In conjunction with Hershey Park, we also spent a day visiting Hershey's Chocolate World. It was their 50th anniversary! Hershey's World was truly a magical place with all kinds of things to do. We spent nearly 6 hours doing various activities inside and around the building. This post outlines the activities that were included with the bundles and some fun things we completed!
Things to Know
*Purchasing bundles and tickets online does save money
*Scheduling of attractions does need to occur when you purchase the bundles
*Penny Collector machine is located there
*It's easy to spend a lot of money here from photos, gifts, attractions, food court, etc.
We purchased the Adventure Bundle 1 with Historical Trolley. It was $73.50 online and you could add a meal deal to it if you wanted, but we did not pursue that option. The Adventure Bundle 1 included all the options they had including: Create Your Own Candy Bar, Hershey's Great Candy Expedition, Hershey's Unwrapped, and the Historical Trolley through Hershey, PA. It also included parking with the bundle we purchased, but I am not sure if all of the Adventure Bundles offer that.
*Adventure Bundle 2 included everything EXCEPT the Historical Trolley- $56.50
*Adventure Bundle 3 was only the Great Candy Expedition and Create Your Own Candy Bar- $42
Individually you could buy the adventures separately for the following prices:
*Create Your Own Candy Bar- $29.95
*Hershey's Great Candy Expedition-$19.95
*Hershey's Unwrapped- $18.95
*Historical Trolley through Hershey, PA - $22.95
*Reese's Stuff Your Cup- $19.95 (not included in the bundles)
All of the activities that are paid for are on a schedule for each day. Therefore, you cannot just walk up when you want and participate in the activity. You have a certain time slot. When you go to buy a specific bundle, it will give you a schedule of events that it recommends for the items you chose. However, you can fix your own schedule of events if you want. It will not let you overlap times. One aspect I was worried about was having enough time to get to the schedule activities if I only had a 10-15 minute gap, but we had no issues. Everything is located close enough that you can make your times with ease. One thing you should make sure you are on time for is the Historical Trolley because when it leaves, it won't come back for 75 minutes.
There is a free (yes, you read that right) Hershey's Chocolate tour cart ride that we actually did twice! You don't need to schedule a time to go on this as it is a continuous moving ride, and just has a que line. The walk to the ride (5 minutes or less) was longer than our wait time. It shows the journey from the cocoa bean to a wrapped candy bar. It was very fascinating! We really enjoyed being able to do this in addition to everything else offered.
Here is a map of Hershey World for reference of all the items I have mentioned above:
Now, I will talk about the activities in Chocolate World that we participated in:
Create Your Own Candy Bar
This was my favorite experience of the day as well as Michael's (my boyfriend). You got to be in charge of creating a Hershey bar of your own from the beginning to the end. The experience starts off with you dressing like a chocolate factory worker in hair net and aprons (plus beard nets if you have one).
After this, we go to a technology station and pick our type of chocolate and 3 ingredients you want in your candy bar such as chocolate chips, pretzels, etc. After you have submitted your ingredients that you want, you go into the factory and watch your candy bar come to life! You will see the ingredients be added, your candy bar shaped, and watch it be cooled and heated to create YOUR perfect bar!
As it is going through the assembly line, you get to create your packaging. They have some default packages or you can spend some time creating it with stickers and clipart that you want! The line will tell you how long you have until you go into packaging! I spent a pretty good amount of time creating mine, and mine still wasn't finished when I went to check on it. So don't worry!
After you have submitted your packaging, you get to watch your candy bar be inserted into packaging through machines. They will put your personalized label on the package, and then you are all set with your own creation! This was a wonderful experience.
Hershey's Great Candy Expedition
This attraction just opened recently, and I loved the experience. The employees really made you feel as though you were taking this wonderful trip to these various candy locations. They also provided some peanut butter in a cup while you wait (it was delicious). The "conductor" of the train was very interactive, and talked with each guest about what they hoped to see on their Great Candy Expedition. Below you can see some of the options of areas that could be visited during the journey:
Hershey's Chocolate World really made this journey feel immersive through the conductor who fully took his job seriously, and the setup. You enter the train, which is a cinematic theatre. During the ride you get to choose which candy areas you would like to visit, and the show is controlled by audience vote. Therefore, each show you could watch in this journey could be different. They also had interaction from the audience to help complete various tasks along the way as well. At the end of the experience, we all received a bag of candy from our journey, which is always a great bonus!
Hershey's Unwrapped
I wasn't sure what this experience was before I did it, but we really ended up liking it. It was a fun, quirky show that allowed you to "taste test" some chocolate samples that were provided. It was about 20 minutes or so, and had a couple of surprises in it. We had fun with the show and were glad that we did it! Below is a picture of the tasting kit that was provided as part of the show:
Historical Trolley through Hershey, PA
My boyfriend and I both really loved this experience. We both love learning more about things and knowing fun facts, so this was a perfect attraction for us! The driver and the tour guide were both wonderful, funny, and knowledgeable about the city. They are both natives of Hershey, PA. The trolley tour is approximately 75 minutes long and it takes you through the city showing you the schools, the factory locations, and historical sites created by Milton Hershey from birthplace to the original Hershey factory. There is a lot of surprising information to be learned about Milton's life and his various successes. Lastly, you get to enjoy chocolates while riding. History and chocolate- what more could you want?
Reese's Stuff Your Cup
We didn't actually get to experience this, but we did see the station. It is essentially how it is sounds in that you get to put in your favorite kinds of toppings into a large Reese cup to enjoy such as pretzels, marshmallows, cookie bits, etc.. Then they will scoop everything into a huge chocolate shell for consumers to munch on.
Overall Review
We thought this location was absolutely amazing, and hope to visit again one day in our travels. It had so much to offer beyond the attractions such as an entire food court and a gift shop full of amazing goodies to take home. They had a section for each of the 3 main characters: The Hershey Bar, Reese Cup, and The Kiss in the gift shop as well as a gift of every sort that related to candy. If you get a certain type of souvenir, they are more than likely going to have it. There is something for everyone at Hershey World, and I will always highly recommend anyone going there for a visit at least once!
Our Overall Rating: 10/10
Travel Tandem Ratings Scale:
1-4/10: Below Average (Could Skip)
5-6/10: Average (Recommend)
7-8/10: Great (Highly Recommend)
9-10/10: LOVED IT! (Must Go)
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