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Sunday, November 3, 2013

[Hershey's chocolate world] Kids' paradise in the middle of nowhere @ Pennsylvania

In 2011 when we had had our first trip to Lancaster, we had planned and done all the activities according to the grown-up's taste, instead of sparing a few time lots for kids' interests. Even though I only have fond memories about our last trip to Lancaster, I have kind of felt sorry for my boys.
Posts about 2011 Lancaster:

That's why we decided to do at least a couple of things only of the kids, by the kids, and for the kids, when we made a plan for a trip to Lancaster for the second time, 
 
While we had originally booked tickets of the musical "Noah" at Sight & Sound Theatre for kids, 

we also enjoyed it a lot, even though it was a little bit too much religious for our taste. 

It was two-and-half-hour long musical, even with an intermission. But, kids and we enjoyed every second.

Kids liked the buggy ride very much, but it was a wonderful promenade for us too. You can see the scenery of the Amish village we saw on the buggy here

So, as a result, we did only one thing, purely for the boys, which was our visit to Hershey's chocolate world. 

It was a great facility/installation to entertain your kids and maybe yourself too. 

The only thing I was unpleasantly surprised of was the pricing of all those activities which were highly over-priced. The website of the chocolate world advertises the only entertainment offered free of charge, which was 15-minute dark ride tour that shows a simulation of the chocolate making process. Unlike other amusement/entertainment installations, the website of the Hershey chocolate factory doesn't provide information about the prices of their attractions. 

Although Remi wanted to participate in Make-your-own-candy-bar, we persuaded him and went for two other attractions: Hershey's Chocolate Tasting Experience and Hershey's Great Chocolate Factory Mystery IN 4D. 

Hershey's Chocolate Tasting Experience was kind of okay as you could learn about the differences of chocolates according the level of the cacao. 

Kids were more, or rather only, interested in tasting the samples of the chocolates. 

It was okay, but quite tedious. I couldn't say I would recommend this tasting at the price of $9.95! ($6.95 for kids). It would be better to buy all different kinds of chocolate and taste a lot with that money.
   
On the other hand, the movie "Hershey's Great Chocolate Factory Mystery IN 4D"  made only for Hershey, was quite entertaining and fun! 

You would enjoy it. Were you wondering what 4D movie is? 

It's an entertainment presentation system combining a 3D film with physical effects that occur in the theatre in synchronization with the film (reference: Wikipedia). 

I will not spoil what kind of physical effect the movie had, for your own sake :) 

At least, I can tell you that the movie was amusing and worth money!

For the last part of fun, we took a dark ride in the guided vehicles, shown in the photo above, travel through the simulated chocolate factory which shows the entire chocolate making process. 

You can take it more than once if you want. It actually was very interesting to see and learn how they make chocolate at industrial level, from the scratch. 

You can get a free chocolate sample at the end of the tour. 

This is the tour you shouldn't miss.


Of course, all the tours and attraction sites are connected to the 'gift shops' before concluding the visit, aren't they? The shop was huge, fully filled with chocolate or chocolate related goods. A lot of those items are so cute and unique, you can't really resist from buying. 

At the end, as you might guess, the tour ends with a handful of souvenir(?) and a lighter wallet(or a longer credit card bill)~

The most important thing was that the kids had lots of fun! and we did something only for kids on this trip. :) It's worth visiting once, but probably not twice. I am almost 100% sure that we will visit Lancaster again though. Well, if it's for kids, why not? Just be prepared to pay a little bit more than you expect :)

You can see my Lancaster posts as below:

Hershey's Chocolate World

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