I went to Hersheypark for two days on Sunday, August 8th and Monday, August 9th, using the Preview Plan for the first night. I went with my husband and my ten year-old sister. Here's a recap of our first day!
We left our home in the Scranton area around 1:00 in the afternoon, heading down Interstate 81 for almost the whole trip. There were some traffic issues, but our GPS guided us around them easily, and we arrived in the Hershey area in exactly two hours, at around 3:00.
The first thing we did was check into our hotel. We stayed at the Days Inn in Grantville, which is right off the I-81 exit. It's only seven miles away from Hersheypark and is drastically cheaper than any hotel you'll find closer to the park. Plus, it's nice and clean with good amenities and a polite staff who seem to be knowledgeable. As long as you don't care about things like having a pool or fitness center, the Days Inn Grantville works great for families on a budget.
At around 5:00 we headed toward Hershey, eating dinner at the Cocoa Grill, a diner near all the chain restaurants in Hershey. The food is good and not too expensive, but the ambiance definitely leaves something to be desired.
At 6:00, we headed off toward the park. We parked in the Hersheypark lot and paid the full $10 parking charge, which at first seems a bit steep for the Preview Plan's two and a half hours in the park. However, as long as you keep both your parking ticket and admission ticket, parking the next day is free. Hershey doesn't go out of their way to advertise this--I had seen it tucked away on their web site, and we received a piece of paper explaining this when we paid for parking, but I think that if someone wasn't paying close attention, they could easily pay for two days of parking and be none the wiser.
Since we still had about an hour before I wanted to go to the Hersheypark gate, we decided to go visit Chocolate World. This is a big "visitors center"-esque venue outside of Hersheypark, with shops, food, a factory tour ride, a 3-D show, and Hershey's Factory Works, where you can make your own candy bar (among other things). The crowd at Chocolate World was big but not too bad for a Sunday in the middle of summer. Since we were trying to save both time and money, we only chose one thing to do at Chocolate World. My family decided to ride the totally-free chocolate factory tour ride.
The line for the factory ride was out the door when we queued up. However, I wasn't daunted--the factory ride has an extremely fast-moving line due to the fact that it is a continuous-loading attraction with a high capacity. Therefore, we only waited in line for ten minutes before we got to ride the ride. I have probably ridden the factory tour ride at least fifty times in the past twenty-one years, and it never disappoints. It's a nice ride through a simulated factory that explains all about how they make the chocolate. As you exit the ride, you get a complementary Hershey bar, which is a nice way to satisfy the craving you developed while riding the ride.
After buying some fresh cookies and milk from a stand in the food and shops area of Chocolate World, it was about 7:10 and time to head down to the Hersheypark gate. The first thing we did was go to the Candy Brand measuring stations. Hershey puts a creative twist on height requirements, separating each height into categories featuring their own products. We were all thrilled to find out that my little sister was a Twizzler for the very first time--she barely made the 54" Twizzler cut off, but she was definitely over the line. This meant that she could ride the park's biggest coasters for the first time!
There was a line formed for the Preview Plan outside the gate. (Check out the "Let Me In!" entry from a few months ago, which explains this fantastic Hershey perk in more detail.) The line was long, but we were let in slightly before 7:30 (two and a half hours before park closing). The first ride we decided to ride was the Great Bear, Hershey's fantastic inverted coaster. This decision was made for several reasons--first and foremost, my little sister was dying to ride one of the coasters she had just been watching for years. Second, the Great Bear is located in Minetown, which is right in the middle of the park, yet not a far walk from the entrance gate. When you only have two and a half hours of park time, taking long strolls around the park isn't an option!
The line for Great Bear wasn't very long, and we rode it in a good amount of time. (My little sister loved it, by the way.) We next headed to the Great Bear's next door neighbor, the Coal Cracker, which is a standard flume and had no line, which was a great surprise. My family then continued down into Comet Hollow, which is one of the older sections of the park; therefore, it's pretty close to the entrance. We rode the famous Sooperdooperlooper (the first looping coaster on the East Coast) and Wave Swinger with lines that weren't too long, but the next ride we wanted to try, the Comet, had a VERY long line. The Comet, Hershey's classic wooden coaster, is a favorite, especially by people leaving the park who want one last thrill. Since it was about 8:30 at this point, I made an executive decision to wait on the Comet until the line was shorter.
Instead, we headed up the hill to Music Box Way. There, we rode the Reese's X-treme Cup Challenge, an indoor arcade game-like ride that can have really long lines--but only had an average one tonight. We also rode the Skyview, a scenic sky ride that takes you over a river and inches from the mighty Great Bear.
By this time, it was about 9:40, only twenty minutes before the park closed for the night, and lo and behold, the line for the Comet, which had looked to be forty minutes an hour ago, had now dwindled down to about a five to ten minute wait. Excitedly, my family rode the Comet, glad we had spent the last hour riding two additional rides and not standing in the long Comet line.
It was 9:57 when we got off the Comet. We finished off the night by getting some soft ice cream at the Crossroads Creamery, which is located next to the Reese's X-treme Cup Challenge, before heading out of the park.
After leaving, my husband and little sister both wanted some roller coaster shirts to wear the following day, which would be our full park day. Outside the park gate, I found a store called Hersheypark Memories, which actually had many coaster shirts to buy! It was a nice surprise, since I hadn't known about this particular store before. They bought their shirts, and we walked back to the car, ready to go back to the Days Inn and sleep. After all, we had a full day at Hersheypark to wake up for!
To be continued!
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