Things I've Meant To Blog About, Part 2: Hershey Park and Hershey's Chocolate World

You can't tell by the looks on their faces, but these are two kids headed for Hershey Park!

Craig finally got a few days off, so he suggested an impromptu trip out to see the factory and park. Even though it was only a mini vacation, I was super excited because it's been on my to do list.

We drove out Friday night and checked into a hotel. The kids were very excited to get pizza and soda from the Italian place in the same parking lot as where we were staying. Vash likes hotels so well, that he unpacked his tiny suitcase into a chest of drawers and kept telling Craig and me to do the same. He even unpacked Rhyla because he knew she wouldn't protest.

They got more excited once they understood it was a special trip and not just a long car ride.

Rhyla was anxious to pretend to sleep but both kids didn't actually fall asleep for several hours. (Funny story? While Craig was getting the food, Vash realized I had my feet up on the coffee table, which would serve as our dinner table. He got all upset and put his Tuku under my feet because he wanted to keep the table clean.)

Our first stop the next morning was Hershey's Chocolate World.

It's free to visit but you have to pay for anything extra you want to do. We opted to build our own chocolate bars. Vash was excited to get dressed up as a "Maker" but it took some convincing to get Rhyla into her apron and hair net.

Glad we did though, she looks so adorable! I still keep laughing that they made Craig cover up his five o'clock shadow.

As part of the process, you watch a short video, then go into a room and using a screen, make your selections; what kind of chocolate do you want? Add ins? Sprinkles? Then you move into a room and watch your bar get made on the assembly line. After that you design it's packaging and watch it get put in it's carton. Vash was super proud of his work.

Rhyla surprised us by choosing a black background instead of pink or purple.

The kids were so excited about their chocolate bars that they hardly ate lunch... which resulted in us telling them that they couldn't eat their chocolate. LOL. Eventually, they got a bunch of free chocolate samples anyway as we walked around. It was hard to say no to chocolate when you're in a chocolate world!

We also got to take a tour, which was eerily like a Disney ride, that showed you the process several of the candies go through to be created; from the harvesting to the separating, mixing, and packaging, etc. It was pretty cool but the kids actually hated those singing cows. They kept covering their ears!

And the last thing we did at the chocolate world was watch a 4D show in which we were supposed to solve a mystery. It was pretty cute but Rhyla didn't want to keep her 3D glasses on. The yellow Robots are actually No-Bots from the show that the kids thought were funny.

Next we walked down the way and to Hershey Park. We had such lucky timing; a worker stopped us as we were getting in line to buy tickets and just gave us two free tickets to the park! So we only had to pay for Vash's ticket! I was thrilled the rest of the day.

Among the many, many, things we did; A spooky train ride. No seriously. Looks harmless but there was a skeleton and a barber with a large pair of scissors lurking about.

Craig tried his hand at a game to win me a giant stuffed Hershey kiss.... but to no avail. LOL.

The kids enjoy a slow ride after the four of us braved the Tilt-a-whirl and Rhyla declared it too fast. ( I was on it and thinking, "I AM IMMEDIATELY REGRETTING THIS DECISION!" as I almost lost my lunch.)

A dino ride that made the most obnoxious sound....

A balloon ride.

We splurged and let the kids get their faces painted. 

Rhyla was such a big girl and sat so still because she wanted to look pretty!

Vash asked me to take pictures of his cheek throughout the day to make sure his spider was holding up.

Altogether, we spent about 4 1/2 hours in the park and didn't even get to half of what they had to offer. We had a great time, but will definitely have to go back and spend a lot more time there.

And of course we had to buy a lot of chocolate while we were there!

No... we didn't take the whole unit home, but we each picked out a few bags of our favorite things to enjoy on the ride home.

Craig seriously can't handle all this Reese's goodness.

And to close, a picture of the four of us on the Monorail. This was a great trip and I look forward to many return visits in the future!