During my visit to Hershey Park, I also visited ZooAmerica. You can go to ZooAmerica separately from Hershey Park, but there is also an entrance to ZooAmerica while you are inside Hershey Park, so you can break up your day and visit the Zoo in the middle of your Park visit.
This American Elk Statue is inside Hershey Park, close to the entrance for ZooAmerica.
Right before I entered into the main part of the Zoo, this sign provided an overview of what was to come. Once you are inside, you have the ability to walk around wherever you prefer, but they also have signs for a “Suggested Route”, which are the signs I decided to follow. I was able to see a lot of animals, but not able to capture all of them on camera. Some of the pictures are a bit fuzzy since the animals were far away, some were in a dark enclosure, some were moving around, etc.
Roseate Spoonbill
American Alligators.
Burrowing Owl
Desert Tortoises
Roadrunner – I was fortunate to get this while it was still. Once it started moving, it would go running all over the place.
Ocelot – This was in a dark enclosure and took me quite a few takes to be able to get a picture (no flash).
Snowy Owl – I wish I could have gotten a better close up.
Bald Eagles – I love seeing Bald Eagles and was fortunate that they were hanging out pretty close to where I was standing.
Canada Lynx – This was tough to capture since it was just sitting up on a hill and far away. This was as zoomed in as I could get.
There were a lot more animals that I saw, including mountain lion, wolf, black bear, elk, ringtail, coati, to name a few.
This last picture was a surprise to me. These two were hanging out at the top of a tree about 10 feet off the ground. These are porcupines! I had no idea they were tree dwellers.
I enjoyed my time in the Zoo. I made my way around in just about an hour, so it was a nice middle of the day break from the park. I would visit again and would hope to get some better pictures and have some more close up experiences with some of the bigger animals.
This past Saturday, I made a trip up to Hershey, Pennsylvania. It takes me a couple of hours to drive there, so my goal was to get in before 10AM, do a couple of things in town, eat some lunch, and then go to both ZooAmerica and Hershey Park (it didn’t open until 12PM). I was successful in getting there before 10AM. It was not quite 30 degrees, so there was a nice amount of cold when walking around, especially when the wind was hitting me just right. I parked in the parking garage for The Hershey Story and Museum (free parking).
The street lights have Kisses on top, which I think is really cute.
They alternate between wrapped and unwrapped. I think it makes it fun to see.
It must be a tough decision when you have to decide if you would prefer Chocolate Avenue or Cocoa Avenue. 🙂
You can get to the Hershey Company building in about a five minute walk from the Hershey Story building. I took a picture of myself standing in front of it, but forgot to take one of just the building. They do have some energy efficient cars with their brands on it, which I enjoyed seeing.
This is the outside of the The Hershey Story.
I went to The Pantry Cafe and got myself a Peppermint Mocha frozen coffee drink. They had some nice looking treats, but my pictures didn’t turn out. The coffee drink was very good. Nice consistency, not icy at all, the peppermint was not overbearing and went well with the mocha flavor. Definitely a good place for Frappuccino type drinks. There are quite a few things you can do other than just eating at The Pantry Cafe. There is a Museum Experience, a Chocolate Lab, a Tastings Bar, Hershey Gardens and more. You have to pay for these experiences, but they get some good reviews, so I have a feeling they are worth it.
There are other things to do in the town. It’s not just Hershey Park and the hotels, but it’s also a town with residents and shops. I was focused with what I planned on doing, but you can plan a day and do things outside of the park and have fun.
I made my way over to Hershey’s Chocolate World. Since I was going to be in Hershey Park, I paid for Theme Park parking. If you just want to visit Hershey’s Chocolate World, you can park for free for up to 3 hours. Once you step inside, there are plenty of options. There are paid attractions such as 4D Chocolate Movie, Create Your Own Candy Bar, Hershey’s Unwrapped: A Chocolate Tasting Journey, and Hershey Trolley Works. But there is a food court and a huge candy store and a large store that sells Hershey Company related items (shirts, cups, ornaments, etc.).
Right now, they have their Holiday theme going, including this Holiday Chocolate House, which is a nice size.
There are a couple of places where you can buy baked goods. I didn’t purchase any, but did get some pictures just so you can see what types of goodies are available.
I thought these looked very cute. I was tempted, but was able to resist.
Since I was there before the park opened, I decided to order the Hershey’s Cocoa Pulled Pork. It comes with two sides, so I got macaroni and cheese and Cole slaw. They were both good choices. I also got the side sauces. One is Hershey’s chocolate barbecue sauce, which was VERY good. There was also a Heath Honey Mustard, which was also good. I ate more than I should have, especially since I was going to be heading into the park, but it was worth it.
After my day inside the park was done, I came back into Hershey’s Chocolate World to buy more candy than I should have. Some of the items are really good deals, and they also have some items that you can’t get in most stores. I decided to treat myself with dessert. There is a S’Mores station which looked really good, but I was focused on getting their new specialty milk shake. It’s a Kit Kat Duo shake. They’ve recently introduced the Kit Kat Mint and Dark Chocolate Duo, and they have put it into milk shake form. I haven’t had the Kit Kat bars before, and since the milk shake came with two bars, this was my first time trying them. The milk shake and the bars were delicious!
I’ll write more about Hershey Park and ZooAmerica in a separate post, but I wanted to share these things since there are other things that you can do if you don’t want to go inside a theme park and don’t feel like going on any rides. It could be a fun day just hanging out at Hershey’s Story or at Hershey’s Chocolate World.
Noninsightfulness 