In my previous post I wrote about the 100th anniversary of both Hersheypark and one of its signature products, the Hershey’s Kiss. It’s a milestone Hershey, Pennsylvania is not taking lightly. The model factory town built more than 100 years ago by chocolate magnate Milton Hershey is still the epicenter of the Hershey chocolate empire and today its neighboring attractions make it one of the most popular destinations in the nation.
After all, where else can you take in the sweet smell of chocolate while flying around the twists and turns on a wooden roller coaster? Anyone who has visited “The Sweetest Place On Earth” will tell you there’s nothing quite like a visit to Hershey. It’s a place where you can bathe in chocolate at a Chocolate Spa and wash with soap made with cocoa beans at the luxurious Hershey Hotel. This world of chocolate offers everything from thrill rides to history lessons.
To mark the park’s anniversary the company added a few new (and spectacular) attractions. Among them is The Boardwalk, a $21 million expansion that is the largest in Hersheypark’s history. It is scheduled to open on Saturday and features a sprawling water play area. The Boardwalk’s main features include a towering complex of water slides and a wave pool for surfing. But, its crown jewel is an enormous, colorful, seven-story-high maze of watery platforms, bridges, tunnels, and slides large enough to accommodate hundreds of visitors at a time.
The Boardwalk joins some other relatively new additions including Storm Runner, a record-setting roller coaster that blasts riders from zero to 72 mph in two seconds. Last year the park debuted a high-tech, interactive indoor ride modeled after Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Talk abut coming a long way… When the park first opened in 1907 it was nothing more than green space for families to picnic and play games. Now it has exploded into a multi-millionaire dollar empire ten times the size of the original grounds… and the company says there are more changes on the way.
According to company executives, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, a sister to the chocolate company that runs the park and many of the town’s hotels and restaurants, is in the midst of a big revitalization of Chocolate Avenue. Some of the most notable changes include a restoration of the historic Milton Hershey Theatre. In addition, earlier this month ground was broken on a major museum called The Hershey Story, which should be finished by late 2008. There will be improvements made to The Hershey Hotel as well, including the addition of an elaborate new pool area for kids and adults, new areas for lawn sports such as bocce and tennis, a wedding pavilion and a year-round ice-skating rink.
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