Visiting Hersheypark with Toddlers: What You Need to Know Before You Go
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Taking your toddlers to Hersheypark? I’m sharing everything you need to know before you go!
Are you planning a trip to Hersheypark with your little ones? It's important to know what to expect before you go, especially when it comes to ride restrictions and family-friendly attractions. My husband and I recently got some complimentary tickets to Hersheypark (which saved us LOTS of money!) and meant that we just had to pay for parking + a ticket for our 3-year-old toddler (our youngest is under 3 and therefore was free!). We only live 40 minutes away from Hersheypark, but it has been years since I have been to this amusement park and this was our first time taking the kids! I’m someone who really likes to plan as much as possible and be prepared for anything that might come up and try to know what to expect when we get there. So I’m sharing our experience and any tips that I might have for you to know when you visit with little kids! Here's everything you need to know to make the most of your visit with toddlers:
Preparing Before You Go
If you’re like me and love being prepared for things, you’re going to want to pay attention to some of these “before you go” preparation tips! It's essential to make some preparations to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience with toddlers in tow.
Packing Your Diaper Bag
Firstly, pack a well-stocked diaper bag equipped with all the necessities: diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, and snacks specifically suitable for small children. You’re not supposed to take outside food, but when we visited, they didn’t physically search through our bags. I didn’t pack a huge amount, but it was useful to have a pack of goldfish crackers on hand for if/when either of the kids started melting down out of hunger. You can also pack empty water bottles for yourselves and the kids - they have lots of water bottle refill stations all throughout the park! We also packed a thermos of milk for our one-year-old to try and help during nap times and for the drive home.
Pro Tip: don’t forget to pack some band-aids in your diaper bag! You never know who might get blisters or scrapes.
Pack for the Waterpark
You will also want to pack a bag of swim stuff if you plan to enjoy the waterpark! We packed a separate bag with a couple of towels, water shoes, swimsuits, and some sunscreen. The waterpark has changing rooms and bathrooms where you can get into your swim gear and if you prefer, you can lock your stuff into lockers inside of the waterpark. I only packed one bag of swim stuff since we would be taking turns getting dressed and watching our stroller and the kids, but if you wanted to be able to have everyone get changed at the same time, consider having more than one bag of clothing/items. You can go barefoot around the waterpark, but I had water shoes for the kids and sandals for my husband and me because you are still walking on concrete, and that can make your feet pretty sore!
Know How to Dress
You will obviously want to dress your kids (and yourself!) in comfortable clothes for the weather that day and make sure they are wearing closed-toe shoes that are good for walking and won’t slip off their feet when they are on rides. We knew that we weren’t going to stay late into the evening, so the weather would be all warm for our visit, but I made sure to have a sweatshirt for myself for the ride home and had backup outfits for the kids just in case there were any accidents. If you’re visiting on a day that there might be rain, consider packing some rain jackets.
Take a Stroller
Additionally, bring a stroller or a carrier to let your little ones rest when they become tired. We have recently transitioned to a stroller wagon to haul around both kids and we LOVE it! I saw so many stroller wagons during our visit to the amusement park. If you don’t have a stroller that you want to take along but end up wanting to use one, you can always rent strollers at the park, but they don’t really have any extra “storage space” - they are really just designed for setting your kids into them and pushing them around. Hersheypark has also done a great job of providing “stroller parking” at several of the major rides around the park, which I really appreciated!
Download the Hersheypark App!
Download the Hersheypark App and familiarize yourself with the park's layout and identify family-friendly attractions suitable for toddlers, allowing you to plan your day accordingly. We were able to buy our son’s junior ticket on the way there through the app and also got our parking ticket (you actually save $5 if you buy parking ahead of time instead of waiting until you are there). We also decided to buy two meal passes in advance to save some money and were able to add those to our app for easy access. Another bonus with the app is that you can view the park map AND see wait times for different rides! That was a major plus when navigating the park with littles - most of their rides thankfully did not have long wait times, but if we wanted to do any of the “larger rides” with them (like the monorail), it was helpful to see how long we would have to wait.
Expect to Experience Some Meltdowns
I know this sounds crazy, but let’s be real… being at an amusement park for a day can be overstimulating even for adults, so we really should expect that at some point during the day, we’re likely to experience some meltdowns from our kids! Knowing this and even just preparing your mind for this realistic possibility will help you to know how to space things out for the day to give your kids exactly what they need (physically and emotionally) during your day at Hersheypark! This might mean knowing when to arrive to the park based on kids’ nap schedules or how to know when it’s time for you to leave to try to minimize some end-of-day meltdowns.
By preparing ahead of time, you can create lasting memories while navigating Hersheypark with your little ones.
A Day at Hersheypark with Toddlers
I spent a lot of time at amusement parks as a kid and teenager, but this was my first time visiting as a mom with little kids! For the sake of hopefully being helpful to someone else as they are planning, I’m going to share our experience at Hersheypark with a three-year-old and a one-year-old.
Our Schedule for the Day
Hersheypark opens at 10 AM, but we decided that we wanted to arrive closer to 11 AM in hopes of getting one (or both!) of our kids to nap on the way there. Spoiler alert: neither one of them napped on the way and it made for a difficult afternoon with our youngest! But like I said in my planning tips above… I was expecting the meltdown and we found a way to work through it. (She eventually napped, just way later than usual.) My husband and I told ourselves leading up to our arrival that we were ok to stay for just a few hours and head home before bedtime. The one thing that I didn’t count on was how spaced out some things would feel (timing-wise) because of all of the walking and some of the waiting in lines. I know that’s to be expected, but I’m just clarifying that “a few hours” went by really quickly! We actually stayed until around dinner time and grabbed sandwiches for my husband and myself to eat on the way home (or once we got home and got the kids to bed).
Where to Park
We visited Hersheypark during the week on a Tuesday, so it wasn’t nearly as busy as it would have been during the weekend! We used the app to purchase parking on our way to the amusement park (which saved us $5!) and it was super easy to scan our parking pass on our phone at the entry gates. We then drove around and entered the parking lot where directed and we happened to be able to park right next to the tram stop! This was amazing! The tram will allow you to take strollers on, they have two designated sections reserved for families with strollers and they even helped us to load it onto the tram. So I had both kids and Eric loaded the stroller. We were able to load the stroller wagon with the bags in it - obviously, you can’t keep the kids in the stroller during the tram ride for safety reasons. The kids really loved the tram ride - it was like a train ride at the very beginning and it was less walking for us to get to the amusement park entrance from the parking lot and was an incredible bit of relief on the way back to our car after walking around the park all day.
Toddler-Friendly Rides
Just as we entered Hersheypark, we stopped to measure our kids’ heights to know what the appropriate rides would be for them! We had a good idea of what each of them was, but it was still fun for photos and memories! Our 3-year-old measured as a Hershey’s Kiss height (he was still a few inches under the Reese’s height), and our 1-year-old was a Hershey’s miniature (so fun!).
Some of these toddler-friendly rides would allow an adult to ride as well, and some of them would only allow little kids to ride (no adults allowed). There are also rides that explicitly state that you can’t take hand-held infants on them, and some rides wouldn’t allow our 1-year-old to ride unless she could walk by herself. (One ride attendant actually made her walk to prove she could walk on her own!). Overall, Hersheypark does a really great job of making it easy to tell which heights are allowed on the ride and they also scattered these family-friendly rides all around the park.
We decided to start off with a few rides when we first arrived and then grab lunch, find more rides, and eventually take a break at the waterpark. After our time at the waterpark, the kids seemed pretty exhausted, so we managed just a few more rides as we made our way back to our car.
Toddler-Friendly Rides (for Miniatures 0-36” and Kisses 36-42”)
* Must be accompanied by an adult
Balloon Flite (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Carrousel (allows all sizes) - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Coal Cracker - Kisses* - (this is a water ride)
Cocoa Cruiser - Kisses*
Convoy - Miniatures* and Kisses
Dizzy Drums (children only) - Kisses
Dry Gulch Railroad - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Ferris Wheel - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Frog Hopper - Kisses - (one taller companion may accompany each child: that includes mom and dad.)
Frontier Flyers - Kisses*
Granny Bugs (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Helicopters (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Kissing Tower - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Livery Stables (children only) - Kisses
Mini Himalaya - Miniatures* and Kisses
Mini Pirate (children only) - Kisses
Mini Scrambler (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Minty Bees (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Misfit Bug - Miniatures* and Kisses
Monorail - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Pony Parade (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses
Red Baron (children only) - Kisses
Reese’s Cupfusion - Kisses*
Scrambler - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Skyview - Kisses*
Space Age - Miniatures and Kisses - (one taller companion may accompany each child: that includes mom or dad.)
Starship America - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Sweet Swing - Kisses - (one taller companion may accompany each child: that includes mom or dad)
Swing Thing (children only) - Kisses
Tea Cups - Kisses*
Tilt-a-Whirl - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Tiny Tracks (children only) - Miniatures* and Kisses - (one taller companion may accompany each child: that includes mom or dad)
Traffic Jam (children only) - Miniatures and Kisses - (one taller companion may accompany each child: that includes mom or dad)
Trailblazer - Kisses*
Twin Turnpike Classic Cars - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Twin Turnpike Speedway - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Toddler-Friendly Waterpark Rides (for Miniatures 0-36” and Kisses 36-42”)
* Must be accompanied by an adult
Bayside Pier - Miniatures* and Kisses*
East Coast Waterworks - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Intercoastal Waterway - Miniatures* and Kisses* - (Miniatures must wear a life vest)
Sandcastle Cove - Miniatures* and Kisses*
The Shore - Miniatures* and Kisses*
Shoreline Sprayground - Miniatures and Kisses
Playing in the Waterpark
Once I started to notice that I was feeling really hot and our not-napping-melting-down toddler seemed a bit overheated, we decided to spend some time at the Waterpark! This was actually my husband’s first time at the Hersheypark Waterpark and it was blown away by the size of the place! It can definitely feel overwhelming, especially with little kids in tow. We booked it straight to the changing area and bathrooms directly across from the Bayside Pier attraction. My husband managed to get our one-year-old down for a nap and we laid her in our stroller wagon for a nap in the shade while I took our 3-year-old to get changed. After that we waited for my husband to get changed and then I went to play in the different splash areas with my son while my husband sat with our daughter for her nap. Once she woke up, my husband got her dressed to come to join us for some water time, but she mostly just wanted to walk around and see everything!
A few things to think about during your time in the Waterpark with toddlers:
Strollers vs. Lockers - There are plenty of lockers around the waterpark that you can use to lock up your belongings while you are enjoying all of the water play and a bracelet key to keep on you. We chose to keep all of our stuff in our stroller and I had a crossbody bag on my with my phone, keys, money, etc. (I chose not to leave that stuff in the stroller). Of course, all of our stuff was then at risk of being taken, but we didn’t go too far from our stroller at any time. You’ll want to weigh the risks and decide for yourself what you are comfortable with in regard to storing your stuff within the waterpark. You could also get a waterproof bag specifically made for your small valuable items that you want to keep close to you.
The waterpark is crowded! Even more so than the amusement park itself with all of the rides and food stands and games and lines, the waterpark just feels much more crowded and busy, especially with little toddlers. There are so many kids running around everywhere and it can feel really intimidating to have to keep track of small kids in such a busy place! We were lucky enough that my husband and I could each be in charge of one kid, but if you have multiples, you’ll want to have a plan for keeping track of them. If your kids are just a bit older than toddlers, but still not fully ready to be on their own within the waterpark, consider getting some type of waterproof GPS tracker bracelet or watch for your kid to wear. This is also a great option for children with special needs or on the autism spectrum. You can find wearable and waterproof tracking devices for as little as $15 or more, depending on your needs or wants. Personally, once my kids are just old enough to want to run around a waterpark on their own, I will definitely be buying one of these options to keep track of them at all times! Of course, it’s always smart to also have a really clear “game plan” if one of your children gets lost - make sure to go over that plan really clearly several times with your kids so they know just what to do if they lose track of mom and dad while they are playing!
Wrapping Up Our Time at the Park
Once we finished up in the waterpark and got dried off and dressed back into our not-wet clothes, it was getting close to dinner time and we knew it was time to head back to the car so we could get home for the kids’ bedtimes. We still hit up a few more rides on our way back to the car and also decided to grab some dinner on the way out. The tram ride from the park entrance/exit back to our car was glorious after a day of walking everywhere!
All in all, I’m glad that we waited until my son was over 3 to take him to Hersheypark! He has always been an overly active kid and does not always have the best patience for standing in lines, so waiting until 3 was a great age when he knew that waiting had a reward at the end and he was so excited about the rides! I’m glad that our one-year-old was free, because it certainly felt like a bit more of a hassle to have her along, and didn’t feel like the payoff was quite worth it in the long run. If it wasn’t for having free tickets and specifically choosing to make this a family day, I would have loved to keep our one-year-old with other family members for the day and just enjoyed the park with our older toddler!
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