (like, pumpkin with salted caramel filling or birthday cake with cotton candy filling), and a beautiful seasonal loaded funnel cake from Founder’s Way Funnel Cake.

I think my excitement to someday visit this park has been apparent throughout this post. I really hope that within the next year or so we’ll see a similar post go up recapping an actual visit to Hersheypark!!