When my wife told me we were going to be spending a day at the Hershey’s Chocolate world (as part of our vacation in the East coast), I really didn’t know what to emote.
I knew it was only going to be 3 day weekend and we were planning to fly down to Philadelphia to visit some friends and also had the New York visit on our agenda (which by itself requires atleast 3 days to completely savour the urban spectacle that it has to offer).
“What would we do at Hershey’s” was my immediate question. “Shouldn’t we be trying to cram in some more historical monuments within our schedule… I mean, after all Philadelphia is quite a historic place, with the Liberty Bell and the Independence Hall being the prime places to visit.”
“NO” she firmly replied, “After all we need to dedicate atleast one day to the kids.”
So very reluctantly, I agreed to spend a day at Hershey’s, all the while thinking that I could convince them to probably spend the latter half of the day visiting Philly downtown. But boy, was I up for a surprise!
The drive to Hershey was not bad (about 2 hours from Philadelphia) and towards the end we were driving through this quaint farm town, which was quite an enjoyable experience in itself. We finally reached Hershey and I could’ve sworn that the air did smell sweeter. Once we got our gear out of the car (children, stroller, bags et al), we didn’t waste a single moment in getting into action.
We were greeted by a beautiful sign of what all it had to offer. There was the “Hershey Great American Chocolate Tour”, “Hershey’s really big 3D show”, “Hershey’s Factory Works experience” and ofcourse “Everything Hershey’s Gifts and Chocolates”
We decided to take the Chocolate Tour first and entered this dimly lit hallway with pictures of the Amazon jungles and of people plucking the Coco fruit. Next we were made to sit in a small trolley which took us through the whole process of chocolate making. We could see the Cocoa bags moving on the conveyer belts, followed by the cocoa bean cleaner, the beans being pulverized into coco powder and the addition of milk and other ingredients. There were some Happy Cows with tails moving as they sung in perfect harmony. Soon we could see coco cakes being sent to the chocolate melting area, and chocolate paste streaming around cylindrical rolls ( Mmmmm). The aroma was overwhelming and the kids were going beserk (maybe the sweetness in the air was kicking in). The chocolate paste was then converted to Hershey Kisses, Hershey Bars, Reese’s peanut butter cakes, etc. At one point it was magnificent to see 5 different conveyor belts carrying 5 types of candies. It felt straight out of the movie “Charlie and the chocolate factory.”
Once this ride was over, we couldn’t help but follow our instincts to rush to the Chocolate Gift shop. I thought I was dreaming when I saw stacks and stacks of candies as far as eye could see. From there on we directly headed over to the Really Big 3D show, and were blown away by the way candies, streamers etc were flying around the room, almost making us reach out to grab them. The music & visual effects were amazing.
We made a quick stop at the Food court and then rushed to the Hershey’s amusement park which had some pretty novel rides to offer.
At the end of the day, we were so tired that we could hardly stand. But through it all, I felt really gratified for having indulged my inner child to a visual treat of a lifetime, all the time pointing out the great sacrifice that I had made by spending one entire day of my 3 day vacation in the “Land of Chocolate.”
Author: Ashley Alvares- USA