Cadbury World

  November 22, 2007 is Thanksgiving in the US, however in the UK it is just another day.  But for this almost legal ex-pat, I went to Cadbury World.  If you have not had Cadbury chocolates you are missing on something good.  Is it better than Hershey’s?  That would be a matter of personal taste.  Cadbury has definitely more of a variety, maybe not more, but different.

So starts my adventure to Cadbury World.  After a sleepless night of anticipation and excitement, I sprang out of bed (ok, so I am using some creative licensing here, has any one really “sprung” out of bed?)  Took my time getting ready, and was watching some TV, until I could not contain my excitement.  I was smiling and the day was clear.  Emma, her sister Amy, and nephew Lewis picked me up and off we went.  We only got slightly off track when we thought we went the wrong way, but we were actually on the right road, after a 10 minute detour around a town centre.  Ok, so, who do you think was more excited to go to Cadbury World?  Me or a 2 1/2 year old?  If you said me, you are right!  Of course, I was more excited, although I do believe that Lewis was a close second.  I just was able to control my emotions better, but I was jumping around inside.  Like a nice bouncy mattress, where Mom would say stop jumping on the bed.  Kinda like that.

So, we walk into the place and what do we see?  When we entered the tour, we all got 2 chocolate bars.

   

We walked to the beginning of the tour and began the tour.  There was history on how chocolate came to be, most of you know that chocolate comes from the cocoa bean.  Because the cocoa bean was considered valuable, one could have traded 2 beans for a pumpkin, 10 beans for a rabbit, and 100 beans for a slave (see picture below).

  

We then went into this room where they had three windows where there was a small set up where they played holograms on it telling the history of chocolate.  That was pretty cool.  If you look closely you can see the hologram images of the people.  They did this through the tour, which was pretty cool.  There was one part of the tour that you sat down and they were telling you how the chocolate bean become the basis of the chocolate that Cadbury makes, it was an interactive show, where the film talks about shaking the beans around, the seats move right and left so you feel the shakes, then the heat of the lamps when they cook, etc.  Pretty cool, just like the M&M movie in Vegas.

Then we moved onto to the production areas.  Unfortunately, there was no picture taking allowed during this point.  So, it was walking through the factory, that showed how Cadbury makes their chocolate.  We walked out with another bar of chocolate.  Next we got into this small car, and they did a small tour of where the cocoa beans live.  Take a look.  I tried to get as many pictures as I can, but we moved a little too quickly and I could not cover both sides.

                             

So after that tour we went into a small area where we saw then moving chocolate around, and wrapping some chocolates, and they had a couple of demonstrations, nothing too exciting.

There was an area where you could play around with a screen with a maze on it, but there was this thing where you stood and struck a pose, and it made a chocolate mold of you.  I was not too creative, on my pose, I was just standing there, if you look carefully, you can see the camera in my right hand.  I am the 1st one from the left on the bottom row, and Emma is the 3rd from the left on the top row.

We then went around the building and went into another building where they had more history of the Cadbury family.  Cadbury built a whole community for his workers, including a cricket pitch, for them to use because he wanted them to be part of the family. 

Then we went to Essence.  This was some more history, but the more important part was that they allowed you to select your own “topping” and then poured warm Cadbury chocolate over it so you can taste it. 

 

That was the tour.  We had some lunch and then went shopping.  It was a good thing that Emma and Amy was here before because they new about the employee shop where a bar of chocolate was only 25p or less!  Comparatively to the gift shop or grocery store of 60p or so.  So, of course we all loaded up.  Not sure what I will do with all my chocolates.  I will definitely put half in the freezer, and the rest in the fridge.  I will ration for a while.

I sent some folks some dark chocolates for a taste test.  Will let you know what the outcome of that was.

So, after that in light that it was Thanksgiving and I was not home, Emma invited me back to her place for dinner, and had a proper Sunday roast.  She was going to get a chicken, but I talked her out of it and got beef instead.  The reason was that I have been eating the roasted chicken from Tesco’s for the last 3 months, and I was getting tired of poultry, so when I can, I eat something other than chicken, like seafood or beef.

Also, Sharon text messaged to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving, so they are making me feel welcome in the UK.

That was my day, good food, good company, got great deals in shopping, and came home with chocolate.

That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

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