Nigel And the Chocolate Factory

Anyone who had to put up with me prior to leaving for the UK knew that I was heading to Cadburyworld when I got here.

I was beside myself about it. What was not to like? A factory that made chocolate had a park/museum dedicated to why chocolate rocks. Lots of chocolate plus fun things while eating said chocolate.

How could it go wrong?

Indeed.

Somehow, and it breaks my heart to say this, Cadburyworld had managed to suck all the life out of its product. It was a mishmash of scary educating; not educating enough; unbelievably twee video presentations and the Disney ride from hell.

The first section you enter is the Amazon jungle, spookily lit and full of REALLY scary Mayan indians dummies. The first thing you see as you enter the door is a stuffed python. Little kids were screaming and begging their mummies to take them away from the scary people so full marks to Cadbury for starting the journey into chocolate with such an indelible image for the little kiddies. I’m sure there were a few chocolate covered nightmares that night.

You then move into an arena where some really annoying holograms tell you how chocolate was transferred from the Mayan to European culture.  The Europeans had managed to improve upon the chocolate taste by removing the chili from it (damn you Cadbury World for making me learn stuff) and the holograms were very chuffed with themselves and, if it weren’t for the guard in front of it, you would stick your foot through the hologram screen.

Then you enter ANOTHER area where Mr Cadbury ( not sure of his name – I had lost the will to live at this point) and his sons have a lovely discussion amongst themselves (between three television screens around the room) about who introduced the best packaging for the chocolate and who introduced the idea of the workers having their own garden. As you can imagine this was RIVETING stuff and it was then that I realised you can’t escape any room until the automatic doors allow you exit. Well done Cadbury World in knowing your market.

Then you go into a room (again the next exit is locked) and you sit and watch this…… well I presume they were going for delightfully wacky yet somehow managed to get intensely irritating instead…. scientist explain to the by now comatose audience how cocoa beans are sifted and roasted. This was actually interesting as the stools you sat on shook to indicate what it would be like to be the sifted bean and presumably to wake the audience up at the same time. Turning the heating on to indicate what it felt to like to be a roasting bean was a brave move I thought but clearly Cadburyworld was always going to be a survival of the fittest kind of day.

You then traverse through the factory or as much of the factory as they allow you to see ( which wasnt a lot) along really long, inexplicably hot corridors(why were they so hot -we don’t know- it was all boarded up and there was a sign from CadburyWorld saying “we’re doing something hot behind here”  ), up loads of flights of stairs (see survival of the fittest comment – goodbye grannies and the weak and infirm) then to a room where you can pay to have you picture taken with a giant cocoa bean. Yes it was naff but most people were glad of the sit down.

At some point in amongst all this you go to the Kadabra ride. Here you board an automated car and are taken on It’s a Small World inspired but missing the mark by miles tour of presuneldy what the Cadbury cocoa beans do before they are roasted and sifted.   You will be pleased to know the beans enjoy many pleasures, including going fishing, skiing in the alps and avoiding the singing grass that’s sways around them in their little Cadbury bean world.  Truly this is the highlight of Cadburyworld and one can only imagine the designers giggling to themselves as they came up with “what are we gonna put around this corner?” “let’s have the beans watch tele!!”  “good plan. It will remind the audience of what they could be doing!”

There are positives.   You  get three bars of chocolate as you go around ( and, believe me, you need the sugar rush) and at the end of the tour is a pot of melted chocolate that you can mix with your weird content of choice (jellybeans, popcorn, licorice allsortsetc..I had shortbread biscuits which was quite pleasant). Sadly you have to endure yet more “wacky” holograms that keep rabbiting on about a glass and a half to get to the melted chocolate.

The Cadbury shop is very fun! Lots of chocolate for reasonable prices and loads of school children with Brummie accents buying up big! Dentists have a share in Cadbury world I’m thinking.

Finally there is a audiovisual section where you can have your picture taken of yourself made out of chocolate, splat projected chocolates under your feet or see what your shadow would look like under a rain of chocolate beans. This was actually a really good area.

All in all I enjoyed it in a it’s so bad its good kind of way. To my family who travelled with me for the three hours to get to Birmingham and then endured this without complaint, my huge thanks! Next time will be improved I promise.

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