Family Fun at Hershey’s Chocolate World

We live about 15 minutes from downtown Hershey in Pennsylvania. A few times every year we get our two grandchildren together and take them for an afternoon of fun at Hershey’s Chocolate World. If you’ve never been there before, it’s FREE to visit and once inside, you’ll find both free and paid activities to enjoy.

During our most recent visit to Hershey’s Chocolate World they were extremely crowded, so we didn’t get to partake in all of the activities that we had planned. With that said, we did get to spend 2 hours there and here’s what we did.

The tour ride (free) is something the grandchildren love to do. You get into these cars that hold 5-6 people and it takes you through part of the building to learn more about the history of Hershey’s Chocolate.

You’ll learn how it’s farmed & harvested, transported, cooked down at the factory, made into chocolate, molded into different candy confections, packaged and all sorts of different things. The tour ride takes 15 minutes to go through and you sit in cars the entire time as they move along.

One of my grandchildren’s favorite part is seeing the animated cows talk and sing. That seems to be the highlight for the little ones. For the adults, we always enjoy learning how the chocolate bean is harvested and turned into delicious chocolate candy. For myself, I enjoy looking at the vintage advertising signs that are at the beginning and end of the tour. Once your done with the tour, they give you a miniature chocolate bar to enjoy.

We then headed down into the retail area to do some gift shopping. We like to stock-up on FRESHLY made Hershey’s candy (miniatures, kisses, peanut butter cups, etc.) and I always pick up a new package of cocoa powder, a few bags of chocolate chips for baking and other goodies. Nothing beats fresh from the factory!

Over at the food court we treated ourselves to Hershey milkshakes and let me tell you, they’re some of the BEST chocolate milkshakes in the entire world! They were worth our 20 minute wait in line. Delicious!!!

The next time we visit we’ll be doing some of the “paid” attractions and activities. They were extremely crowded on the day that we were there and we didn’t feel like waiting in line for an hour or two to do those. If you’re interested, you can go to Hershey’s website to learn all about Hershey’s Chocolate World and the on-site attractions.