The 5 Best Hotels In America For A Chocolate Lover's Bucket List
Whether it's a family vacation to a little-known national park, a solo trip to the big city, or a girls' getaway to wine country, people travel for all sorts of reasons. Whatever the occasion, the typical way to choose your hotel for your trip would be based on its proximity to the attractions you want to see or the perks that it has. But if you've got a sweet tooth, specifically for chocolate, why not pick your hotel based on its chocolate offerings?
Enjoying chocolate can be seen as a way to connect with a long, rich global history. Thousands of years ago, people in what's now Mexico were using cacao beans, as they featured in some Mayan ceremonies and celebrations. Fast forward to the late 1500s and chocolate had become popular across Europe, and it spread across the world after that. As for chocolate's place in American heritage, it goes back to when the country was formed — soldiers were sometimes paid with chocolate during the Revolutionary War.
Now you can get chocolate in your spa treatments, craft cocktails, and even your holiday decor with a visit to these five U.S. hotels, which we've personally visited and found to have some of the most unique, specialized, and delicious chocolate experiences.
The Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania
A stay at The Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania, is all about chocolate. It starts at check-in where you receive a full-size Hershey's chocolate bar. Then you can book yourself a chocolate spa treatment, like the chocolate fondue wrap, where you're rubbed with mud and cocoa essence and then wrapped in a foil blanket — leaving you feeling a bit like a chocolate bar yourself. It will smell so good you might be tempted to give it a little taste, but wait to try one of the chocolate dishes and drinks at one of the restaurants.
At Circular, the fine dining option, the dessert menu features a chocolate soufflé, and at Harvest, you can order the black forest cheesecake. Then there's the Iberian Lounge, where you can sit next to the fire and enjoy a piece of chocolate cream pie and sip on one of their signature chocolate martinis, like the Reese's peanut butter cup martini made with peanut butter whiskey and chocolate liqueur.
Along with celebrating all things chocolate, it's a luxurious, historic destination, as the Hotel Hershey first opened in 1933. Milton S. Hershey, founder of the chocolate company and town that bear his name, had long dreamed of building a luxury resort overlooking his Pennsylvania factory. The hotel's Spanish Colonial style architecture and its design were inspired in part by Hershey's travels with his wife — add it to the list of American places that make you feel like you're in Europe.
Bishop's Lodge in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico is known for its artistic, cultural, and culinary heritage, and part of that heritage includes chocolate. Find out more about the history of chocolate and the cacao bean at Bishop's Lodge, a luxurious, adobe-style resort on the northeast edge of Santa Fe, offering guests a number of unique experiences, including two that are centered on chocolate. The 1.5-hour "Chocolate Immersion" experience involves learning about drinking chocolate recipes from the region from hundreds of years ago. Of course, you'll get a chance to taste the rich, delicious, and uniquely flavored "chocolate elixirs," inspired by those historic recipes and made by Kakawa, an artisanal chocolate shop in Santa Fe.
If you're looking for more of a wellness getaway, you could try "Intention Circles with Cacao," which is definitely the more meditative of the two Bishop's Lodge chocolate activities, as cacao has been used ceremonially for centuries. It involves journaling, and, as the hotel's website describes it, "creating a sacred space, setting an intention and opening up to the facilitation of cacao energy to guide you."
While you're in Santa Fe, you can explore the city via the Chocolate Trail, which features five chocolate shops across the city. Along with Kakawa Chocolate House and its signature elixirs, the Chocolate Trail includes Sweet Santa Fe, which is all about handmade truffles, and the Chocolate Maven Bakery & Cafe, which has amazing brownies.
Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida
The Caribe Royale Orlando is a fantastic destination year-round with a 75-foot water slide, private pool cabanas, spacious suites, and free shuttles to Disney. But chocolate enthusiasts will want to make sure they attend during the holiday season. Each year through the month of December, the sweet scent of cocoa fills the lobby, thanks to two huge chocolate displays created by pastry chef Joshua Cain. The first one was the 32-foot-long train dubbed the "Caribe Royale North Pole Express." It took 1,600 pounds of chocolate and 1,000 hours of work by the three pastry chefs to create.
The North Pole Express is joined on the other side of the lobby by a massive Santa riding in a sleigh pulled by nine reindeer. It's hard to believe that the elaborate sculpture, with details like Rudolph's shiny red nose and Santa's curly white beard, is made of chocolate — 2,000 pounds of it.
If the sight and smell of the sculptures have your mouth watering, you can book a table at Caribe Royale's high-end restaurant, The Venetian Chop House. They serve a dessert called the "ultimate chocolate sphere" where the chocolate globe gets melted at the table with caramel liquor to reveal the chocolate caramel tart and chocolate gelato inside. They've got a similar dish at the more relaxed Stadium Club, though instead of melting a chocolate sphere, you get to smash it open to get to chocolate cake.
Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada
From some of the most luxurious hotel pools to sensational shows, the Las Vegas Strip is a veritable adult playground, and among the Strip's most recognizable features are the elaborate fountains in front of the Bellagio. But for chocolate lovers, it's the fountain inside the Bellagio that they may be more interested in. The 27-foot-tall chocolate fountain in the Bellagio Patisserie has been recognized as one of the world's largest, and you can watch the white, dark, and milk chocolate cascading along several levels. While it would be tempting to just stick your head under it and drink the chocolate — à la Augustus Gloop — all that chocolate is safely secured behind glass. But you can still curb your chocolate cravings at the Bellagio. The patisserie serves all kinds of treats, like chocolate-covered strawberries, hot chocolate, chocolate croissants, chocolate crepes, and more.
For even more chocolate decadence at the Bellagio, order the chocolate soufflé at Spago. It's one of Chef Wolfgang Puck's favorite desserts. It does take around 45 minutes to prepare; however, it will be worth it. The chocolate cake is light but also rich, and it's topped with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
Outrigger Resorts on Oahu, Hawaii
With its tropical climate, Hawaii is the only state in the U.S. where cacao beans grow. With Outrigger Resorts on Oahu — they have four resort options on the island — you can get a Chocolate Tasting & Tour to learn more about how cacao is harvested and made into chocolate with Lonohana Estate Chocolate. On the 90-minute tour, guests learn all about the company and how they grow their cacao using sustainable practices on former sugar cane land on Oahu's North Shore. The cacao is then processed at their Honolulu factory, which used to be an art deco movie theater.
The tour ends with time in the tasting lounge, where guests get free samples of the range of their artisanal chocolate — they have flavors like salted coconut and coffee. It's a pretty great (and tasty) way to support a small, local business that is 100% Hawaiian. You'll come out with a newfound appreciation of the work that goes into chocolate making, and possibly a new favorite chocolate flavor.
How we chose these hotels
Whether as chocolate addicts or simply searching for a sweet treat, we are always on the lookout for the best chocolate wherever we go. We've lived on both coasts and in the middle of the U.S., and have spent over a decade traveling across the country, staying in dozens — if not hundreds — of hotels. Plenty of hotels may leave chocolates on the pillow at turn-down service or serve tasty chocolate desserts in the hotel restaurant, but after years of traveling, these five hotels stood out as having the most impressive and innovative chocolate experiences we'd ever seen and enjoyed.