2 days - Hershey Park and Chocolate World

[Jkpark]

Hoping for some advice on my plan for Hershey, PA. My husband, myself, 10 year old and 8 year old daughters. DH and DD10 love thrill rides. DD8 is a little more timid - but she rides everything at Disneyland and WDW - and this girl LOVES chocolate - so some of the Chocolate World stuff is more for her.

We are driving in from CT on Friday July 8th after visiting with family for the week. I was planning on doing Chocolate World during the afternoon. How many hours do we need here? And then heading to our preview hours at the park Friday night (7:30). How crowded is a Friday night in the summer? We will then be at the park all day Saturday the 9th, flying back home on the 10th from PHL. I'm expecting it to be crowded - but is it Disney summer day crowded? It sounds like the waterpark area is more crowded than the rest of the park? Should we bring bathing suits? Are there lockers available?

Any advice on planning our time? Rides we should hit Friday night versus first thing Saturday morning? With the park opening at 10am - I am guessing any "rope drop" strategy isn't super effective?

TIA - appreciate any and all advice on both the park and Chocolate World.

 

[brockash]

Hoping for some advice on my plan for Hershey, PA. My husband, myself, 10 year old and 8 year old daughters. DH and DD10 love thrill rides. DD8 is a little more timid - but she rides everything at Disneyland and WDW - and this girl LOVES chocolate - so some of the Chocolate World stuff is more for her.

We are driving in from CT on Friday July 8th after visiting with family for the week. I was planning on doing Chocolate World during the afternoon. How many hours do we need here? And then heading to our preview hours at the park Friday night (7:30). How crowded is a Friday night in the summer? We will then be at the park all day Saturday the 9th, flying back home on the 10th from PHL. I'm expecting it to be crowded - but is it Disney summer day crowded? It sounds like the waterpark area is more crowded than the rest of the park? Should we bring bathing suits? Are there lockers available?

Any advice on planning our time? Rides we should hit Friday night versus first thing Saturday morning? With the park opening at 10am - I am guessing any "rope drop" strategy isn't super effective?

TIA - appreciate any and all advice on both the park and Chocolate World.

You really only need an hour or 2 for Choc. World. It's cute and it's free, but it's nothing amazing and nothing that you need much time for. Yes, Fri. & Sat. at Hershey Park in the summer is going to be pretty crowded, but there's tons of stuff to do. They do have lockers and the water part of it is fun, but honestly there's so much to do and with it being summer weekend it's going to be busy, so you could probably take up all of your time without touching the water part of it (usually we only go for a day in the middle of the week and we very rarely do the water part). You'll know what your family would prefer, but don't feel like you have to do the water stuff. The rides are def. more thrilling than Disney World, so there will probably be a good amount of the coasters that the timid one may not want to ride (I have a timid 9 year old and while she loves everything, but Rock-n-Roller coaster and Everest at Disney, she won't go on almost any of the coasters at Hershey). They do have a tamer one (reminds me a little of Thunder Mountain) that she does like. - I think it's called Trailblazer.

The best advice I would give you on the crowds is def. get there a little before 10 so that you're in right away and walk through the park to the back and start there moving yourself forward. It is not designed like Disney (wheel design with spokes), so take a look at the map before you go as well. Have fun!

 

[princesspiglet]

Hoping for some advice on my plan for Hershey, PA. My husband, myself, 10 year old and 8 year old daughters. DH and DD10 love thrill rides. DD8 is a little more timid - but she rides everything at Disneyland and WDW - and this girl LOVES chocolate - so some of the Chocolate World stuff is more for her.

We are driving in from CT on Friday July 8th after visiting with family for the week. I was planning on doing Chocolate World during the afternoon. How many hours do we need here? And then heading to our preview hours at the park Friday night (7:30). How crowded is a Friday night in the summer? We will then be at the park all day Saturday the 9th, flying back home on the 10th from PHL. I'm expecting it to be crowded - but is it Disney summer day crowded? It sounds like the waterpark area is more crowded than the rest of the park? Should we bring bathing suits? Are there lockers available?

Any advice on planning our time? Rides we should hit Friday night versus first thing Saturday morning? With the park opening at 10am - I am guessing any "rope drop" strategy isn't super effective?

TIA - appreciate any and all advice on both the park and Chocolate World.

If this is your first and one time going to CW, you may want to allocate 3-4 hours to do everything there.
Tour ride- not really a tour of the chocolate factory, but it is cute. Takes a total of about 30 mins with waiting in line
4D show- 30 min show and it runs every 30 mins I think
Create your own candy bar- this takes about 45 mins without waiting
tasting experience- about 30 mins

The rest of the time is just spent shopping. Depending on how busy it is, getting all your candy and checking out could take 30-45 mins. There is also a bakery, ice cream shop and food court.

And yes, HP is Disney crowded during the summer- it is literally a wall of people. We have season passes and try to go during the week to cut down on crowds because Saturday is very busy. The busiest rides (with the longest wait) in order are:
Skyrush
Farenheit
Laff Trakk
Stormrunner
Great Bear
Comet
Lightning Racer
Sidewinder
Superdooperlooper
Wildcat

These are all pretty intense coasters. Mild ones are Trailblazer, Wild Mouse and the Cocoa Cruiser and they usually have short waits.

I would base doing the water park on how much you get done on Friday night. If you can hit all the big stuff that night and then do the rest Saturday am, then I would recommend doing the water park in the afternoon. It gets hot as Hades in the park and just spending 2 hours in the waterpark really helps to cool you off. The slides are great and so is the wave pool. We will sometimes just spend all day in the waterpark and skip the rides. There are lockers available and you can also claim chairs and put your stuff there.

Get to the park about 30 mins before opening time so you can be in the front of the line- otherwise you will spend 20 mins just waiting to get in with the crowd. Head directly to the ride that is highest on your priority list and go from there. You will be criss-crossing the park a lot, but once you get the big rides down you can relax and explore the rest at your leisure.

Let me know if you have any other specific questions. Like I said, we are season pass holders and only live 2 miles away from the park.

 

[Poohforyou]

There are things you can pay to do at chocolate world so if you were thinking of those a few hours would probably work. If you're just doing the free ride and looking around probably an hour or so.

 

[disny_luvr]

Hersheypark is going to be very crowded on a Saturday in July. I do think you can get a lot done if you utilize the night before preview and have a game plan. I'd recommend heading to the waterpark first thing in the morning on Saturday. It should be pretty empty until early afternoon. When the waterpark starts filling up, I'd change and make my way to the rides. If you wait to go to the waterpark, it may get full to the point that you have to stand in line and wait to get into the wave pool, lazy river, kid areas, etc. Hersheypark is the only park I ever had to wait in line to get into the wave pool and I think it's crazy! I think a lot of people start heading out in the early evening and that would be a good time to hit up some of the roller coasters.

 

[CynBeth]

We are not huge thrill ride people but love HP and CW. There are shows and a monorail and the skyway thing. If you guys like animals you get free admission to ZooAmerica included with your HP admission which is at the back of HP.

 

[Jkpark]

Thanks everyone for all your feedback. I will spend some time looking at the roller coasters to figure out what we want to prioritize. Appreciate knowing it will be crowded and hot - As long as my family is prepped for that - we don't get too irritated.

 

[Jkpark]

Just wanted to circle back. We had a great time in Hershey. Driving in on Friday it was pouring! We started at CW and b/c of the rain and lightning, most of the park had emptied in to CW. We made our own candy bars, took pics with some characters and did the 4D experience - and the tour. It was cute and we especially loved our own chocolate bars.

We ate at the food court and then headed to the park for preview. It was pretty quiet as the rain had cleared a lot of the people. I took my younger daughter on the Scrambler and my husband and 10 year old walked right on Skyrush - no fear in that girl. Then we did superdooperlooper twice. We walked out of that area and did Coal Cracker twice. The daring two did the Great Bear. We spent a lot of time walking around to get our lay of the land for the next day. We rode Wild Mouse twice. The other three rode Wildcat (they thought it was too jerky for me since I already had a headache). We rode music express and looked through some of the shops on the way out.

The next morning we started with a character breakfast. This might be something new. We weren't staying at a preferred hotel so this gave us breakfast, time with characters - including Kit Kat - my personal favorite - and then into the park at 9 instead of 10. LaffTrak wasn't open until 10, so we did Scrambler, Tilt a Whirl, then the swings. My husband and daughter did Skyrush again, while my younger and I did the looper a couple times. We wandered over to rope drop and at 10 made our way to LaffTrak - we rode that twice and we all loved it. We did The Howler, Fahrenheit (just DH and DD10), Pirate Ship, Claw (not me), Trailblazer, Coal Cracker, and then split up so the dare devils did Sidewinder and Storm Runner, while the younger one and I did Trailblazer a few more times. We met up. The kids did Flying Falcon and then we all did the Tower and the Antique cars. It was about 1 and the park was getting hot and crowded, so we left. Had lunch at Houlihans and went back to rest in the A/C of our hotel room. We made it back to the parks right around 6:30 - and the rain started. So we shopped in those first stores until it broke. Then we did Scrambler again, the Ferris Wheel, Lightning Racer twice (lost both times), Music Express, the kids did the big slide, we did Reese's Xtreme Cup Challenge and then split again as DD10 wanted to do Sidewinder again and DD8 wanted a picture on the carrousel.

We left at 10 and hit CW again for some souvenirs before heading back to our hotel. We felt like it was a really successful trip - We think it worked well to not be in the park in the middle of the day (our general Disney strategy). We never felt like we missed out not having the Fast Trak pass. I was glad we shipped the water park area. Those lines for the slides were really long and it was really hot out. Plus we got to ride LaffTrak twice while everyone was running to save seats in that area.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Not sure when we will make it back that way, but we had a great time! And since we were flying out of Philly, we left early and had Geno's and Pat's for breakfast - we all liked Geno's better.

 

[disny_luvr]

I'm glad you had a great time! I live in Hershey and frequent the park (my boys are there now with my parents) as season pass holders. It always makes me smile when I read about people's trips to Hershey.