My hubby and I began brainstorming ideas for the perfect birthday celebration for Princess earlier this year. This milestone is special because not only did she turn five, she’ll also be starting kindergarten in September. So to honor our little Princess, we decided to celebrate her big day in Hershey, Pennsylvania. So I came up with 5 tips for pulling off an awesome birthday celebration at Hershey Park.
1. Decorate the room. We decided to bring our fun family tradition to Hershey Park. My hubby and I adorned the room with all kinds of streamers with inspirational messages along with a happy birthday banner while Princess was fast asleep. The following morning she woke up to some of her favorite characters from Frozen. So far, we’ve managed to pull this off every year without ever waking her up.
2 Bring the birthday gifts. With limited trunk space, we weren’t sure whether or not bringing presents was a great idea. But since we were celebrating her actual birthday at the park, we found a way to make it all fit and left them out of sight until the big day. The look on her face when she saw the decorations and gifts the next morning was priceless.
3. Have a birthday dinner celebration. Hershey park is known for it’s awesome rides and water park. But there are also some pretty nice places to dine. We stayed at Hershey Lodge and ate dinner at The Forbey. It’s a nice casual eatery that offers a variety of broiled steaks, fresh seafood, and smokehouse specialties. Our server also surprised Princess with a birthday treat on the house.
4. Create your own birthday sweets. In addition to being able to create your own chocolate bar at Hershey’s Chocolate World, you can also head over to The Dessert Creation Studio to decorate cupcakes, cookies, ice cream sundaes, and draw with edible paint. We met up with our niece who was also celebrating her birthday. The girls also enjoyed a private birthday celebration poolside with cake.
5. Enjoy the other attractions and just have fun! We spent two nights in Hershey and I must admit, I felt overwhelmed. It was our first time and we felt like fish out of water. There’s so much to do and see, which made it hard to fit everything in. Since it was about 97 degrees on the first day, we decided to spend it at the water park.
Day two was a bit cooler so we were able to enjoy some dry rides and took the free Hershey Chocolate Factory Tour for a behind the scenes look at how Hershey chocolate is made. We were taken through sorting, cleaning, roasting, milling, grinding, pressing, drying, blending, and refining cocoa beans in a pretend factory and given yummy chocolate treats afterwards.
This experience was a lot different than the usual birthday party we’ve had in the past. If you ask Princess about her favorite part, she’d say it was spending time with her cousin. We’re so glad our niece was able to spend the day with us.
The funny thing is that when we initially told her that there wasn’t going to be a party, the look of disappointment that she gave us made me feel like we were letting her down.
With our family going through so many changes, I thought that it would be best to combined our yearly family vacation into one big trip. It’s like killing two birds with one stone and I’m so happy we did. It was definitely a celebration to remember.
There was so much to enjoy at Hershey Park, I couldn’t fit it into one post. Stay tuned for more highlights!
Feel free to check out previous party recaps and videos below!
1st Birthday
2nd Birthday
Dedication to our little Princessnofollow
Disclaimer: We received a one night stay and access to Hershey Park. All opinions expressed are my own.