A late July look at the new hotel, now gone veritcal:
News Project 2026: Hershey Inn & Suites, Water Park Additions, and More
- Thread starter paintervision
- Start date
Hershey Entertainment and Resorts announced they are opening a new restaurant concept replacing Houlihan's for Spring 2026. Highlights include a refreshed menu and expanded bar, plus new focus on desserts.
Haven’t seen anything yet but did hear walls may go up after Halloween. We shall see if that comes true.
Drove past the new hotel today. Coming along.
Looks like construction in the Boardwalk for 2026:
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The Tree Trail is open on Thanksgiving weekend, should be able to get a closer look then.
Also really nice is that the calendar for 2026 is updated through September. Huge change from the days when they would close for the season and not reveal Springtime in the Park dates until a few weeks from opening. Really helps people plan trips to the park, even if the hours aren't public yet.
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The Tree Trail is open on Thanksgiving weekend, should be able to get a closer look then.
Also really nice is that the calendar for 2026 is updated through September. Huge change from the days when they would close for the season and not reveal Springtime in the Park dates until a few weeks from opening. Really helps people plan trips to the park, even if the hours aren't public yet.
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That’s always been the next logical area to receive a major attraction given the last real addition there was in 2018. Not surprising, but I do hope this is a precursor to a new slide(s) rather than just maintenance work. They certainly have several logical additions they could make
Hersheypark desperately needs more capacity in the Boardwalk. Whatever they can do to increase capacity by means of attractions or amenities would be well appreciated by me, and assumingly by others too.
My 2 single worst water park experiances were from the Boardwalk. It is way too small for the massive crowds it can recieve. Some really fun attractions, they just need... more?
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My 2 single worst water park experiances were from the Boardwalk. It is way too small for the massive crowds it can recieve. Some really fun attractions, they just need... more?
Edit: Spelling
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I sincerely don't see how, long-term, it doesn't make sense for Hershey to relocate their water park entirely. Both the dry park and water park do PLENTY enough attendance on their own to justify separate gates and both Hersheypark and the boardwalk are completely starved for real estate. Surely the long-term plans include fixing this issue once and for all?
My vote would go to tearing down Lightning Racer for more waterpark real estate. I wholeheartedly second @RollyCoaster's awful experiences there.
Who knows. I’ve heard mixed things. I’ve long postured they should take over maintenance and employee parking, put the across Hersheypark Dr and expand the north part of the park into its own park.
Then they could have Hersheypark and whatever they name the new park. Midway America fits the theme with Boardwalk to have a wet/dry park in one. Given Fahrenheit is a parking lot coaster they can Relocate that to make more water park room, and split the new space 50/50 dry and water rides.
If I remember correctly back in the early 2000s when this was being decided there were some zoning/floodplain/whatever else issues that resulted in the Boardwalk’s current placement. Given how much time has passed, the successful rerouting of the entrance road to make Chocolatetown possible, and the park’s continued good relations with Derry Township I don’t see why this isn’t possible.
To me there are two potential courses of action they could take. The first one, relocating it within the existing Hersheypark footprint and shuffling other rides into the vacated space, seems extremely difficult because there’s basically nowhere you could put it that doesn’t displace other key attractions and sections of the park’s future plans. And even if there were a spot, there’s a good chance it would be on a significant hill, which would make the project much more expensive, if it’s possible at all.
The second option is relocating it to somewhere outside the current park, and this makes MUCH more sense to me. Not only would it free up a huge chunk of space for the dry park to expand (and hopefully create a something resembling a logical layout back there in the process), but there is also a seemingly logical spot for where New Boardwalk might go: Hersheypark Arena.
Given the building’s age and condition, and the presence of the Giant Center, I’d be shocked if it were still around in 15 years. That land alone isn’t enough to fit an entire waterpark, but if you include the two parking lots sandwiched between it and Hersheypark Stadium, you suddenly have plenty of real estate that just so happens to have a logical shape, size, and slope. That parking would be a loss as I’m sure there are some useful functions it performs, but the more important part - the service road going around their edge - could easily be preserved in this scenario.
And finally, for the cherry on top that makes this landscape architecture student happiest, all of their existing infrastructure at the park entrance would serve New Boardwalk flawlessly. The tram drop-off could be closer to this new entrance than Hersheypark’s, priority and employee parking are basically unaffected, and you wouldn’t need to create a bunch of new guest service amenities like you would for a second gate elsewhere. There even exists the potential for, should they want to do it down the line, a secondary go-between entrance to current Hersheypark in the vicinity of where The Claw is now. Lastly, the terrain of the site is such that all existing slides should be able to be relocated without prohibitively expensive grading work.
Of course, zoning issues could render this whole thing moot, but nothing this armchair expert can do about that. Hope you enjoyed my two cents
Bingo. This kind-of makes moving the waterpark a moot point, as there wouldn’t be much else you can do with the land otherwise. Anything new would have to accommodate flooding or make room for drainage of some kind.
So something that I haven’t mentioned but seems to have happened is that Hersheypark recently took over an old Hershey warehouse building between the Dunkin and the Outlets. Maybe if they tear that down for a new gas station (Wawa?), it gives them a reason to evict the Turkey Hill in front of Lighting Racer (technically a lease on Hersheypark land) and LR itself, for a future waterpark expansion one day?
I don’t think this is happening now, but it would be a path for more expansion potential. Maybe they could build a new Dark Nights structure or two (another Midway tent?), and if you want to keep the coaster count go with a single-rail RMC that would take up 1/3rd the space of Lighting Racer or be designed around running over and under waterslides, etc?
The other option would be to build a new waterpark entirely, but I imagine it would be offsite near the campground. There was a quarry owned by Pennsy Supply, but maybe they could work out a deal for land?
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Sheetz, not Wawa
I really want to like this park, but the last experience there wasn't the best, and it was for the reasons described. Water park was overly crowded; rest of ops were poor.
They didn't own the old golf course land at the time, and the course didn't always play nice at the time.
The rerouting of the entrance road and Chocolatetown all became possible because they bought that land and had new options to manage the floodplain issues. It allowed them to develop a system to better mitigate the stress that Spring Creek flooding puts on the park.
The issue with that is Midway America is some of the flattest land on the property within the park walls. Basically it's buh-bye LR, LT, and WR if that's the case.
Couple of things here - it would be MASSIVELY expensive to move all of the piping, pumps, dig new holes for pools and trenches. And then there's the power output that is required and would need to be moved. While a stand along Boardwalk would likely be massively profitable, it's still a huge expense for a park that is going to operate 4-5 months a year.
100% a no go. Hersheypark Arena is a historically protected building, Hersheypark has some offices in there, some storage is in there, and the ice rink is still used.
And when it gets replaced it will go in this same complex. Other areas around Hershey don't have the infrastructure to handle 10k+ people.
But also - it's about to undergo an extensive renovation (although tight lipped) that's going to extend the life another 25-30 years (FYI it's only 23 years old).
It may....but one issue I heard pop up already with the new gate is that it's made to handle the traffic that Hersheypark sees with it's current footprint. They really didn't make it "too big" so if they were to massively expand by moving Boardwalk but keeping it part of the current park, there would be even more crowds going through that one gate.
It doesn't solve the issue either of the length of the walk from front gate to the Boardwalk/Midway America. An argument I head that pops up internally is if you do ever put in a smaller secondary entrance near The Claw, how many people would try to go there, which pulls people away from the investment of Chocolatetown and the spending that happens there. So if they were to do that it wouldn't be another entrance they would want to duplicate many of those shops, amenities, and infrastructure anyways, so might as well make two gates.
As for the relocation of employee parking and the maintenance buildings, I've heard rumor that they are very tight for space on both fronts anyways and need to explore how to expand or move those items. One of the options I've seen brought up is putting employee parking across Hersheypark Drive from Laff Trak and have a walkway over the road,
Yeah, but totally worth it. The current layout is literally strangling both parks and providing a horrible guest experience. As Hershey builds out more resort amenities, a second gate will be immensely beneficial to better justify multi-day stays too. See: Dollywood.
Yeah, but who cares? I think the actual issue people have is that Midway America is a comically awful dead-end, not that it's just far away from the entrance to the park. If Hershey demoed Boardwalk and reclaimed the land for the dry park, you could turn the back of the park into a proper loop—connecting over to the Stormrunner/Jolly Rancher dead end.
Hersheypark has an awkward shape, but that's true of many parks. What makes Hershey uniquely horrible to navigate and traverse is the abominable layout caused by Boardwalk IMO.
For the record, @DECoasterGuy was talking about a back gate connecting his new water park location pitch with HersheyPark, not a way to access either property from outside the parks' bubbles. No one visiting Hersheypark would chose to skip Chocolatetown by opting to traverse a separately ticketed water park.
That being said, what you (@warfelg) outlined re: Hersheypark Arena combined with my desire to not continue to make the Hersheypark parking/entry/etc situation even worse, leads me to advocate finding new land for the water park all together—land that's disconnected from the current, overcrowded, mess of a complex.
But they can do that by relocating much less expensive to relocate items as I’ve laid out numerous times.
A lot of people care. And it’s not just awkward shape. Is shape with terrain with entrance at one end.
Before Boardwalk went in that was still terrible to get to.
But let’s go to that proper loop thing: that’s still even more investment to fill and complete that loop from Midway. The bigger issue with Midway feeling dead end is that’s how it has been designed from the start. Long before Boardwalk went in it was an open field. Yea you could walk through it but other than the laser show the only reasons you walked that path was to smoke or make out (having done both).
Didn’t read it like that. And the second part is not the way it would happen. People there for Boardwalk would 100% skip Chocolatetown for that entrance to avoid the walk in the park.
Well like I pointed out the issue facing that is the infrastructure of Hershey itself. That complex was designed to work off of Hersheypark drive.
Even if they did that (best option would be to use the land north of Hersheypark Dr IMO) I would still advocate for the employee parking/maintenance to be moved and Midway America/Boardwalk land being turned into its own park. Hershey still has all of the old golf course to expand into for the footprint (and some of that was part of the original Hershey Park).
In the end though I don’t think Hersheypark is going to change any of this. I started to feel that way with Chocolatetown being announced as that could have been done with the forethought of Boardwalk spinning off then doing Wildcat Revenge kinda cemented the feeling. They like the tight overcrowded everything on top of each other park.
I actually don't have a good idea of your comprehensive vision for the property I don't think. Can I get like a few sentence rundown on how you envision getting the waterpark a separate, dedicated gate, fixing Hersheypark's layout, and finding more land for the long-term growth of both Hersheypark and Hershey's waterpark (wherever it may be)?
There's a reason Universal doesn't funnel Volcano Bay guests through CityWalk. The demographic of people going to spend a day in a water park isn't the same demographic that's interested in a dining and shipping district.
They will always have a densely packed property—they will keep that vibe. What is going to continue to harm them long-term is their disinterest in providing facilities that can accommodate the crowds they seem to desire (and frequently, currently draw only to disappoint and enrage).
Like the “build a back entrance for Soak City at KD” thread, I think this basically would be a huge expense for very guest little payoff.
It would save a walk, but the amount of things to duplicate is too much. And staffing issues it would create between the two parks (deciding to prioritize ride staffing between two parks on off-peak times) would be a huge headache.
Not to mention, just trying to market the two parks that were previously one big park - imagine if Cedar Point did that with the front/back half of the park? I think it would be difficult to justify. Sorry @warfelg