OUR HERSHEYPARK SEASON PASS EXPERIENCE- PART 2
ADMISSION TICKETS
I could have taken the easy road and simply used the gate price of $89.95 per ticket for admission for each of our visits, but that’s not very realistic. Who in their right mind just shows up to an amusement park to buy a ticket at the gate anymore? I knew better than to do that, because when my family has gone in the past, we have taken advantage of discounts and deals on admission, whether that comes in the form of PTO fundraisers or just a good online deal. The online price is always lower than the gate price. Every time anyone in my family of four went to Hersheypark, I checked to see what the current online price for an admission ticket was. Some weeks featured special discount deals and combos that were pretty good, so I accounted for them on my spreadsheet.
From April to December of 2025, my records show 68 park admissions between the four members of my family. This includes 13 trips of all four of us together as a family, three trips where just my wife took the kids, two trips where I went with one of our children, one trip where both the kids went to the park with their grandparents (who also had season passes), and one time where just one of our kids went with their grandparents.
I want to establish right away, that this is far and above the most times we have ever gone to Hersheypark in one year ever. In fact, of all the times I have ever been to Hersheypark in my life, 2025 probably accounts for somewhere between one third and half of that figure. My family isn’t poor, but we’re also not the type of people to go to Hersheypark even three or more times a year. Even twice is a rarity.
Through my website price sleuthing, I calculate that it would have cost my family $3,668.50 for those 68 park admissions, which averages to about $53.95 per admission. That makes sense when you consider all the various discounts and deals Hershey throws out throughout the course of the year to draw people in.
When you divide $3,668.50 by our initial investment of $820 for the season passes, it shows that we got almost 4.5 times the value of our season passes just from park admissions! Using this category alone, our passes started paying for themselves on our fourth trip to the park. Coincidentally, our first three trips to the park weren’t even during the regular summer operating season; they were part of Springtime in the Park, when it was open only on the weekends. We had never been to the park in the spring before, so we started out our journey well ahead of the curve. But wait- there’s more!
In 2025, there were two prices for parking at Hersheypark. If you bought a parking pass online ahead of time, parking cost $25 plus some fees, so I rounded it up to $26 for my spreadsheet. If you paid at the park, it cost $35. Of the 20 visits logged by my family, I only recorded 16 parking fees. Two of those no-parking visits were just one or both of our girls going with their grandparents who had their own passes. Two other trips coincided with family pack promotions that included free parking. Had we gone to the park those dates without passes, the parking would have been free, so the spreadsheet must reflect it!
$26 x 16 visits = $416
That’s right- if you go enough times, you can save over half of the cost of a family of four’s season passes through savings on parking alone!
DRINK PLAN
The first day my family went to Hersheypark with our season passes, I looked at the first menu board I could find that showed the cost of a fountain soda. I don’t know how the cup size compares to the season passholder souvenir cups we carted around all summer, but a single fountain soda was priced at $6. That became the coefficient for calculating our savings through the all-year drink plan.
Each trip, I tried to mark in my notes app how many times we filled our cups with something other than water. Normally, I would not encourage my family to drink sugary, syrupy beverages to such an extent (thankfully neither of my kids were crazy about soda yet at this point). Other times we have hit the park in the past, we’ve brought water bottles to refill with water. It’s the best thing to drink on a hot day. For 2025, however, we indulged a little.
I counted a total of 64 non-water cup fills during our visits. That means we saved $384 just through the drink plan. On top of that, for Christmas Candylane, our King Size passes got us a free hot drink plan, so we could get all the hot cocoa we wanted. We only braved the cold twice. The first time, we got four hot cocoas during our visit. The free cups we got were smaller than the swanky cup that people without the drink plan got when they paid for each drink, so the price may not be truly comparable, but we’re going with the advertised price of $6.49 apiece. Those four hot cocoas saved us an additional $25.96. The second time we went to Christmas Candlyane, there was a promotion where buying a family four-pack of tickets also got you free hot cocoa for the day, so that ended our savings spree calculations.
Overall, the all-year and hot beverage plans built into the season passes saved us $409.96. We more than earned back our $820 investment in free parking and free drinks. The souvenir cup held 30-34 ounces per the internet, so that awesome saving came at the expense of consuming around 2,000 ounces (over 29 2-liter bottles!) of soda, lemonade, and raspberry tea between the four of us. We usually put ice in the cups too, so hopefully 2025 was healthier than these figures suggest.
FOOD DISCOUNT
This built-in percentage-off discount is not the same as the one-meal or two-meal plans that Hershey offers as an add-on to your season passes. A 15% discount is nothing to sneeze at, because a family of four can easily spend north of $100 on food if you’re spending the full day and eat two meals. Even one meal for four plus some drinks and snacks could hit triple digits at some of the park’s eateries.
Because we purchased meal plans, this feature of the season passes didn’t contribute much to our overall savings. It came in handy on our first day in the park, when I mistakenly thought that our meal plans only took effect during summer months. Beyond that, we utilized this discount the day that one of our daughters brought a friend, and there were times throughout the year when we splurged on a treat.
All told, I calculated $50.95 in savings here. That is by far the least impressive number, but it would have been much higher had we not sprung for the meal plans.
We made it to the final category, which is also the most nebulous. Here’s the rundown of all the extra ways we saved that were built into the season pass program:
-We used one of our free tickets for one of our daughter’s friends (regrettably, this was the only time we utilized this perk)
-On Labor Day, the last day of the summer season, passholders got scratch-off cards for freebie prizes- we won a free arcade card, entry for two for the Labor Day picnic, a free King Size Shake, and a single-use Fast Track wristband
-The summer loyalty rewards program earned us free food, extra savings on Hershey Bears (minor league ice hockey) tickets, and extra merchandise discounts
Cashing in on the loyalty program rewards (which we didn’t intentionally chase throughout the summer) accounted for over half of our savings for this category. All discounts, freebies, and perks combined for $428.32 in value.
A quick summary of our value extraction for the season passes:
Admission: $3,668.50
Parking: $416.00
Drink Plan: $409.96
Food Discounts: $50.95
Misc. Perks & Discounts: $428.32
TOTAL VALUE EXTRACTION: $4,973.73
For an initial investment of $820, our family extracted almost $5,000 in value from our Hersheypark season passes. That’s over six times the value of the passes! You would only see this kind of return on investment if you hit the park the same way we did- often, and as our only form of summer vacation.
But consider this- when you factor all these categories together, my family’s season passes had already paid for themselves on our third visit, even before we filled our cups for the first time! As of 2025, the notion that three trips are all it takes to recoup the price of the passes was proven true. If you can get to Hersheypark three or more times in one year, there is no reason not to opt for season passes.
Up Next: Meal Plan Value Extraction
Comments
Post a Comment