May 21 2021
Return to Amusement Parks: Hershey Park, Part 1
OK listen, Linda. I know what you’re thinking: wow, Erin was such an avid avoider of all of the things during the pandemic and now suddenly it’s cool to go to an amusement park? Listen. Listen, listen, listen. We made reservations in advance, knowing that Covid-restrictions were still in place and that Henry and I would both be past the 2-week point of our second Pfizer dose by then. And then it worked out that Chooch was able to get his first dose before we went so he was at least partially vaccinated. I was starting to feel OK about this.
But then.
The dumb CDC announced the new lax mask rules, and almost immediately after that (i.e. two days before our trip), Hershey was like GREAT NEWS, NO MASKS REQUIRED FOR OUR VACCINATED GUESTS.
Oh boy, the honor system!
In America!!!!
And I get it, HIPPA or whatever other legal bullshit prohibits places like this from requiring guests to show their vaccination cards as proof but DAMN I wish they would have! Give us a special wristband or something, you know? But instead, all three of us wore our masks for the entire day because I do not trust my fellow Americans and because Chooch still would have had to wear his anyway so we wore ours along with him out of solidarity. We are nice parents sometimes.
Another thing to note is that we, for some incredibly strange reason, have never actually been to Hershey Park (well, Henry was there when he was 10 and they probably only had, like, those peddle scooters and a Ferris wheel back then) and I have a vague recollection of also being there very briefly when I was very young because we 100% went on the Chocolate Factory ride which is separate from the amusement park, and I think we may have just walked through the park while I cried because I wanted to ride stuff and for some reason THAT WAS NOT HAPPENING THAT DAY.
So I’m not sure if the crowds we experienced that day were normal, but for a park that was allegedly running on like 75% capacity because of Covid, the hoards of people were poppin’ off. The picture above was taken after we left, but the entrance was just a gigantic, fluid, undulating mass of bodies when we got there 30 minutes before the gates opened AND SURPRISE, barely anyone was wearing masks. Luckily, we got behind the coolest, least annoying family: two dads and their two young kids, all of whom were decked out in head-to-toe Adidas and the kids were wearing Keith Haring masks. YOU KNOW I HAD TO GIVE COMPLIMENTS WHERE COMPLIMENTS WERE DUE! This caused us to have a nice, low-key civil rapport which is all you can ask for when you’re crammed into a mess of “lines” with thousands of strangers.
We saw them again later and when I pointed them out, Chooch made the universal I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT ALSO STOP TALKING TO ME IN PUBLIC disgusted face/shoulder raise often performed by American teenagers.
Before we got to the park that day, I declared out loud that I wasn’t going to let myself be bothered by the general population that (Henry laughed out a sarcastic “Ok.”) and following that same POSICORE mindset, I’m also going to focus more on the good shit about the park rather than the bad, because I am 99.9% positive that Hershey Park is not always like how it was last Saturday, which was: super fucking crowded with two of their most popular rides closed. I never hear anyone complain about Hershey so I have to believe that all of this was a combination of vaccinated people tryna live their lives, Hershey dropping their mask policy, the pandemic causing the park to be understaffed, and season pass holders showing up in droves to collect their swag and free cookies.
Most importantly, we got to do what we love so much: RIDE FUCKING COASTERS.
Before I get into that, let’s look at pictures of us frumpin’ around the park, being THOSE LIBS IN MASKS.
(Also, I’d like to point out that Chooch was chatting away on some dumb Dischord server thing pretty much all day and we barely talked at all in any of the lines and that’s pretty depressing.)
Me: Go stand by the statue of that dude…whoever the fuck that is.
Chooch: Uh….it’s literally the Hershey guy? But ok.
Henry only rode two coasters all day. This was one of them,
Henry always managed to capture me at my BEST ANGLES. Ugh.
This whole area was a FUCKING TRAFFIC JAM all day.
And we got to take a carouselfie!!!! I panicked when I first looked at this picture because I thought my underarms were flabby AND creped but then I realized that it’s actually part of Henry’s horse, lololol ugh. How I yearn for the day when I’m not completely preoccupied with my weight.
What you can’t hear is Chooch hissing, “WHAT???? WHICH PARENTAL PLEBE DOST DEIGN TO SPEAK TO ME?”
THIS WAS MY RIDE.
My favorite area was the Frontier Land part or whatever it was called.
In my next post, I will recap the rides we rode (all coasters, no time for anything else!), but I will end this with some non-ride observations:
- The soft pretzels were REALLY GOOD (especially the jalapeno ones!). We’re not “full meal eaters” typically when we go to amusement parks unless it’s a smaller park which allows us to live our lives more leisurely. Hershey Park is notorious for their gluttonous milkshakes and while I would have LOVED to fuck with one of those, I also…wanted to ride aggressive coasters.
- We were REALLY harried since it was our first time and didn’t really get to explore much but my initial impression was that the park was not very picturesque. I actually hated the entire area by the entrance because everything around Candymonium is dirt and it gives off construction site-vibes. Hopefully if we go back (I’m sure we will – we’re missing two coaster creds!!), we will have more time to really take everything in and also explore the ZOO, yes, there is a ZOO there!!
- The chocolate chip cookies tasted like childhood and I was in pure bliss as I scarfed them down. Henry and Chooch were like, “Eh, these taste basic” but then they ate more than their fair share so hope they enjoyed their basic shits that night.
- I saw the same lady with face tattoos (and not “face ladies” as I originally typed…) in the same spot twice, which was weird, like did she move at all that day? But it also reminded me of this and I laughed to myself, except it was out loud when Henry and Chooch were walking ahead of me so I was literally laughing alone and some people side-eyed me.
- ANOTHER PARK THAT MAKES YOU PAY FOR PARKING. How is this acceptable?! How are they not already making enough money off of us?!!?
- I didn’t actively hate anyone that day (I mean, aside from Henry and His Nose-Whistle).
- They seemed to have some good flat ride options that I would like to sit on next time.
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