We recently paid a visit to Cadbury World in Birmingham with our three utterly magnificent children, so here’s a review of what we thought! If you’re considering buying tickets and going yourself, then you might want to read this review. If you don’t care about Cadbury World then don’t worry about it.
Visiting Cadbury World with Three Young Children
Right, so Cadbury World is basically setup in two different parts. You have the factory itself with the tour, and then the other area with the 4D show, outdoor play area, and the Bournville Experience. So let’s start with the second area since we went there first.
Side note: When booking your tickets with Cadbury World you select a visiting time which is for the factory. But you can still arrive early and spend time in the other area before entering the factory. That’s what we did due to having a 4:10pm booking.
I guess we’ll start with the Bournville Experience since that’s where we headed first. Don’t ask me why. We have three young children – 5,3, and 1 as of this writing – so the obvious place to start in a CHOCOLATE FACTORY would be the MUSEUM.
Yes, I don’t make sensible life choices, but what can you do?
If I’m honest though, the experience was actually pretty good. And prior to going to Cadbury World I realllllllllly didn’t know much about the history of Cadbury. It’s one of those brands that’s just always been there and you don’t think much more about it.
I certainly didn’t know that that Richard and George Cadbury founded Bournville Village. I thought they just made some chocolate for a laugh and bish bash bosh, they made a Dairy Milk. But nah, they only went and built a sodding village.
I’ll be honest, I’m not going to drop a load of knowledge on you about Bournville. I totally could if I wanted. But that would just come from Wikipedia. And that’s for one main reason: We went with THREE YOUNG CHILDREN.
Have you ever been to a museum – or anywhere for that matter – with kids? It’s a sodding nightmare. You stop for five seconds and they’ve all split up and one of them is 3 seconds away from breaking something. So be bummed am I going to stand there and read an entire WALL of history.
Seemed proper cool though and well worth it if you don’t have kids.
They even had lots of old Cadbury stuff that you can point at and go “Ha! I remember those!” and then feel mega old.
Moving on to the 4D Chocolate Adventure and Play Area
After the Bournville Experience we next hit up the African Adventure Play Area – actually we went to the toilet but you don’t need to know that. Don’t ask me what’s African about the play area as it’s actually in Birmingham, not Africa. Which surprised me greatly.
I’ve never even been to Africa before so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the play area, but I’m guessing they love a good slide in Africa?
Look, it’s basically a park. Kid like parks.
It was rather busy when we were there – half term on a Saturday at mid day – so I didn’t really take many photos to show you it – just use Google if you wanna see it – so here’s my wife. She’s not a park.
She’s quite clearly watching the kids whilst I dick about on my phone. I call that team work.
She calls it annoying.
The only info you really need to know is that each section of the park is well contained with ONE entrance. This means that you don’t massively have to pay attention to your kids – they recommend that you do – as you know they can’t really get lost or run away as long as you pay attention to the entrance.
4D Chocolate Adventure
This was proper alright like in fairness. Only drawback to it being the wait to get in – understandable, but queues with kids suck! – and the fact you can only do it once.
You basically go in and they show you some rather subpar – or shit if you want honesty – animation about… umm… about stuff I think. And then you go in and have one of those 3D videos where your seat moves too. Not exactly a 4th dimension – I hate it when people say 4D – as the 4th dimension is actually time, not seat movement. But it did take 20 minutes to get in, so there’s the 4th dimension I guess.
Didn’t take any photos so you’ll have to use your imagination.
Or you can see this photo I got off the interweb.
We also then did another show… But I don’t know what it’s called. It’s basically a pirate stage show for kids. If you’re a miserable twat like I am then you won’t enjoy it and you’ll sit there looking like a gargoyle for 10 minutes, but the kids might like it.
Hey, they’re captivated for 10 minutes. That’s bliss when you’re having a day out.
Embrace it. Savour it. Enjoy it.
We also bought lollies. Do you want to see the evidence?
We did feed the other two children lollies but I didn’t think you’d need further proof. Maybe you do. But it cost… let me check my bank… £8.25 for three sodding lollies.
Jeez did we really pay that?
I could literally buy a BUNCH of packs from Tesco for that. So yeah, be prepared to have your bank balance battered if you come here. Or bring your own lollies.
Luckily we brought our own lunch so that saved us a bit.
Moving on…
The actual Factory itself at Cadbury World
Right, now that we’ve covered the other areas, let’s talk about the main attraction: the chocolate factory itself.
To be fair, we arrived at Cadbury World around 1:30pm and our “tour” didn’t start until 4:10pm. So the fact that we’d spent 2+ hours there already isn’t a bad thing. It shows that there’s a good bit to do there at least.
Or that we’re all really slow at doing stuff.
Anyway… the Factory.
As you enter the factory the first thing Cadbury do is hit you with a bunch of free chocolate.
What freebies do you get at Cadbury World?
I don’t even know. They asked how many were in our party, I prayed to Jesus and said “five” and I was right! No children missing. Winner.
They then asked if we wanted to BUY a bag to carry all of our free chocolate in.
Business savvy move in fairness. Hit you with the freebies that you need a bag for, then sell a branded bag. Good move.
We then moved into the factory and we found ourself in a jungle. They provide information as to why we were in a jungle, but it’s the type of information someone can read when they DON’T have children. I’m not reading something in a poorly lit area with three young children that have ZERO concept of “can you stay near me please?“
I’m guessing it was about the process of making chocolate? No idea. By this stage I just wanted a pint if I’m honest.
But here’s a list of the things you get to do in the factory:
- Get free chocolate bars
- Visit an Aztec Jungle
- Discover the Cadbury Story
- Travel back to Bull Street
- Visit Advertising Avenue
- Eat chocolate
- Draw with Chocolate
- Chocolate Tempering
- Go on the Cadabra ride
- Get mentally exhausted from monitoring the kids
So the factory basically leads you on a kinda one-way tour through the history of Cadbury and through all of those things I just listed out for you.
Luckily they do give you some more “formal” presentations where you actually get to sit and watch/listen to a video or two. At least by doing this the kids are somewhat distracted enough for you to actually learn about Cadbury’s.
As someone who runs a business myself – we make proper sexy wax melts – it was really interesting see how the business grew and developed from that shop to where they are now.
You even get to “have a go” with some of the chocolate. For someone who hates messy play this is absolutely wonderful and I loved every minute of it and only wished that the kids would make more mess.
*Sarcasm*
Nah, in all seriousness it was alright. And no one drew a penis, so that’s a bonus.
After that we skipped the Cadabra ride due to the 20 minute queue and the fact Archie was very much DONE with waiting for anything. Which made it a little bit difficult as it’s all a little bit one way, so I did feel like a slight twat wondering in the wrong direction. But since I am a slight twat, it’s all good.
We then went and had more free chocolate! Yep, even more.
They basically give you a pot of melted chocolate and you can pick your toppings. Whilst you’re eating that, you’re able to perv through the windows on people as they try to get some work done. By the looks of it, they appeared to be making some of the personalised gifts you can buy – shoes, tea pots etc.
Then lastly we arrived at the gift shop where we bought a load of stuff to giveaway in orders for Teddy Eva Scents – our super cool wax melt business I mentioned. Any time we go anywhere like Cadbury World we always try and pick up “freebies” for orders.
And that was it I guess. We then went back to the car, strapped the kids in, let out a huge sigh of relief and thanked Jesus for a blessing us with a half decent day.
Is Cadbury World worth the money with young children?
So if you want to buy tickets to Cadbury World then they’re going to cost you around £18.95 per adult and £13.95 per child over the age of 3. That’s non-peak times. You wanna go on a Saturday then it jumps to £21 and £15.50.
So let’s say for example you have two children under 3 and one over, you’d have two for free and one you’d have to pay for.
Maths with Ross!
So that would cost you £57.50!
But we did the whole “book together & save” thing where we booked a second attraction on top – which was Warwick Castle. So in total we paid £115 for the 5 of us.
Broken down that was £35 for Isabelle, and £40 each for us for two attractions. If you had a proper family of 5 it would cost you £185 for Cadbury World + Warwick Castle, or just £76 for Cadbury World on its own.
So to be fair, I think Cadbury World is decent value on its own. Warwick Castle, less so. But more on that another time.
I’d highly recommend Cadbury World though.
If you’d also like to watch a highly amusing, highly entertaining video, then unfortunately I only have this:
And if you want a star rating for Cadbury World, then here’s 4.5 of them.
And I guess that’s it. Thank you for reading all of this! If you happen to go to Cadbury World based on this review and you hate, then please don’t blame me. You’re an adult.
