Hershey

We’re thinking of doing Hershey this summer. Dds will be 2.5 and 5.5. We did Dutch Wonderland and some other Lancaster sights last year. My questions are:

1) how many days for all the Hershey stuff (park, factory, zoo, gardens)?

2) do you recommend staying right by Hershey (in one of their hotels or something else nearby), or should we do Eden and make the drive to Hershey each day (right now it’s at a great price)?

I wish there were manuals on Hershey planning like there is for Disney!

Hershey

Hershey is a lot easier than Disney.

We stayed 2 nights. We did Chocolate World and then the preview and then went to the park for 2 more days (well, we didn't stay the full day - the first day until around 3pm and the second day until around noon).

We stayed at the Springhill Suites in Hershey. It was nice enough. Definitely not Eden but very convenient to the park.

Hershey

We stayed for 2 nights at the Hershey Lodge. We loved it there!

Hershey

I personally think it's way too far to drive back and forth from Eden. Especially when there are a zillion other hotels at Hershey. That's a waste of time. 30 minutes each way. If you are doing all of those things, I would say you need 3 days minimum. Chocolate world you can do night 1, then go to the free preview. Then do park all day on Day 2. Day 3 do Hershey Gardens and Hershey Story. Ideally 2 days in the park is better since it's huge, and super busy in the Summer.

Re: Hershey

Re: Hershey

Your feedback was all so helpful. We are either going to do 2 nights/3 days at Hershey Lodge or we will do Eden with DW again (I prefer Hershey but it’s a big price difference). I do want to go for a “resort” feel of vacation with nice pools, on site dining, etc. which is why it’s narrowed down to those two hotels.

Re: Hershey

My guess is 2 days for all the Hershey stuff. We only did the twilight hours and did the water area until it started to get cooler ( I only wanted to do rides at Hershey, but it was still very hot when we got there), ate a quick dinner and then did the children's rides. We were able to do most of the rides we wanted before closing, but I think we missed a couple at the front of the park.
We went into chocolate world first and chose not to do any of the attractions. The paid attractions didn't look fun to me and not worth the cost. We were going to do the free tour, but the line was long and we had an 8 month old.
I was really surprised by the crowds at Hershey even though the camps should have left or were leaving by the time we got there. I don't think we had a wait on the rides, but we were doing little kid rides on a weeknight.

Re: Hershey

Just an FYI, if you plan to do the make your own chocolate bar, or other activities in Chocolate World - make your reservations online way in advance.
We went in September and everything was sold out by the time we got there.