Birmingham, Cadbury World

We were a party of 7.Mixed ages and abilities from 79 to 16.One of our party was in a wheelchair. The venue was amazing ,very colourful as well as informative.The displays were really good and made everything so interesting.Although it was very busy , was half term,things moved along well and was very organised.The staff were so good especially with our wheelchair bound visitor.They were all ,without exception,very pleasant,helpful and cheerful.

We will definitely return at a later date.

My title says it all really. The very fact the entry fee for a family of 3 is a small fortune and the "Cadbury" brand being as big as it is, the very least I expected was a well polished, exciting and unique day of fun with a months worth of chocolate thrown in for free. The really optimistic side of me was hoping for the closest thing to Willy Wonkas factory you can get with possibly the odd umpa lumpa thrown in for effect. How disappointed I was! The place basically consisted of several rooms where they would play historic videos of how Cadbury began, videos that you could get off YouTube if you really wanted to as well as an enormously overpriced Cadbury shop! A shop where a £5.00 bar of chocolate is available in any Asda or Tesco for less than £2.00. Possibly one of the biggest disappointment's I've ever had when it comes to days out!

Save your money, buy some chocolate from your local shop and look up a few videos on YouTube about Cadbury's history, freeing up the rest of your day to do something at least partially interesting. I can not say enough bad things about this lazy attempt of a family attraction.

We traveled from Newcastle for a few days in Tamworth so decided to book cadburys world. Found it easily with sat nav. The tour was ok, my 5 year old got a bit bored, too much grown up info given and not enough for children to get involved with. For the price I expected a few more free bars a chocolate. They recommend you buy a material bag for £2 to fill with the free goodies, we got 3 bars. Shop very very expensive, cheaper at Asda

I LIKED THE TRIP WITH NATIONAL HOLIDAYS.I LIKED WALKING ROUND THE DIFFERENT PARTS I LIKED OUR TOUR OF THE FACTORY AND THE LITTLE CHOCOLATE POTS WE GOT.AND I LIKED THE CAFE AND I LIKED THE SHOP.I AM GOING AGAIN TO CADBURY WORLD.IT WAS SO EXCITING.

The first time i ventured into Cadbury world was when i was 4 years old and i can remember being mesmerized by the bright lights, fun attractions and last but not least the intense aroma of cocoa. Revisited again as a 17 year old and all the wonderful memories came flooding back - the free chocolate samples, the ability to watch chocolate products being made in the workshop and the fun rides you could experience; perfect for younger generations!

Highly recommend for a fun family day out.

Unfortunately got a coach trip to the most boring place have ever been to so had to wait until time for coach to leave be fore had the pleasure of leaving. No factory tour just a few videos and an overpriced shop. a few little things to look at in between. we kept walking aroung thinking may have missed something but unfortunately wasnot the case. What a waste of money! Would like to say more but isn't really anymore to say about it.

Took my 3 children (9, 6 and 2yrs old), expecting to see how the chocolate is made - after all this is the Cadbury's factory....... WRONG !!!!

Let me save you a wasted journey - I will explain what you will see in each of the 14 zones:

Zone 1 - Aztec Jungle - a pathway about 15ft long - room about 15ft wide - which is made to look like a rainforest. This is where the cocoa trees are grown.

You continue walking along the path into zone 2

Zone 2 - Journey to Europe - about another 15ft like zone 1, where there are a few small boats depicting the journey that the chocolate takes to get to England. All you have here is the visitors throwing money into the water and onto metal plates at the back of the room.

You continue walking along the path into a room called zone 3

Zone 3 - Bull Street - another room about 15ft x 15ft, with a mock-up of 3 shop frontages. Here you will stand and wait for about 50 people who are behind you walking through zones 1 and 2. When all 50 of you are crammed into this room, you will watch a 5 minute video on a 32in TV that is 12 feet in the air and depending on where you are standing, either directly above you or 15ft in front of you. The sound is far too low and as such you probably won't be able to hear what they are saying unless you can lip read. I could make out bits and the gist of the video is how Cadbury started selling chocolate in Bull Street.

After this a door opens and you move into zone 4

Zone 4 - The Cadbury Story - a room about 20ft x 20ft with 5 benches which can seat 10 people on each. You will watch a video on how Cadbury's started - video lasts for about 5 - 10 mins and is not easily understood by children.

After this you all exit and move into zone 5

Zone 5 - Making Chocolate - sorry folks this is only a video (again). You will not see how chocolate is made in this factory. You will sit in another 20ft x 20ft room and watch a video on how chocolate is made with 4 ingredients - Sugar, Milk, Cocoa and butter. You can see better videos on the Discovery Channel or You Tube.

After this you all exit and move into zone 6

Zone 6 - Manufacturing - sorry folks you don't get to see any of the manufacturing plant .... instead..... yes you've guessed it... another video in another 20ft x 20ft room. My kids have seen this on the BBC TV show Come Outside with Pippin the dog. Aunt Mable and Pippin visited a chocolate factory. I foolishly thought that by visiting Cadbury's factory, we would get to see the same.... how wrong I was.....

Anyway, moving on we exit the room and move into zone 7

Zone 7 - Packaging - ok you have to walk up about 70 steps to get the packaging area - or wait with 45 other people and get the 5 person lift (elevator). On arrival at the packaging area it was CLOSED and not operational. We were told we could still walk round and look at the dormant machinery. This is the ONLY part of the working factory that you will vaguely see. I say vaguely because most of the views are blocked by 6ft high old boxes of cadbury's chocolates - you can see they are old by the fact that the sun has faded the colours.

After a walk around a few ghostly corridors with obscure views of the machinery you will join a queue of about 30 minutes to enter zone 8.

Zone 8 - Cadabra - After your 30 minute queue, you will sit in a small 4/5 seater car type enclosure and go on a childrens ride. The ride will take you through about 5 different sets with a differing theme. Nothing informative or educational here and not worth the 30 minute wait. The ride is all on one level and takes about 4 minutes to complete.

After disembarking this ride you go back down the 70 steps and enter zone 9

Zone 9 - Demonstration Area - here there are 3 people each standing at 3 different stations. Each station is about 3ft wide x 2ft deep - and 4ft off the ground, so not ideal for younger kids who will need to be picked up to see what these people are demonstrating. Station 1 you can write your name in chocolate using a piping bag. Station 2 - you can watch someone make a chocolate shell by hand - sorry folks, still no machinery or automation here. At Station 3 there is someone putting molten chocolate into small sample pots for you to taste.

After this you walk onto Zone 10

Zone 10 - Advertising avenue - this is a pathway enclosed, quite dark, where you walk through a room with all the old Cadbury's TV commercials playing. Quite difficult to hear though because they are all sounding at the same time.

then onto zone 11

Zone 11 - Purple planet - room about 50ft x 50ft with some interactive activities.

onto zone 12

Zone 12 - The Cadbury Shop - this is the end of the factory tour, err, sorry I mean video tour... Chocolate is more expensive than Asda, nothing else to say about this zone.

Then you need to walk outside and about 300ft to another building where you enter zone 13

Zone 13 - The Bournville Experience - here you can see various static displays and posters on how Bournville village was built and created.

Back outside to zone 14

Zone 14 - Childrens playground and Essence - the playground is outside, so beware if it is raining. Essence is a 20ft x 20ft room that plays a 10 minute hologram video. The video shows John Cadbury, his worker and his secretary adding various ingredients to chocolate to give it it's unique taste.

and as Bugs Bunny would "that's all folks"........

Make your own mind up. For me and my family it was a complete let down in not seeing the factory itself. Had I have known we would just watch videos on how chocolate is made, I would have sat the kids down in front of the Discovery Channel and saved myself fifty quid......

BUYER BEWARE !!!!!!!!

We got a student deal for Cadbury World, although I thought it was reasonably priced anyway.

I found the experience informative and fun, you got some chocolate samples (yummy yummy) and got to see about the companies history and how the chocolate is made via a fun series of videos and information boards.

You got to see some of the machines used in the production process (but not all of them, which is expected- I guess you can't have lots of visitors seeing everything because a) there are probably some "secret" things, b) imagine how many germs people would bring in, you don't want contaminated chocolate do you!) It does smell good though!

The shop is amazing! Okay, so sometimes products are cheaper in supermarkets but only if they are on special offer. And the choice here is huge. (if you get a ticket to the staff shop guess that is a bunus, but not to be expected.. but hey, it doesn't matter).

Cadbury's World:

We have 3 under 7 and everyone found the whole experience to be half-hearted and lacklustre at best. The tour started with a series of small presentations hidden in dark recesses too high for most young children to be able to see into, followed by 2 (rather better) full screen presentations; the first on the origins of the company and the second on how chocolate is made The factory visit, that followed, consisted of an ancient chocolate mixer (clearly not connected to the plant other than for its power), a conveyor belt conveying the odd box of packed chocolate bars, 3 chocolate bar wrapping machines and a small demonstration area. The interactive areas (the green screen area, etc) had less to do with production but much more to do with marketing, and were frankly unexciting. I was left wondering who had thought these things would be a good part of a "chocolate experience". The part that Cadburys had invested energy into was the shop. This is the place they clearly want you to be. Sadly, it is filled with the usual array of knick-knacks and the chocolate was very expensive considering you're right there at the factory! Once outside, the playground was half closed, very small and very tired. We came away feeling very disappointed indeed that we'd wasted our time and money. It does seem as if the founding Cadbury family values are far removed from today's large and faceless corporate operation that continues to trade on the legacy of a distant memory. Very poor show Cadburys: extremely disappointing and we won't be back.

There is 6 of us in our family with children ages ranging from 10-16years an can honestly say the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves there was enough to keep you entertained as they went around the factory and other parts of the site which includes lots of chocolate given to you during the course of the tour, I could explain lots about the different parts and areas including the section where a photo taken of you and it is converted in a chocolate image of yourself, but it would take too long.

The only downside I would say is the shop which is billed as the largest Cadbury shop in the world Now given that Cadbury are not having to pay for transportation costs, or mark up cost by a retailer selling Cadbury products, you would expect the chocolate to be reasonably priced, it was not, in fact it would have been far cheaper to go down the road to the local supermarket and buy the exact same product. Some people may say that it is part of the experience buying from the shop, unfortunately if being overcharged for items which should be considerably cheaper is your idea of fun then fine, but as far as I am concerned this is just ripping off the customer, by all means walk around the shop but save your money and by the same product anywhere but here as it will be cheaper.

The only other gripe I had was that I was more interested in their attitudes towards social health and social welfare, which was dealt with informatively and without boring the pants off the children, but to find any information about the wonderful surrounding village which was built by Cadbury as part of their whole plan for the welfare of the workers was almost impossible except for a miniature scale model and a poor quality photocopied sheet which offered after some searching.

There are discounts vouchers to be had on the ticket price by printing the vouchers which you can be picked off the internet for Cadbury World but you have to present these on the day and as such you could be left waiting for sometime, having said this we went at the height of summer and people who turned up who had not pre-booked seemed to get in ahead of us, who had paid in advance and reserved our spot.

In conclusion do go and see the factory and the other parts which were all lively and interesting but avoid the shop.