Not a day trip but worth a visit (Cadbury World)

Member Name: abi138

Product:	Cadbury World
Date:	06/06/09 (419 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, interesting, chocolate tasting!

Disadvantages: Some of the videos were a bit boring

--Where is it--

Cadbury World is just outside Birmingham, in a place called Bournville. The postcode is B30 1JR so if you've got a Sat Nav that takes you right to the doorstep.

--Pricing--

An adult ticket costs £13.45 and a child's (age 4-15 inclusive) costs £10.10. Alternatively a family ticket for two adults and two children costs £41.21. There are concessions for students and senior citizens.

--What to do--

After buying your tickets, which should be pre booked at busy times, you can begin. The first thing we had to do was queue for about 20 minutes as it was very busy on the day that we went. I don't want to give too much away if you are intending to visit so I'll just give a brief description of each area:

Aztec jungle - A walk through jungle set up area where you can read about how cocoa beans were brought to Britain.

Journey to Europe - A 3D story of how chocolate came to Britain.

Bull Street - This is basically a waiting area where you can see the shop where John Cadbury first opened his shop.

The Cadbury Story - Here you watch a 3D video telling you how John Cadbury set up his business and looked after the workers.

Mixing Chocolate - Here you can see how chocolate is mixed. I liked this bit, let me just say if you don't like sudden movements sit at the back.

Manufacturing - You can watch short videos about how different types of chocolate are made.

Packaging - Here you can see the real working packaging area, watching the chocolate being wrapped and whizzing down the conveyors.

Cadabera - This is a ride on car that takes you round a little village made different characters. Smile for the camera. Good for kids.

Demonstration area - here you can write you name in chocolate using a piping bag.

Advertising - here you can watch some of the adverts created by Cadbury including the ones featured on Coronation Street.

Purple Planet - this bit is quite new. It's an interactive area where you can do things like see yourself made on chocolate.

The shop - The world's biggest Cadbury shop, although be warned some of the things are cheaper in the supermarkets.

The following bits are outside of the main factory area:

The Bourneville village - A bit of information about who formed Cadbury's and you can have a go at making your own packaging using a computer.

Essence - definitely the best bit! Here you get to choose a topping (including wine gums, biscuit and marshmallows) and have a pot of it covered in Cadburys chocolate.

The children's playground - equipment for the kids to play on with an area for adults to sit.

As you travel round you get a few bars of chocolate to take home.

--Opinions--

I visited Cadbury World a few times as a child and I loved it then. I suppose I knew before going that it just wouldn't be as good now that I was grown up. It was still worth a visit though in my opinion.

I agree with some other reviews which say it's not so much a day trip as a couple of hours. It took about an hour and a half to walk around and then we spent about twenty minutes in the shop, so overall about two hours. I suppose if you have children then more time could be spent in the play area outside or having a picnic. But I was disappointed as it was over so quickly.

As you can see from the information above a lot of the day is watching videos, so it's a bit more like a museum. I think this isn't too good for children as they don't like to sit still. But for adults it's quite interesting to find out the history of what you're eating.

--What else to do--

We went to Birmingham for the weekend as the factory is about 2 hours away from us. We stayed at the Hilton hotel in Bromsgrove which was very nice and only about 15 minutes from the factory. We also visited the West Midlands Safari Park which was very good. There is also the Bull ring shopping centre. So if you fancy a weekend away there is quite a lot else to do as well as the factory to make a weekend from it.

Summary: An interesting (as well as yummy) day out!