On a Saturday morning in late May, cars from license plates spanning roughly one-third of the Eastern Seaboard are coming in waves in the Hersheypark parking lot. The distribution that a park provides when it claims to be “within driving distance of five of the largest metropolitan areas in the Northeast” is New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Ohio. Although the park hasn’t undergone any significant changes in the last 12 months—no significant new coaster for 2026, no extensive land reimagining—it has spent three years in a row gaining the kind of national exposure that other theme parks struggle for decades to achieve.
For the third consecutive year, the USA TODAY 10Best top 10. Outperforming all Disney resorts on the poll, the Hotel Hershey was chosen as the nation’s top theme park hotel. Among the top ten roller coasters is Wildcat’s Revenge. the top ten wave pool. The top ten water coaster. Only Knoebels’ Alamo is ranked higher than the Chocolatier Restaurant. There are too many categories for one resort in rather rural Pennsylvania to be at the top in.
The real reason for this is that approximately ten years ago, Hersheypark made the strategic choice to cease treating it as a cherished local institution and instead treat it as a competitive destination park. This meant that it had to compete with Dollywood, Cedar Point, and other Disney-affiliated parks on coasters, dining, hospitality, and overall experience design.
The $150 million Chocolatetown makeover, which debuted in 2020 and included The Chocolatier Restaurant and Candymonium, a hypercoaster that quickly became the park’s signature new thrill, demonstrated Hersheypark’s willingness to invest in the immersive, high-end experience that contemporary theme park guests demand from a location they’re willing to travel five hours for. The food, the new district’s theme, and the entrance experience were all investments in the park’s atmosphere prior to visitors boarding a single ride, and they altered the park’s competitive standing in ways that pure ride expansions wouldn’t have.
The coaster that best explains the ongoing national interest is Wildcat’s Revenge, which debuted in 2023. Hersheypark acquired the first RMC-built hybrid in Pennsylvania. Rocky Mountain Construction, the company that invented the hybrid coaster by fusing traditional wooden structures with contemporary steel tracks and intricate inversions, is currently the most prestigious name in the coaster industry. Coaster aficionados travel for unique engineering achievements like the World’s Largest Underflip, which features riders passing beneath the track in a full inversion that no other coaster in the world can match at that scale.
National media rankings also honor such achievements. The ride is part of Hersheypark’s 15 coasters, the most in the Northeast, which gives the park depth in addition to its main attractions. For a park with more than a century of coaster history, Wildcat’s Revenge did just that. Not every park can claim that its newest major attraction strengthened rather than deviated from its current identity.
The Hotel Hershey’s top spot in the USA TODAY The aspect of the 2026 results that may be most important for the long-term business is the Best Theme Park Hotel category. It is not an insignificant accomplishment to defeat Disney properties in a customer choice vote for best theme park hotel, and it highlights something the resort has purposefully created: an experience where the hotel is truly a part of the destination rather than merely a lodging option connected to a park.
Families choose to book the hotel directly rather than staying off-site and driving in because of the expansive views from the hotel’s hilltop location over Hershey, the quality of service, and the package arrangements that combine park tickets with resort stays.
Adding to the park’s expanding lineup of standalone thrill attractions, the Twizzlers Twisted Gravity screamin’ swing, which debuted in May 2025 and became the tallest of its kind at 137 feet, was sufficient to achieve a top-10 ranking for new attractions in and of itself. The consistency of the momentum across categories points to intentional execution as opposed to a single lucky year.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that Hersheypark’s rise to national prominence has coincided with a more widespread appreciation of local American theme parks as opposed to the bigger destination chains. Because the experiences they provide seem earned and unique rather than manufactured and generic, Dollywood, Knoebels, and Silver Dollar City consistently outperform parks that invest considerably more in marketing.
With the Hershey name, the nostalgia for chocolate, and the Pennsylvania identity that make it seem unique, Hersheypark sits at an intriguing crossroads of that trend while simultaneously investing at the scale that destination parks need to compete nationally. There isn’t yet a standout new addition for the 2026 season. It will probably be a year or two before the next big announcement is made.
However, a number-one hotel surpassing Disney and three consecutive top-10 years indicate that, for the time being, Hersheypark has worked out how to continue winning in between significant capital expenditures.
