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| This is actually a picture from the trip home, but it is the only picture I took in the car. |
We booked our trip to Hershey Park about 2 months before the date we were going, which was a big deal for us, because we normally don't make concrete vacation plans. But then we barely thought about the trip again until 2 days before we were due to leave. So I made a big list of things to bring, called the hotel with last minute questions, printed the directions, and checked out the websites to try to make a plan. I wished we had started preparing before Sunday, but our lives are just always so jam-packed, we often live by "triage" - dealing with the things that need the most immediate attention first. So, this means things like this get put off until it is absolutely necessary. And on top of our schedule, a head cold that had passed between Josh and Elias had finally caught up with me, so I spent most of the weekend before we left in and out of bed.
But we made no plans on Monday and Tuesday and I began to feel better, so we were able to get everything packed and ready by Tuesday evening. We even had time to have an impromptu play date with some friends we don't get to see nearly enough on Tuesday afternoon.
We left early on Wednesday morning. The kids were a bit cranky before we stopped for breakfast, but the weather was great for traveling and Josh and I had actually went to bed at a decent hour the night before, so the trip was pretty enjoyable overall.
As a side note - our hotel offered slight discounts on the Hershey Park tickets, but we were looking for other deals online, but didn't find any that we didn't have to join something or put in our personal information, etc.. But we stopped for breakfast at a random Chick-fil-a in Cumberland, Maryland, and there were discount tickets sitting right inside the door for the park for $12 off of the admission price. Now there are several things that make this such a huge blessing. First, we had planned to stop at a Denny's or a Bob Evans to have a sit down breakfast, since we were going to be having a quick lunch in our hotel room when we arrived. We couldn't find a Denny's and the kids voted against Bob Evans. So we were trying to think of where else we could go. We had stopped at a Chick-fil-a in Cumberland on another trip and knew there was a play place (which is a great way for the kids to get their wiggles out), so we decided as we were passing the exit to stop. This restaurant is not even on an exit with lots of other tourist stops - like gas, other restaurants, etc.. Also, Cumberland is more than 2 hours away from Hershey. We never saw the coupons that we got at any other restaurant we stopped at the entire trip - even those closer to the park. When we gave the coupons to the ticket booth attendant and she said that those were the best coupon discounts they offer. At $12 off of each admission, we saved $46 dollars! I was so thankful. Since we hadn't read them well, we had taken a coupon for each of us, but we only needed one. So I tried my hardest to give the coupons to others who were standing in the lines, but many of them had already purchased their ticket. But I was able to make a family of 8 people very happy, which made my day!
Anyway, we had a little trouble finding our hotel. I started getting a little nervous as we turned into a little neighborhood that either the hotel wasn't as close as they had advertised or we were severely off track. But we found our quaint little motor lodge right in the middle of this little neighborhood street. There were beautiful shade trees and a gazebo in the front courtyard and it just felt homey. When we got to our room, I was thanking Josh profusely for his hotel finding skills. Our room was seriously almost as big as our first apartment. It had a full kitchen, minus a stove, and three beds! I wanted to kiss Josh for this! One reason we hate staying in hotel rooms together is because our kids do not sleep well with others, especially each other. Because the room was so big, it was easier to control the temperature of the room also. Our room was on the top floor and everyone had their own little entryways to their rooms. There was obviously no hallway noise, which I really have trouble sleeping through, so we all slept the best we have ever slept in a hotel together. I will share a little more on our hotel experience later, but it definitely put us all back in a good mood from the "travel crankiness" that had crept in.
Since we still had a full day ahead of us, we ate lunch in our room of food we had brought from home and prepared to leave. Right before we walked out, the electricity went off because of some work they were doing on the lines, so we had to take all the food we had put in the full size fridge and put it back in our coolers. We were glad to hear that the power was supposed to be back on by the time we got back and the temperature was very mild that day, so the room wouldn't get too hot - this was especially a blessing because 2 days later, was the weekend that the whole East Coast was having temperatures over 100 degrees!
Look for Part 2 (hopefully very soon) - The trip to Chocolate World
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