Cadbury World - Birmingham

What a dream visit this is! The only disappointing thing about it was that we couldn't take any photos along the way, so I guess you will have to tag along with me. Just imagine being dipped in meltded chocolate and that smell hangs on your clothes all day .. well.. you are half way there. 

Cadbury World is based at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham. Cadbury was founded over 200 years ago, operating out of a small grocery shop in Bull Street Birmingham, but having to move out of that so their operation grew quickly with the tastes of the clients. 

Cadbury World is now a full on experience, taking guests through a whirl wind tour of the history of chocolate and a tour of the packing process plant.

We were greeted with gifts of chocolate at the front door, so tucked in enthusiastically.  By the third lot of chocolate bars, we were feeling a bit green. By the time we went through the factory and our clothes and hair reeked of chocolate, we were glad to be out of the smell. 

I enjoyed seeing all the advertising material and TV clips made to promote different bars.  It was a very interactive and excitingly educational experience for the kids and one I am glad we went on.

Its defiantly designed to sell the idea of chocolate and promote buying more - espec with the factory shop at the end with all the odds and ends for sale at cut prices.

I also enjoyed reading about the socially conscious efforts of the Cadbury family, in their attempt to look after their workers with housing, education and hospitals, something that other factories didn't do. No doubt the work would have been messy, hard and long, but they appeared to pay fairly and look after families welfare

Lego Land

oh... myyyyyy... goodness....

Imagine Annie doing a little geeky dance right now.. I LOVE lego!!!

From the moment we walked in, to the last goodbye, we were surrounded by those little bricks.  I staggers me to think of the person hours to build just the smallest piece, much less the dragons, spiders, life sized star war figures and vikings populating the place.

For ANYONE who has ever put two of those little red blocks together and then been bitten by the bug, sat for hours in an attempt to build a creation out of rectangular plastic, THIS is the place to be wowed at.

Everything is made, painstakingly, out of lego blocks. Giant dragons, menacing spiders, marauding vikings and gallant firefighters... all in the day of Legoland.

It really is far too big to explore in one day.. I very much doubt you'd be able to appreciate it even in two days.  Once again, I am thankful we have the Merlin Passes, which take that pressure of having to stuff in EVERYTHING and allows us to think about coming back a few times at leisure. Its close enough as well, for us to come when we are in Andover ( the brief times we are!)

With it being a week day - and out of holidays, we were blessed not to have a queue at all at most places.  I crumpled and caved into to the money grabbing tactics of the theme park and bought the kids photographic ' licences' to prove that they had been to the driving school and the boating school.... admit it.. its kinda cute...

Although we spent most of the day here, with very few line ups and no crowd, it was impossible to get around everything.

Chesington Theme Park