Hershey’s Chocolate World

Right before the main entrance to Hershey Park you will find Hershey’s Chocolate World. When you first walk in you’ll think it’s just a giant gift shop and place to load up on chocolate. And while that is almost true, there are some other great things to do in there as well. Chocolate World opens at 9 AM so many people head in there before the park opens. We decided to go the day after we were at the park before we got on the road to drive home. If you are only going to chocolate work for under 3 hours parking is free also – score!

We purchased a bundle of tickets for 3 different events in Hershey’s Chocolate World. We chose the option for the Chocolate Tasting Experience, 4D show and the Create your own candy bar. There is also options that include a trolley ride, we only skipped because we didn’t think the kids would enjoy at this age.

Create your own candy bar

We woke up on our last day and declared the day “chocolate day”. The girls were excited to go make their own chocolate bar! The first step is to put on a hairnet and an apron before you enter the chocolate factory.

After this you are led into the next room with touch screen computers. It is here where you make all the big decisions on what kind of candy bar you want to make. Our kids loved picking this out and it was a tricky decision for sure. Haha!

The following room is the actual factory where the chocolate bars get made. Everything is visible and at a good level for kids to see. You literally watch your chocolate bar go down a conveyor belt getting the fillings and toppings you chose in the previous room. It moves slow but our girls loved watching theirs and making sure everything was how they designed it to be.

Once the chocolate bar has been made you are then directed into a room where you design the candy bar wrapper. Again on a touch screen computer you can pick your color and designs of the wrapper. After that is completed you are back to the conveyor belt watching for your chocolate to get wrapped up and finally packaged by a factory worker.

The bars of chocolate are huge and the packaging is seriously fancy! We had to cut the bars with a knife to eat them and they lasted days!

Chocolate Tasting

The tasting took place in a room located off the gift shop which we actually had a hard time finding, haha! It was a quick presentation on different types of chocolate and how chocolate was made. The instructor taught the audience how to taste chocolate in three steps. First you snap the chocolate, the smell and then eat it. The girls LOVED this tasting for obvious reasons as did I!

4D Show

Just your typical 4D show – the kids liked it a lot 🙂

Hershey’s Chocolate Tour

The last thing we did inside Hershey’s Chocolate World was the Hershey’s Chocolate Tour, which was FREE to everyone! The tour is a slow moving ride that takes you through the process of how Hershey’s Chocolate is made. It is a quick and cute and at the same times you learn a lot!

Gift Shop

Here you can buy pretty much any type of Hershey’s products that exist! Honestly I think its cheaper to buy elsewhere so its more for the novelty of buying it right at Chocolate World. My oldest is obsessed with buying souvenirs on vacation. Sometimes we allow her to choose something small or under a certain amount of money. T his time she had earned a spending allowance to use on this vacation and with it she chose to buy a Hershey Kiss Pillow that she keeps on her bed still to this day 😉

Hershey’s Chocolate World was definitely worth the visit for us and we would stop in again on another trip for sure! For kids of all the activities we did within Chocolate World I strongly suggest the Create your own candy bar and the free ride. I think the tasting and 4D shows wouldn’t be missed but then again the girls had a great time with anything involving chocolate!!