To begin with, it was very crowded. We have visited during the first weekend in August for the past six years and know it can be busy, but nothing like today. We were packed so tight it was difficult to move. I often complain about the crowds at Disney - those crowds are unlike this. It can be impossible to move from one area to the next. At one point we lost Mike in the crowd and spent ten minutes searching for him. Another time a guy stopped in front of me blocking the only way through and I had to shove him to make a path. Many other times I had to run into people and push my way through crowds standing in the walk ways. Chocolate World is too small and too poorly laid out to support this many people. It either needs an expansion, a redesign, or cut off the number of guests allowed in.
There was also a larger than normal number of foreigners in attendance. Normally, people from around the world interest me and are of no concern. But this group was part of a large family whose social norms did not match ours. They reserved a quarter of the seating in the eatery even though they used only a tenth of the tables. They ignored their small children having fist fights and being disruptive (running into others). They were in appropriately loud during shows which was disruptive. And they had a tendency to lounge in walkways - lounging included removing their shoes, rolling up their paint legs, and sitting stretched out in the middle of crowded areas. No one at Hershey is doing crowd management. Hershey is allowing this to happen.
Hershey has a new 4D show that is fairly expensive - $8 for around 15 minutes. Hershey fails to amplify the movie introduction and the crowd would not settle down making it impossible to hear what was happening.
There are morals that we must teach our children. An important moral is that there are consequences. When you do something bad, or even illegal, there is punishment - a consequence - a price you must pay for that behavior. This ridiculous 4D movie tells us the evil bad guy is just misunderstood. And when the audience votes that the bad guy must receive a consequence? Instead, the heroes apologize for misunderstanding the villain and they set him free - no consequence. The bad guy isn't bad, we are bad for making the bad guy bad. It is our fault. We should bare the consequences for hurting the bad guy's feelings. This is the most screwed up moral I have ever seen in a story!
The free chocolate ride had a 20 minute wait. In all the years I have never waited 20 minutes! And when we made it through the line, they stuffed eight people into a car that would have comfortable fit four.
Hershey does a tour of the town using a trolley car. In the past when busy they would bring on additional cars. We arrived at 2pm and the Trolley was booked for the day! We talked to the agent to buy tickets and the lobby was so loud due to the crowd that is was impossible to hear her.
We decided to get ice cream. Two of the three possible stations were open and the lines stretched into the seated area. After standing in line for ten minutes the line advanced to the point were we could see a sign sitting on the floor that said we were in the Milkshake only line! After complaining that this was like the DMV. We moved to the back of the ice cream line. We weren't the only ones, many discovered they were in the wrong line. So, when we ordered our ice cream we complained and asked to talk to a manager, but the girl just laughed at us as if she couldn't understand English.
We were not happy campers. And making it worse? The restroom sinks were flooded and the garbage overflowing. Clearly, Chocolate World was suffering from severe mismanagement.
You can tell us that summers are always busy, and we would agree. But we have been at Chocolate World on this very weekend for the past six years and have never been so mad, so frustrated, and so disappointed.
We can usually make it through everything in three hours, but due to the crowd and the lines, it took four hours resulting in a $10 parking fee. We were charged $10 because Hershey was overloaded. Hershey being overloaded is, as I see it, a short term problem because veteran attendees like us will stop coming. Not just stop coming in the summer. But stop coming during our spring trips as well.
Should Disney take over Hershey's chocolate world? Absolutely!!
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