Articles
Published October 11, 2001
Take a chocolate bath in Hershey
By Judy Colbert, Expedia.com Contributor
Visit Hershey, Pennsylvania, and find out what it feels like to be hot cocoa. You can partake of the town's chocolate tours and tastings, theme park and zoo, and rose gardens, but you'll need to visit a new spa to take a dip in a warm, frothy mocha.
Fondue wraps and cocoa-butter scrubs
The Spa at the Hotel Hershey is known as the "chocolate spa," because of its chocolate-based treatments. Indulge in a 25-minute whipped cocoa bath, complete with foaming chocolate milk bath to soften and renew your skin. Enjoy chocolate and mud together, with a chocolate mud hydrotherapy consisting of Moor mud and essence of cocoa. Other options include a chocolate fondue wrap, a cocoa-butter scrub, and a non-chocolate specialty, a milk and honey soak.
The hotel is known for its Mediterranean architecture, including a hand-sculpted fountain, mosaic-tiled floors, and graceful oak railings in the lobby. Stained-glass windows surround the circular dining room. Outside, you can stroll through more than 20 acres of rose gardens, serenaded by classical music.
Water rides and coasters
For more active options, pay a visit to a chocolate factory or an amusement park.
At Chocolate World, the visitors center for Hershey Foods Corp., you can take a free 20-minute tour ride through a simulated chocolate factory. The ride takes you past nine exhibit areas showing how chocolate is made, from when the bean (you, in the motorized car) arrives in Hershey to the end of the line, where the chocolate is wrapped and shipped.
After the ride, you get a sample taste of Hershey's products, which may only whet your appetite for the goodies in the gift shop.
Hersheypark has more than 60 rides and attractions, including six water rides, 20 kiddie rides, and eight roller coasters. Two of the newest coasters are the Great Bear—an inverted steel coaster that loops, twists, and reaches speeds of up to 61 miles per hour—and the wooden, double-track Lightning Racer. Tidal Force is one of the world's tallest splashdown rides, reaching speeds of 50 mph and drenching you as you barrel down the flume. A new water coaster (combination water ride and roller coaster), as yet unnamed, opens in 2002.
Admission to Hersheypark also offers access to ZooAmerica, an 11-acre zoo with more than 200 animals representing 70 species native to five regions of North America.
Planning a trip
Hersheypark operates a varied schedule: A Christmas festival runs through much of November and December, weather permitting. Call 1 (800) 437-7439 for more information.
ZooAmerica is open all year. Call +1 (717) 534-3860 for more information.