Hershey PA

About every other Thanksgiving, we take a family vacation to New York City to visit family. This year we decided to drive. We didn't drive straight through like we did the first time because I thought that would be too much time in the car for Bryson. We planned to take 3 days to get there and 2 days back. We left out on Saturday and drove about 8 hours to Virginia. Bryson did great in the car. We stopped a few times to eat and stretch our legs. We didn't spend much time in Virginia. We got there around dinner time and found a restaurant near our hotel to eat. After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening in the hotel room. We headed back out early the next morning. We made a short 5 hour drive to Hershey Pennsylvania where we planned to spend two days. We took our time on this trip and arrived late afternoon. The hotel we stayed in had a pool. Bryson loved it! We remembered to pack his swimsuit but forgot floaties. Thankfully the hotel had some.

 We ordered take out from Red Robin for dinner. Robert and his mom went to pick it up and they did a little exploring while they were out so we would know exactly where to go the next day. We headed out after breakfast to go to Hershey world. We drove around and looked at the city a little bit before we stopped. It was the cutest little town. The street lights were shaped like Hershey Kisses. It almost felt like we were in the movie Willy Wonka.

As soon as you walked into chocolate world you could smell all the yummy chocolate. We signed up make our own chocolate bar so while we waited for that, we did a little exploring. They had a gift shop and of course a ton of little shops to get food and of course sweets. Bryson was able to make his own Hershey Kisses to bring home. They had a few displays made out of chocolate that were so neat.

 

Then it was our turn to make our own chocolate bar. Each of us had our own ticket with our name on it. We went into a room where we designed our chocolate bar. We scanned our ticket and chose which type of chocolate we wanted and what toppings we wanted. You could chose white chocolate, dark chocolate or regular chocolate. I chose dark chocolate and Robert and Bryson chose white chocolate. For the toppings, I just chose butterscotch and chocolate chips. Bryson and Robert chose chocolate chips, cookie bites and rice krispies. Once we designed our candy bar, we entered the room where it was made. To start our chocolate bar, we scanned our ticket, We were able to follow the making of the chocolate bar down assembly line because our chocolate bar had our name under it. After it was made, all of them were covered in more chocolate then went through a cooling off process. While it was cooling off, we designed our own label and then were able to take them home. We wanted to wait until we got home to eat them but decided we wanted to see what fresh made chocolate tasted like. It was a million times better than store bought.

Once we made our chocolate bar, we wanted to take the tour of how chocolate was made. This was Brysons favorite part. He loved the song that was played the whole time and kept laughing at Eli trying to get all the chocolate. When we ask him his favorite part of this trip, that's what he will tell us.

 After the chocolate tour we grabbed a late lunch and did a little more sight seeing. There was more to do in Hershey but we wanted to save our money for NYC. We called it an early night and Bryson was able to enjoy a little more swimming. We took our time heading out the next morning since it's only a 3 hour drive from Hershey to NYC. It was nice to not be rushed out. Before we headed out, Bryson had to stop and play with the ducks. There was a little pond in front of the hotel with a ton of ducks you could feed. Bryson kept pretending to be a duck. It was hilarious!