I have been working on this post for a while, but I have finally been able to write it now. This past summer, I had a season pass to my local amusement park, Hershey Park. I have gone here for years, ever since I was little, but this was our first year going as annual pass holders. Since we had these, we went more frequently than usual and I was able to notice more of what happens in the park, what they added and that, surprisingly, there were quite a few similarities to Disney parks. Here is my list of some of the similarities I have seen:
Characters: While there are not princesses or Mickey Mouse at Hershey Park, there are interactive characters that you can meet, including some singers in shows and candy characters that will pose for pictures with you.
Country Name Tags: This has happened in the last few years, but on the bottom of the name tags that the workers wear is the name of the town or country they are from, like on the bottom of the Cast Member name tags in Disney.
Buses to Resorts: Another addition that has been fairly recent is the bus transportation to the two resorts and the campground directly to the park, smaller but much like the Disney Bus transportation.
Pin Trading: Yet another new feature at the park, just within the past year actually. The parks sell lanyards and they have about 20 or so total different pins that are for holidays, a couple rides and characters. Not nearly as elaborate as Disney pins, or much variety, but they are around the same price. The workers in the park all have lanyards as well and will trade with guests for different pins.
The Smell of Turkey Legs: Ok, odd similarity, I know, but this smell hits me every single time I go past this restaurant that is in the Pioneer Frontier area of the park. The restaurant is called Freeman's Texas BBQ and every time you walk down this hill from the roller coaster Storm Runner, you smell the sweet smell of Turkey Legs! I always am taken back to Frontierland when I smell this. Sidenote: We did try the turkey legs before and they are not a terrible substitute for Disney Turkey Legs, though they are smaller and have less meat. Disney still has the best by far though, of course.
Sneaky Queues: Some people may know what I am talking about with this, but others may need an explanation. You know how the Disney queues are designed so that you look like you are nearing the end, but then they take you into a whole separate room with 15 more switchbacks before you get to the end? I refer to these as sneaky queues and there are a few of these in Hershey as well.
Photographers: At the entrance of the park, there are photographers that will take your picture in front of a statue of Milton Hershey and you can pick it up at a special photo are later. Not as technical as the Photo Pass system with the portable cards, but still the same general idea.
Package Pick-Up: You are able to buy something in a store and have it sent to a store at the front of the park to pick up as you leave. As far as I know, they do not have the package service to send them back to the resort as Disney does, but they still have this convenient first part.
Similar Attractions: Roller Coasters aside, there are a couple specific rides in the park that remind me of Disney attractions. The first of which is the monorail, which is not a form of transportation as in Disney, but just a relaxing ride through the park and zoo to show off what there is to do. The other that comes to mind is Reese's Xtreme Cup Challenge, a ride that is similar to Buzz Lightyear in that you use lasers to hit targets to try to accumulate points.
If you have ever been to Hershey Park and have more to add to this list or you have any questions about Hershey, feel free to ask! Want to learn more about Hershey from a Disney-lovers prospective? Tune into Inside the Magic, episode 289, where host Ricky Brigante talks about his experience at Hershey, including a look at the resorts which I have never had the opportunity to experience.
Showing posts with label Hersheypark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hersheypark. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, June 7, 2010
Hershey's Exciting Addition
Yea, I know, this is a Disney blog mainly, but I am a vacationer and I frequent Hersheypark because of how close it is to my house, so I figured I would share a cool experience I had with you all. Don't worry, I will get back to the Disney stuff after this, especially with the Disney trip coming on Friday!!
This past weekend I went to visit Hersheypark with my family for my younger sister Emily's 17th Birthday. We all had gotten season passes to the park, making it easier to go more often than we usually do, but this birthday visit is something that my family and I have done for years. We had gone earlier in the week with our passes and saw that a new interactive experience had opened in Chocolate World, right next to Hersheypark. This Interactive experience is called "Create Your Own Candy Bar" and, as the name might slightly hint to, the point of the experience is to create your own, one of a kind candy bar! My sister and I had been eyeing it all weekend and so, on Sunday morning, my mother was kind enough to take the time out of going to the park to do the experience.
The price for the experience is $14.95, which I know sounds like a lot, but once you see everything there is to do and you get to the finished product, you realize that the price is not as bad as it seems.
Note that I am not sure of the age restrictions for this. From what I saw, parents are not able to go in with their children unless you pay for yourself to go, but the children I saw doing this were 8 and 9 years old. I am not sure what the rules are if you have a younger child doing the experience or if a young child is able to. While parents may not be able to go in with their children, they are able to watch their child go through most of the process via outdoor windows looking into the factory.
After you get your personalized ticket with your name, you walk to the entrance of the factory, which has been built right next to the Bake Shoppe and underneath where the Kit Kat Cafe used to be. Once there, you show the factory worker your tickets and they give you hairnets to put on and for the gentlemen, beard nets if necessary. When you go inside, there are lockers to put your bags and jewelry in, but you are allowed to take cameras with you inside the factory. After putting your things away, get your apron, sanitize your hands, and you are taken to a room where you will watch a brief video on what you are about to do.
Once the video is over, you are taken to a room with touch screen computers. In this room, you are able to pick your chocolate to use and your ingredients. You walk up to a screen and scan your ticket so that your information will save. The chocolate choices are milk, dark and white, though when we were there, they only had milk chocolate. They had just opened this week so not everything was there. They say they hope to have the dark and white chocolate as choices later on in the summer months.
For the inside of your bar, you have 6 choices of what to put in and you can only choose 3. The options available when we were there were rice crispies, chocolate cookie bits, vanilla chips, blueberries, graham cracker pieces and rainbow sprinkles. We were told these choices will probably be around for a while and for your nut lovers out there, do not expect to see peanuts or almonds added to the choices of ingredients any time soon due to allergies.
After you make your choices for your candy bar, the next room is the large factory room. You scan your ticket once again and the chocolate shell is placed on a conveyor belt, into which the ingredients you selected are dropped into. With your ingredients in place, the shell of the bar is moved into this, what I will call a chocolate waterfall, causing chocolate to pour over the entire candy bar and fill it in. The bar is then put on a shaking belt that evens out all of the chocolate and ingredients and then it is moved into a cooler, a slow moving belt, where your candy bar will be for about 10 minutes to harden.
While you are waiting for your candy bar to cool, you are taken to another room with touch screens where you can create your own wrapper for your candy bar! There are templates that you can choose from or you can create your own using different colored backgrounds and pictures supplied.
When your candy bar is done being cooled, you are able to watch it slide into the container area, where it will be put in a small box that is personalized with your name and then it is slid down to where a worker is waiting with a nice metal tin to put the box in and your wrapper design is put around that.
Once you receive your candy bar, you can take your hairnet and apron off, get your belongings out of your locker and off you go to enjoy the rest of the day in Hershey!
I found this experience to be a lot of fun and educational about how chocolate is made. It is fun for all ages, as I said before I am not sure how young the age limit is, if there is one, but definitely from about 7 and up are able to do this and enjoy it. In the group with my sister and I, we had a woman and her older mother, proving it really is for any age! When you go to Hershey, I would highly recommend this Create Your Own Candy Bar experience!
This past weekend I went to visit Hersheypark with my family for my younger sister Emily's 17th Birthday. We all had gotten season passes to the park, making it easier to go more often than we usually do, but this birthday visit is something that my family and I have done for years. We had gone earlier in the week with our passes and saw that a new interactive experience had opened in Chocolate World, right next to Hersheypark. This Interactive experience is called "Create Your Own Candy Bar" and, as the name might slightly hint to, the point of the experience is to create your own, one of a kind candy bar! My sister and I had been eyeing it all weekend and so, on Sunday morning, my mother was kind enough to take the time out of going to the park to do the experience.
The price for the experience is $14.95, which I know sounds like a lot, but once you see everything there is to do and you get to the finished product, you realize that the price is not as bad as it seems.
Note that I am not sure of the age restrictions for this. From what I saw, parents are not able to go in with their children unless you pay for yourself to go, but the children I saw doing this were 8 and 9 years old. I am not sure what the rules are if you have a younger child doing the experience or if a young child is able to. While parents may not be able to go in with their children, they are able to watch their child go through most of the process via outdoor windows looking into the factory.
After you get your personalized ticket with your name, you walk to the entrance of the factory, which has been built right next to the Bake Shoppe and underneath where the Kit Kat Cafe used to be. Once there, you show the factory worker your tickets and they give you hairnets to put on and for the gentlemen, beard nets if necessary. When you go inside, there are lockers to put your bags and jewelry in, but you are allowed to take cameras with you inside the factory. After putting your things away, get your apron, sanitize your hands, and you are taken to a room where you will watch a brief video on what you are about to do.
Once the video is over, you are taken to a room with touch screen computers. In this room, you are able to pick your chocolate to use and your ingredients. You walk up to a screen and scan your ticket so that your information will save. The chocolate choices are milk, dark and white, though when we were there, they only had milk chocolate. They had just opened this week so not everything was there. They say they hope to have the dark and white chocolate as choices later on in the summer months.
For the inside of your bar, you have 6 choices of what to put in and you can only choose 3. The options available when we were there were rice crispies, chocolate cookie bits, vanilla chips, blueberries, graham cracker pieces and rainbow sprinkles. We were told these choices will probably be around for a while and for your nut lovers out there, do not expect to see peanuts or almonds added to the choices of ingredients any time soon due to allergies.
After you make your choices for your candy bar, the next room is the large factory room. You scan your ticket once again and the chocolate shell is placed on a conveyor belt, into which the ingredients you selected are dropped into. With your ingredients in place, the shell of the bar is moved into this, what I will call a chocolate waterfall, causing chocolate to pour over the entire candy bar and fill it in. The bar is then put on a shaking belt that evens out all of the chocolate and ingredients and then it is moved into a cooler, a slow moving belt, where your candy bar will be for about 10 minutes to harden.
While you are waiting for your candy bar to cool, you are taken to another room with touch screens where you can create your own wrapper for your candy bar! There are templates that you can choose from or you can create your own using different colored backgrounds and pictures supplied.
When your candy bar is done being cooled, you are able to watch it slide into the container area, where it will be put in a small box that is personalized with your name and then it is slid down to where a worker is waiting with a nice metal tin to put the box in and your wrapper design is put around that.
Once you receive your candy bar, you can take your hairnet and apron off, get your belongings out of your locker and off you go to enjoy the rest of the day in Hershey!
I found this experience to be a lot of fun and educational about how chocolate is made. It is fun for all ages, as I said before I am not sure how young the age limit is, if there is one, but definitely from about 7 and up are able to do this and enjoy it. In the group with my sister and I, we had a woman and her older mother, proving it really is for any age! When you go to Hershey, I would highly recommend this Create Your Own Candy Bar experience!
To see a virtual tour of the factory, click here.
To see the main page for Create Your Own Candy Bar, click here.
To see everything that Chocolate World has to offer, click here.
To see other websites related to the Hershey area, along with pictures and a trip report from there, visit Chris' and my vacation site, VacationNerds.com.
To see the main page for Create Your Own Candy Bar, click here.
To see everything that Chocolate World has to offer, click here.
To see other websites related to the Hershey area, along with pictures and a trip report from there, visit Chris' and my vacation site, VacationNerds.com.
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