Episode 274 - Hershey's Forgotten Attraction

When  you visit Hershey, PA there are some must visit attractions, the chocolate factory, Chocolate World, and esp Hersheypark but you might have forgotten one, Zoo America

This episode we are giving this little zoo some love that they deserve and letting you know what we did when we visited the winter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the 125 Roller Coaster Challenge Trimmed and Staple Podcast. And guys, um, that last episode was a little frustrating on my end there, so we're gonna have a happy one today. We are going to be talking about another place that we went so far this year, and it is the forgotten attraction in Hershey, Pennsylvania. When you think about Hershey, Pennsylvania, you talk about Chocolate World. You talk about Hershey Park, you might talk about the Hershey story, but it's very rare that people talk about Zoo America, which is their North America wildlife zoo. And it's part of the park. So this episode, we're going to be talking about Zoo America. I went there in the offseason. It is open year-round. People do not realize that in the dead of winter, Zoo America and Chocolate World are still opening there. But before we get started here, guys, uh, we want to remind you that we are striving to get to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. 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So, with that out of the way, let's talk about Zoo America. Now, if you're familiar with Hershey, basically 743 is a uh road that goes on the, I think it's the east side. You have the east side of the park, and it kind of cuts it off there, it kind of closes it off. But Zoo America is located on the right-hand side, pretty much uh right outside the parking lot of the old chocolate factory. But a lot of people know Zoo America as part of the park because when you walk out by Kissing Tower Hill over there by the uh, I guess uh the uh Triple Towers, uh there's actually a path, a bridge that goes over 743 and takes you into Zoo America. And like I said, if you park over by the uh downtown area over by the uh chocolate factory and stuff like that, there's parking there and you can access Zoo America that way. Now, if you have a season pass or if you're already in the park, it is free. There is no additional charge. However, if you just want to come on in for the day, you don't have a season pass, or you just visited Hershey and you're like, oh, let me see what this is. Uh, I believe it's$14.99 per kid. Uh well, actually, kids are a little bit cheaper. It's probably like$10.99, about under$20 to get in. And you know what? I think it's worth it. It's got a lot of cool attractions, and we're gonna talk about that. But I went there pretty much that day to film the gift shop. So it's been about three years since I've been there. So I figured I was gonna park uh over there. I already have my season pass, I'll run in real quick there, film the gift shop, and then run right out. Well, that did not happen because I hadn't been there for three years, and I'll be honest with you, Zoo America for me doesn't really change much. At least that's what I thought. But when I went there, yeah, it changed a lot because usually when you walked in, right there was a gift shop. No, no, no, not anymore. They actually took that gift shop out and they turned it into an entrance plaza with security gates, stuff like that. So they actually have two different roads that you can go in. So with me, the park's closed right now. It's still, you know, it's March right now. We're dropping this. Beginning of March is when I went. So um, when I went there, you go in and you go right into a security checkpoint. So, you know, they scan you the whole nine yards, and then they have an entrance booth uh right there. So they had people standing there. I showed them my season pass, I walked right in. However, if you're coming from the park, the bridge that takes you across 743 now accesses another part where you enter already past the entrance and security. So you don't have to go through that every time, show a pass or that. If you're coming from the park side, you just flow right on in where the people coming from the parking lot would enter. All right. Yet again, no gift shop, no nothing. You know, that's basically that building is now security and entrance. But then when you get past the um the toll booth, for lack of a better word, there, the uh uh where they check your pass and stuff like that coming from the other way there, and you flow in with the people from Hershey Park, now you enter the park. Now, the neat thing about um Zoo America is they have a quote unquote preferred path. And if you make it right, that takes you into the first exhibit area, all right. And um, if you check our um uh YouTube channel, we actually have a video with a full park walkthrough. We are actually going to be updating at this year, all right. So um you you know they have a lot of different North America habitats. Uh one of them is the swamp area there where you got alligators and you got that. Another one is more uh the northern area uh where you actually got you know different birds and all that kind of stuff. These are great exhibits. And on this trip, I actually didn't go in there to do the exhibits because part of them are indoors, and those I could do. I can do the indoor attractions. However, they have a lot of outdoor attractions too. Uh, the highlight of Zoo America is the uh the elk. The elk are huge, uh, they got a black bear. Uh, they also have uh a lot of, you know, they got wolves. Wolves are very popular outside, and these are outdoor exhibits. And I'm not gonna lie to you, it was about 35 degrees when I went. That wasn't what I was going for there. But if you go into the park, uh the zoo and you make that right, that takes you down the preferred path. It would take you to throughout all the different exhibits, takes you all around the park. You start off there in the swamp area, you end over by the wolves. All right. For me, I was there to shoot let's eat and merch. That's the way I looked at it. I was like, okay, they gotta have food in here, so I'll show the food stands and I'll go there. And originally I was gonna show the one gift shop, but that got blown up because the gift shop was no longer a gift shop. So I walked in and instead of going the preferred path, I went straight. And there's a couple exhibits there, the barn owls there, uh, they've got the uh anteaters, uh, that kind of stuff there. But when you go down the bottom of the hill, so because you're at the top of the hill, you go down the bottom of the hill, where they had their food before, the food court area, it's gone. It is now the gift shop, and they have a great name. Um Zouvenirs, uh, fantastic name, fantastic sign, uh, very fresh, very inviting. Um, I went in there, actually, I dropped it a couple days ago, uh, about a week ago, the walkthrough of the merch of uh Zouvenirs. Definitely make sure you check that on the YouTube channel. Subscribe if you're there. But when you go in there, you know, they got a lot of neat things. Uh, and it's funny because they've got a I guess the way to say it is they've got Zoo America specific items, they had glasses, they had socks, uh, they had some jackets, stuff like that. Uh junior zookeeper outfits. But then they got a lot of generic stuff. They've got um, you know, animal puzzles, they've got uh stuffed animals all over the place there. They got random snakes. I was like, do we even have much of a snake exhibit? I guess they do. Um, but it's a little bit of probably 50% zoo america, 50%. Hey, kids might like this. Uh, which yet again, it is a gift shop there. So the thing that got me was all right, so they took over the food court area where the food was. Where do they put the food now? There's they gotta have a new area with that. And I was informed that there's no food anymore at Zoo America. Now, don't get me wrong, if you look for snacks, they got some snacks over at uh uh Zouveneers, uh, but there is no food stands anymore in Zoo America. And I'd love to get your thoughts on that because um is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Uh why did they make that change? Um the time I went, so I can see it on both ends. So I went in winter, i.e. Hershey Park's not open. So if I just spent money to come in there and there's no food, really? There's not even a hot dog stand? They they might bring out some stands during the summer, but during the winter and the quote unquote off season for Hershey Park, you really don't have any food options. Meanwhile, I can understand that during the summer or the spring when the park's open, you can just go right across that bridge again and uh grab food, you know, from all the different food stands are at inside Hershey Park. Actually, there's a food area as soon as you get you know where the entrance to Zoom America is, where you can actually grab you know different you know, fries and stuff like that. So I understand that. But in the off season, if I wanted to get something to eat there, I'm buying a bag of combos, you know. If I want something to drink there, I'm getting a you know, a Pepsi bottle. You know, there's there's nothing there. So that kind of threw me for a little bit there. The fact they have no food. So what I'm trying to say is there's not going to be a let's eat at um Zoo America this year, right? So that was kind of shocking to me. But all in all though, love that they flipped the food court into a gift shop. I love the fact that because it makes sense, because if you were coming from the street area, if you weren't coming through the park, you really weren't screened before. There was no security screening. They needed to put that in there for safety nowadays. You know, today's world is a lot different. So I understand why they did that. It makes sense. I understand why they moved the gift shop from there. The only concern I have is there's no food there. But yet again, all the exhibits um were we're active, uh, which was good. You know, I can see that. And I know they do a lot of school trips uh during this time, which is also you know very good for uh Zoo America. The one thing that the security guy said to me was, and I I never never thought about this before, but I thought it was kind of interesting he brought it up. He's like, they should have put Zoo America on the other side of the park. And I was like, Well, what are you talking about there? It kind of it's it's nestled between the silos and the water there and stuff like that. But it made sense when he said it to me because he said, right now you kind of have two islands. You either go in and you have Chaco World, where you have, you know, all the um you know year-round attraction there. Um, you know, you've got the uh trolley rides, you got that, you know, even Hershey Park Supply Company. Then you have Zoo America, which is open year-round, but there's no connector. When the Hershey Park is closed, there's no connector. So you literally have to get in your car, go to Chocolate World, do what you want there. Oh, I want to go, let's go check out the zoo. You got to get in your car, leave the complex, make that right over by the Turkey Hill and um the Wendy's and uh Red Robin, go all the way through into town to get into Zoo America. And you can kind of think about okay, Zoo America's kind of connected to the downtown because Devin's there and you got the Hershey story, but it really feels like Zoo America is an island because all the other attractions are right on uh Chocolate Avenue. Meanwhile, this one's on Park Avenue. It's it's just a unique dynamic. And I never thought about it until the gentleman said, We're kind of an island because you've got either Chocolate World or you got downtown, but we don't really connect to either one of those. Um if you listen to our video about Hershey Park expanding, would they move Zoo America? Do they make sense? Because the zoo is very landlocked, you really can't do much. Um, and their biggest attraction at one point was the buffaloes, but because of a flood years ago, they they had to euthanize the buffalo, which made sense. You don't want these animals to suffer um when when the flooding hit, but you know, it would it be that difficult to move that attraction? Let me know in the comment section what you think there. And have you been to Zoo America? Do you go to Zoo America when you visit a park? Or is it something like the title of this episode says, the forgotten attraction? Is this something that people don't even think about anymore because you know they did it once and okay, that's good, it's done. Do you think they need to bring food back into Zoo America? Uh, I'm not talking about a fancy restaurant, but at least have a couple options there, um, especially during the off season uh when you don't have the park there. Let me know in the comment section. And guys, once again, can't wait to see you in the queue in 2026.