One of my bucket list items for 2022 was to finally go to an amusement park and ride on all the rollercoasters. Because I’m getting older, my motion sickness has gotten significantly worse, so if I didn’t go to an amusement park this year, I would miss my window for peak rollercoaster enjoyment.
Not that I was ever a big fan of them to begin with.
Either way, this year, an opportunity finally arrived with a young-adult church trip to Hershey Park. Not the greatest park in the world, but I’ll take what I can get.
While I was researching the different rides at the park and other things to do, I came across a list of food that one needed to try while they are at Hershey. I didn’t get everything, but I did end up getting as much as I could. And because it was Hershey, most items on the list were sweets.
I swear, I didn’t eat anything healthy at the park. I had to get a salad for me to feel like there was a karmic balance in my diet. Anyways, here’s everything I ate at Hershey. God, my stomach hurts.
Crab Fries
You know what Marylanders (like me) love? Old Bay. We are obsessed with this celery salt blend. I once saw a man eat a spoonful of Old Bay without even batting an eye. He instantly became an icon in my eyes. One of my favorite outfits to wear is my Old Bay outfit (pants, socks, sweater, scarf, mask… I’m only missing shoes and a hat). I have added Old Bay to my vanilla ice cream several times, and I have never looked back. Needless to say, I am a fan.
That being said, a staple among a Marylander diet is French fries seasoned with Old Bay. Even in college, you couldn’t get away from this particular combination since all the cafeterias served their fries with Old Bay already mixed in with the fries. Which, I’m sure was very confusing to anyone who didn’t like Old Bay or wasn’t from Maryland.
In any case, when I saw that one of the top menu items at Hershey was Crab Fries, I knew that I needed to appease the Maryland side of me and eat them. So, was it worth all the hype? No.
If I’m being completely honest, before I even got the fries, I was warned that it was going to be a disappointment from an extremely reputable source. Not to say that it wasn’t worth eating. I love myself some Old Bay, so I was pretty satisfied with the end result. What would have made it better was even more Old Bay. Just give me Old Bay on Old Bay. They did give me a mayo-based dipping sauce to go along with the fries, but they were nothing special (aka: didn’t have Old Bay in it). Just some spicy mayo to go with your already salty fries.
To end, if you ever wanted to know how Marylanders feel about Old Bay, I highly recommend watching BDG’s Old Bay Jingle. Iconic. Haunting. Revolutionary. I’ve had dreams about this song.
Bucket of Mini Donuts
After getting my Crab Fries for lunch (yes, this is the only non-sweet thing I ate all day), I went and got myself a Bucket of Mini Donuts. Which was, for some reason, at the top of everyone’s list of what to eat when you visit Hershey Park. Which obviously meant that I needed to figure out what the hype was all about.
And let me tell you. It was definitely… A bucket of donuts.
Now, for these donuts, I had the option of choosing two different flavors, and I decided on getting glazed (because I’m basic) and funnel cake (because I was trying to avoid getting funnel cake). Neither flavor was really different from the other, and because of the heat, they ended up just amalgamating into one flavor by the end of the day.
But honestly, I kind of get why these are so popular. Despite the simplicity of the idea, each donut was pretty soft and fluffy. And while they were fresh, they maintained their forms well and made for an easy treat to share with friends. Unfortunately, if I wasn’t with a bunch of people at the time, I think that it would be a worthless purchase.
I understand the novelty of getting a souvenir bucket, but I’m pretty sure that I threw it away as soon as I got home. Overall, I think I was able to stomach two of these, but the more I ate, the sicker I felt. Which was a problem when I had 30 of them to get rid of.
Chocolate Milkshake
Out of all the food that I researched; this was the one I was most excited for. In fact, it was the only one that I knew was going to be amazing just from the general description. I mean, there wasn’t much information anyways. It was just… Chocolate-flavored milkshake.
But I mean, it’s a HERSHEY branded milkshake, so the chocolate flavor must be pretty prevalent. Or else, it would just be a setup for a long elaborate joke with its consumers.
Unfortunately, I do think that I got the wrong milkshake since there is apparently a noticeable difference between the milkshake you can get inside the park and the one inside Hershey’s Chocolate World. Apparently, the one inside Chocolate World (located right outside the park) is far superior since it has a deeper and richer taste.
The one I had inside the park was okay, but it definitely was a more watered-down flavor that just didn’t satisfy my chocolate craving at the time. I didn’t get a good photo of the Chocolate World milkshake, but it had a much darker color and seemed to have much more chocolate. A few of my friends got them instead and stated that it was the “best chocolate milkshake of their lives.”
Which I couldn’t really say. I guess I’ll have to go and get it on a future date (although, I doubt that I’m going to be going anytime soon).
Whoopie Pie
Before this experience, I had never had a whoopie pie in my life. And now that I’ve had one, I hope that I will never have one again. I cannot understand why anyone would want two thin slices of cake with a mountain of frosting between them. It was honestly one of the worst things that I’ve ever had in my life.
The moment that I received it double-wrapped in plastic, I knew that I had made a mistake. Even though they’ve attempted to seal the horror away from others, it was all in vain; you could smell the sweet frosting just wafting from the plastic.
I swear, I tried to eat at least half of it, but as soon as I took my first bite, I had to suppress all my desire to spit it out. I just could not stand the awful flavor. Maybe it’s because I’m already not a huge fan of frosting to begin with. I’m one of the people who scrape off the icing from their cakes and pastries. Its only purpose is to give an aesthetic appeal to baked goods, I and I think that just detracts from the overall flavor of the cake.
This is also why I could never become a pâtissier.
In any case, this was by far the worst dessert I’ve ever had in my entire life. I will never EVER order this again. Thank God I went with a bunch of college students who could stomach the cloying flavors of this putrid dessert.
Funnel Cake
While I was originally trying to avoid getting a funnel cake when I got the mini donuts, while we were exiting the park, I just couldn’t help myself. I knew that the chances of me going to another amusement park or fair were pretty slim this year, so I had to get my funnel cake fix here before it was too late.
But I mean, no one can really mess up a funnel cake, so I knew that I was going to be in for a treat anyways. There are always a few items that I want to get when I go to an amusement park, and none of them quite hit as hard as funnel cake. That’s mostly due to all the oil and grease that has to go with it, but you know what we call that. Flavor.
Fried dough… Powdered sugar… I think I could make this at home, but why bother with the mess when you could just buy it? I feel like it’s more efficient that way.
This funnel cake was bomb. Easily the best way to end a trip. Queue me being comatose for the next few hours as I dive into a sugar crash.
Verdicts
Crab Fries: 6/10
Mini Donuts: 8/10
Chocolate Milkshake: 5/10
Whoopie Pie: 0/10
Funnel Cake: 9/10