Visiting Hershey Park, PA...Looking for money saving tips.

[Fierce Fairy]

We are driving to Hershey, PA for the first time from Norfolk,VA. This will be our first long drive with our 3yr/15yr/ & 16yr old. Looking for some tips on doing this on a budget but still have a great time. We don't get a vacation every year so I want this to be fun for everyone. Thanks!

 

[mjkacmom]

Avoid Hershey on the weekends during the summer. Get a coupon from DD, and take advantage of the night before preview - you get a couple of hours in the parks for free when you buy a ticket for the next day, and you can use the coupon. Sneak food and drinks in - it's very overpriced, and this is coming from someone who lives in the NYC area.

 

[Fierce Fairy]

Thanks for the tips. Do they stamp your hand or something like that if you leave for lunch then return?

 

[Kimmumum]

Yes they stamp your hand when you leave. Know that the parking lot can be a LONG walk from the park. That parking lot was HUGE!! You may not want to leave for lunch and come back (or maybe you will )

You can get discount tickets at Giant grocery stores. I think it was about $20 off a ticket. We went the end of June and they were offering free parking too. I'd check out their website. It said you had to have their grocery card but we didn't have one and they never asked for one. I think it is easy to get one if needed.

We went to Chocolate World for about 1/2 a day.

We went to the park preview hours the night before we went to the park. The next day we went to the park. It wasn't crowded. There were people but it wasn't crazy. My kids were done with everything by around 1. We could have gone back to the hotel. My boys are 12 and 16. They went on all of the roller coasters several times plus I made them ride the "boring" rides too. I'm just telling you this so you don't think you need to spend ALL day there. We had never been there and were thinking about buying a 2 day pass. We were glad we didn't. We didn't do the waterpark because most of it was "little kid" stuff. My boys had a good time but they didn't need all day to do it.

Have a great time.