Introduction

Having booked a weeks holiday from work, and no money to actually fly off to sunnier climbs, I was desperate to do something with the family whilst I was off otherwise I wouldn't have derived any tangible benefit from my week away from the office. A list of possible destinations were thrown into the melting pot so to speak, but the one which seemed to get the loudest cheers was Cadbury's World. To tell you the truth I'm not a big chocolate lover, so I wasn't particularly enamoured with the suggestion, but Mrs Supercityfan (SCF) and Master and Miss SCF were adamant that this was where they wanted to go, so in the interests of democracy I was forced to go with the majority decision.

What is It

The marketing material which accompanies the Tour claims it is 'Fourteen Amazing Zones, One Fantastic Day Out and is the place Where Chocolate Comes to Life.' All in all this is a pretty bold statement which very few organisations could actually get away with.

The marketing material further invites you to 'uncover a world of chocolate delights and enjoy a fascinating, fun-packed day out at Cadbury World. With fourteen amazing zones, there's so much to see and do at Cadbury World. From seeing how your favourite chocolate is made to learning about the Quaker origins of the world's favourite chocolate brand. Whether you're here for fun, the heritage or an educational visit there's something for everyone at Cadbury World.

The average visit time to Cadbury World is around three hours and there are places to eat, drink and of course shop courtesy of the World's Biggest Cadbury Store.

This is not a factory tour - at Cadbury World you'll discover the history, the making and the magic of Cadbury chocolate, and treat yourselves to the wonderful sights, smells and tastes of the place where chocolate really comes to life.'

Where Is it

Cadbury World is located just outside of Birmingham in the village of Bournville. The full address is

Cadbury World
Linden Road
Bournville
Birmingham
B30 2LU

However, if relying on satellite navigation systems you are advised to use the B30 1JR Postcode.

How Do I get There

The two obvious options are road and rail. We took the train option which involved getting a train to Birmingham New Street, and then caught the local Redditch service alighting at Bournville. The Redditch service is generally a half hourly service from Birmingham New Street and takes approximately 20 minutes. However, before embarking on your journey I recommend you check the national rail website for timetabling and fare enquiries. As a word of advice, if travelling during the week I would strongly recommend commencing your journey during off peak hours (i.e after 9:30am) to minimise the cost of your journey.

Once you arrive at Bournville station it is really easy to find Cadbury World which isn't totally surprising given that Cadbury to all intents and purposes control the village. I must admit though I was pleasantly surprised with how well sign posted the attraction was, and what was particularly pleasing was the amount of ramp access to make it so much easier for those requiring wheelchair or pushchair access. All in all the venue is a fifteen minute stroll from the train station which involves a small walk down the road, cross at the zebra crossing, down the ramps, and follow the building round until you are at the main attraction. Although I didn't require it I am advised that there is lift / ramp access at Bournville station so if you require easy access it is available.

Although I wasn't aware of it at the time (see below) if you travel by train there is a generous 30% discount available off your admission price to Cadbury World. As I say I didn't participate in this offer so I do not know what the full Terms and Conditions are, or indeed how long the offer is available for, but the following information is detailed on the Cadbury World Website:

If travelling by London Midland Trains we offer a 30% discount offer. To guarantee admission to Cadbury World you will need to pre-book through Cadbury World on 0845 450 3599 quoting the 'London Midland' offer. You can either pick up the voucher at any London Midland train station or a downloadable voucher is available on www.londonmidland.com which you'll need to print out. The voucher needs to be handed to the Cadbury World reception with a valid train ticket to Bournville for that entry date to receive the discount. For more information please call local London Midland Train assisted booking line on 0845 602 4277.

If you are travelling by car, and have access to Satellite Navigation technology it is recommended that you use postcode B30 1JR.

Birmingham has a number of motorways giving easy access to Cadbury World from the M5 (brown signposts from Junctions 2 & 4) and M42 (due North from Junction 2) following the brown signs, straight ahead for 6 miles to Bournville.

Visitors are NOT recommended to come through Birmingham City centre on the A38(M) from M6 Junction 6.

From the North West (M6 southbound) or mid-Wales (M54 eastbound)

At M6 Junction 8, take the M5 to Junction 2 and follow brown signs for 7 miles through to Cadbury World.

From the South West (M5) and South Wales (M50)

Leave M5 at Junction 4 (A38) and follow brown signs 7 miles through to Cadbury World.

From the South (A34 and M40), London and the South-east (M40)

After Junction 16 of M40, continue in middle lane on to M42, signposted towards M5/Redditch. Leave M42 at Junction 2, cross over motorway and continue straight ahead for 6 miles to Bournville and Cadbury World. When you follow the signs to Bournville, look out for the brown signs to Cadbury World.

From the North-east and Yorkshire (M1 southbound)

Join A42/M42 at M1 Junction 23A and follow M42 right the way round the south-western corner of Birmingham to leave motorway at Junction 2. Cross over motorway and continue straight ahead for 6 miles to Bournville and Cadbury World. There is some brown signage to Cadbury World from this direction.

From the East of England (e.g A14 or M6/M1 northbound from home counties)

Leave M6 northbound at junction 4, to go on M42 southbound, exit at Junction 2 of M42.

What about Parking Facilities?

Cadbury World has numerous parking spaces available and you will be pleased to know that parking is free for all visitors to Cadbury World.

When Is it Open

Whilst Cadbury World isn't open 365 days year, it is pretty much an open all year venue. From now until 15th November, the attraction is open every day, but then it closes on every Monday and Friday up to and including the Christmas period, when it is also closed on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Years Eve. Admission Times do vary with the attraction not opening until 10 am on some days (pretty much from September onwards) and closes at 3pm again once schools go back except for the last week in October when the attraction doesn't close until 5pm. The venue does stay open later at weekend but I strongly advise that you check opening times with the attraction before embarking on your journey.

How Much Does It cost

We were able to take advantage of a 20% discount off the admission price (see www.DiscountBritain.net/Cadbury) but be aware that this discount is only available on single tickets and can not be used in conjunction with any other offer. Depending on the number of people in your party there may be no financial benefit to be derived from applying for a discount (I haven't calculated the various permutations but it is a possibility). As I said earlier I wasn't aware of the 30% discount available through London Midland so if travelling by train on this route this option is likely to reduce in a bigger saving for you. I would guess that similar restrictions apply with this discount also ie no discount on family tickets, but I am unable to confirm.

Current prices at Cadbury World without discount are:

Adult £13.45
Child £10.10 (Aged 4 - 15)
Senior Citizen £10.30
Student £10.30 (With a valid NUS Card)
Under 4's Free
Family £41.20 (2 Adults and 2 Children)
Family £48.90 (2 Adults and 3 Children)

To take advantage of this discount you need to ring Cadbury World in advance of your visit (0845 450 3599) and Quote Smartsave. You will be asked to confirm the date and time for your intended visit and you will be allocated a Booking Reference. When you turn up you need to quote your booking reference and bring your printed discount voucher from the website to qualify for your discount.

At this stage of the process you are not required to provide your card details, although at this stage you are quoted the price that your booking will be when you turn up at the venue. For two adults and two children, with our 20% discount we were quoted £37.66.

Do I Need to Book

The venue literature specifies that a reservation is essential to guarantee admission, although when we turned up there was a facility to pay on the day. However, at the time we got there (11.45 am) there was a near two hour wait for those people who hadn't booked in advance. I'm guessing on some days it may be busier than this so I would strongly recommend that you do book in advance. Even if you decide on the spur of the moment to visit the attraction, you will still be able to book your allotted slot over the phone. In addition, if you don't book in advance you are unable to use either the Smart Save Discount Voucher or London Midland discount voucher.

How easy was the Booking / Payment process

As I said earlier, to qualify for any sort of discount we needed to book in advance, where we were provided with a number of timeslots for our chosen date. The earliest slots available on our chosen day (I only rang a couple of days before) were either 9:00am or 11:40am. Given that we had a near 2 hour train journey to make I didn't much fancy the idea of the 9am slot so opted for the later one. We were advised that we would need to be at the venue 10 minutes before our scheduled time to collect our tickets which was a fifteen minute walk from the Train station.

This is when panic then set in. To get to Bournville in sufficient time to meet the above requirements meant having to get a train prior to 9:30 which would have cost a whopping £171.00. Travelling after 9:30 would have only (!!) cost £48.40 but would not have got us in Bournville until 11:25. When I telephoned the kind people at Cadbury World to explain my predicament they were extremely helpful and advised me to get there as quickly as I could on the day and they would honour my booking.

Upon getting to the venue, there were a number of reasonably heavily populated queues but they were all clearly labelled so you knew easily which queue to join (ie advance bookings, group bookings, not booked etc) and they all seemed to be processed quickly. When we got to the front of the queue all we had to do was provide our booking reference, smart save voucher and pay our money and then we could enter the Tour. There was a free guide given at this stage explaining the various elements of the tour, with the option to buy packs to keep the kids happy at a cost of £3 each. We declined this, thinking the lure of chocolate alone should suffice. So having paid our money we were only ten minutes later than our initial time so promptly joined the tour.

The Tour Itself

As I said at the start of this review, the Cadburys Tour consists of fourten different zones, but there is much more to the tour than each of these indivuidual areas. However, for you to get a flavour (pardon the pun) of what the tour is about I shall describe briefly what each of the zones provides, together with my opinion of each. I must admit that the tour got off to a very positive start as we were handed a free Curly Wurly and packet of Chocolate Buttons to welcome us to the tour.

We were quickly ushered through the doors into a somewhat darkened room to witness the start of the Tour -

Aztec Jungle

In this section we got the chance to discover the origins of our favourite chocolate, amidst trees and waterfalls, deep in the ancient tropical rainforest. There were a number of narrative descriptions outlining the history of the cocoa bean, but a combination of the darkened room, the sheer volume of people in the room and trying to maintain the interest of a three year old who was only interested in her Curly Wurly made this somewhat difficult. I must admit this wasn't the most auspicious start to the tour and I did begin to wonder if this was a sign of things to come.

Journey to Europe

Once again we are ushered through to another room, where there is a mini theatre with three screens with each showing the chronology of the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Once again this wasn't the most exciting part of the Tour, and we had no alternative but to alow the children to start on their Curly Wurlys. I was now seriously beginning to question my decision to come to Cadbury World at all. If the standard of the first two zones was to be repeated I would be going home extremely disappointed.

Bull Street

A short walk into another auditorium and the chance to sit down. Here we are presented with a recreation of the Victorian Bull Street where Cadburys opened their first store and where Cadburys originated. This was slightly more interesting than the first two zones but I was beginning to feel for the kids who I sensed were starting to get a little bored with the days events. I really needed the tour to get started.

Cadbury Story

Once again we get ushered through to another cinema where the hologram of John Cadbury appears in a statue, together with those of his sons George and Richard. Here we find out about John Cadbury's early experiments to create a cocoa drink as an alternative to alcohol, and the birth of Cadburys Dairy Milk. This did attempt to bring us up to the 21st century but in all honesty it wasn't the most exciting day thus far. I couldn't believe we were nearly a third of the way through the tour and it was going nowhere at all.

Making Chocolate

Upon entering the room for the next part of the tour we were warned that if you had a medical condition or were pregnant to sit in the rear two rows. It was obvious from this that some special effects were to be experienced, and so as not to spoil the surprise for anyone going I won't mention them specifically here, suffice to say that the various processes in the making of chocolate are brought to life, from ensuring the chocolate is at the right temperature, to shaking the beans to maximise the amount of cocoa produced. I did particularly enjoy this aspect of the tour and the look on the kids faces when the special effects came into play was a joy to behold. I can now declare that the tour had officially begun.

Manufacturing

After being shaken and stirred you are then ushered into the next area where a number of interactive machines are available for you to find out all about the manufacture of your favourite chocolates. There were approximately six machines available which given the numbers of people on the tour was no where near enough and you did have to wait a short while before you could get to the machines. The machine we used was a little on the temperamental side, but we were able to find out exactly how Creme Eggs, Buttons, Turkish Delight, Roses and Crunchies were all made. The kids enjoyed this part of the tour because they were able to operate the machines themselves.

Packaging

Unfortunately, on the day we visited the packaging part of the tour wasn't open to the public so we could only see the area from the outside. Upon entering this part of the tour we were presented with a bar of Dairy Milk, and I must warn you that this aspect of the tour does require the use of stairs and therefore is unsuitable for those in wheelchairs. In addition cameras are not permitted in this part of the tour. Because the area was closed to the public there isn't really an awful lot I can add but it was fascinating to see the machinery in operation even from a distance.

Cadabra

After witnessing the packaging plant, next on the tour is Cadabra which is a ride aimed at the younger members of the group. Although aimed at the younger members I didn't find this too bad, and along the way you get your photo taken for posterity if you so desire. Incidentally one of the cars is specially adapted for wheelchair use. This is the one area of the tour where numbers are strictly limited as I don't think there were any more than five or six cars operating at an one time and we had to queue for approximately 25 minutes before we got into our car. We decided to purchase a couple of key rings at the price of £4.25 each which you pay for when you exit, but then collect your merchandise before entering the next part of the Tour.

Demonstration

This for me was one of the best areas of the tour as you get to see the staff working the chocolate and you also get to have a go yourself. In all there were three different demonstrations with one showing how chocolate is tempered to bring it to the right consistency, one allowing you to write your name in chocolate and another one showing how chocolate was prepared before the advent of modern machinery. Previously in this part of the tour you were allowed to sample the delights which were made but for hygiene reasons this is no longer allowed. Instead this is given to the lucky old pigs at the local farm.

Advertising

This part of the tour is over relatively quickly as you are ushered through a corridor with various adverts on display ranging from the Coronation Street advert, to the symbolic flake advert to the Cadbury's Caramel advert. This aspect of the tour is great for nostalgia value, particularly when you hear the fudge advert.

Purple Planet

I think this is a relatively new area of the tour but I think it works very well as it gives the children an opportunity to run about and do what comes naturally to children. There are a number of interactive things in this area of the tour including making a chocolate statue of yourself, stamping out the cadburys chocolate on the floor and catching cadburys bubbles as they fall. If you have kids this is a great part of the tour for them.

The World's Biggest Cadbury Shop

This is exactly what it says, and is your opportunity to line the pockets of Cadburys still further. In terms of prices these were comparable with your everyday High Street stores but given that we had already been given three free chocolate bars we didn't feel the need to purchase any more.

Once you have visited the shop the main part of the tour is now over with the last two parts adjacent to the outdoor play area. We chose this moment to have lunch which we had brought ourselves from home, and there are numerous benches outside at which to eat from where you can se your loved ones happily playing. If you choose not to bring your own food there is a restaurant at the attraction which is directly next to the Cadbury shop.

The Bournville Experience

The product literature builds this area of the tour up by stating 'great fun and fascinating for all ages, our Bournville Experience focuses on the Quaker ethics of the Cadbury family and how the Bournville Village came to be built. Frankly I was extremely disappointed with this aspect as I thought it would be particularly useful for my 8 year old son. All that was in the room was a model of the Cadbury building and its surrounding areas.

Essence

We left Essence until the very end of the tour and once again we were shown a video showing how Dairy Milk chocolate was made. A couple of minutes later you are transported into the future and are given the opportunity to make your own conncoction by adding a range of everyday products such as shortcake biscuits, wine gums, jelly babies or liqorice allsorts to warm chocolate. I chose the wine gums option but I did find it a little bit sickly as the chocolate was somewhat sweet. We were subsequently advised that that chocolate was only that used for Cadburys Buttons but this was somewhat sweeter than I envisaged.

What were the Queues like

As I said earlier, with the exception of the 25 minute queue for Cadabra the tour was a seamless exercise with you constantly moving from one zone to the next at your own pace.

Disabled Facilities

Cadbury World was voted runner up in the 2008 Group Travel Award for Best Provision of Disabled Facilities. Wheelchairs can access virtually all areas, the packaging plant being the only exception.

Facilities include:
- Disabled parking spaces
- Disabled access throughout (except parts of the Packaging Plant, where a waiting area is provided)
- Disabled toilets
- Wheelchair-adapted car on Cadabra
- Assistance dogs are welcome except in production areas (dog-sitting provided)
- A hearing loop and large print scripts are also available
- Large print access for all Guide available*
- Low-level booking in desk
- Infrared system for visitors with compatible hearing-aid system
- Large print script available of the tour*
- Tactile surface changes to indicate differences in levels
- DDA-compliant handrails
- Stairs and steps with coloured warning edges
- Directional signage

Visually impaired visitors are given the opportunity to feel and touch key props at various stages (i.e. in the Demonstration Area, the chocolatiers can hand out the moulds they use to make chocolate products as they give their demonstration talk)
Guide dogs are allowed throughout the exhibition except in production areas. A guide dog sitting service is offered at this part of the experience

A written script of the tour is available from reception although there is an audio tour available. Throughout the exhibition, the majority of the video presentations have English subtitles

For Wheelchair Users there is

Extensive parking facilities located near the entrance
Low-level reception counter and low-level exhibits in certain zones
Ramps adaptations throughout
Lift access where available (please note, there is no wheelchair access to one small part of the landing of the Packaging Plant - a subtitled video presentation is available)
Accessible toilets on each floor and throughout the exhibition
A Bean Mobile on the Cadabra Ride has been adapated for wheel chair use

Guests with Learning Disabilities

Cadbury World is a multi-sensory and interactive experience and staff are happy to answer any questions throughout the exhibition

Cadbury World have a limited number of wheel chairs available for visitors to borrow upon request.

Refreshment Facilities

Although we didn't make use of it there is a cafe on site which is located near the main entrance to the venue. We didn't make use of the facility so cannot comment on either the quality of the food or the cost of the food. Having seen the menu on the website it offers fairly typical fayre ie jacket potatoes, hot dogs and kiddies menus. No prices are detailed on the website so as I say I am unable to comment.

Adjacent to the play area is a much smaller refreshment hut where you can purchase hot and cold drinks, ice creams and snacks such as crisps, hot dogs, burgers etc. We didn't take advantage of this aspect but did have two cups of tea at a cost of £1.50 each.

Any Additional Features

There is a big outdoor play area which is great if the weather is nice. Luckily for us the day we went was when we actually had a half decent day weather wise and so the kids were able to take advantage of this facility. The play area is particularly safe and you can see your children very easily. During the summer months there are also a number of activities taking place in the marquee next to the play area including craft making. I'm not sure if this facility is available all year round but on the day in question my daughter was able to make a face mask.

Just outside the Essence attraction face painting was taking place which incurred an additional charge. Unforunately this aspect finished relatively early compared with other closure times for the attraction and my daughter was unable to get her face painted which somewhat upset her although the offer of more chocolate soon put a smile back on her face.

There is a baby changing room on the ground floor near reception and a second baby changing facility half way around the exhibition. There is pushchair access throughout, except into the Packaging Plant where a waiting area is provided. (There’s also a microwave in the restaurant so parents can heat their own baby food).

Cash Point Facilities

Although the website states that there is a cashpoint facility, I certainly didn't see it and was advised at reception that no cashpoint facility existed but that all venues accept debit and credit cards.

Website Details

See www.cadburyworld.co.uk for more details.

Would I Recommend

Considering I had no real enthusiasm for visiting Cadbury World, and the beginning of the Tour was somewhat none descript, I would more than recommend the tour. Cadburys have organised the Tour so efficiently so that everything runs seamlessly from directions to the venue, to directions at the venue and whilst there is an element of the tour which is designed as a marketing ploy I think this is kept to a minimum. Take a chance to see for yourself and I hope you enjoy your visit as much as I did.

Thank you for reading.