Visit to Cadbury World - event day feedback thread

[KatieBMumsnet]

This thread is for the 7 Mumsnetters who attended the Cadbury World event day with their family. Many thanks for going along - we hope you and your DCs had an EGG-xtra special day

For those of you who didn't see the recruitment thread, Cadbury invited 7 Mumsnetters and their DCs to an exclusive Easter theme day at Cadbury World. Mumsnetters also recorded video footage of their day, which will soon be on Cadbury's pages on Mumsnet so do keep a look out for that!

This feedback thread is for those Mumsnetters who attended to post their views on how they found the day. We'd also love to know what your DCs and other family members thought too.

Below are a few questions for you to answer but please also feel free to add any other comments you may have.

Everyone who adds their feedback to this thread and uploads their video by Monday 18th Feb will receive a £20 John Lewis voucher as a thank you.

• Overall, what did you and your family think of the Cadbury World event day?
• What was the highlight of your day? And the highlight of your DCs day?
• What did you and your DCs think of the new Egg n Spoon kids' Easter treat? Would you consider buying this for your DCs as a treat in the future or not?
• Did you learn anything about chocolate that you didn't know before? What about your DCs, did they learn anything new at all?
• If it came up in conversation, would you recommend Cadbury World as a family day out to your friends or family? If so why, if not why not?

Thanks,

MNHQ

I have two very excited children tonight :-) Looking forwards to it!

I have two very excited children tonight :-) looking forwards to it!

same here FP. DS is in bed already in preparation for an exciting day ahead!

Hi
looking forward to meeting everyone day
Both DC's beside themselves- they can't believe they are going to a chocolate event- child heaven
See you all in couple of hours and a 100 odd miles.

Hello all, we are home and have had a fantastic day, will answer all the questions soon.

Well we are relaxing with our choccy stash and just wanted to thank Jennnifer and Cadbury for a super day.

Mine and DSs highlight was definitely the 'Captain' he was wonderful! My DD liked the Magic Show the best (but if she had not been chosen to help it would have been the demonstration room) We liked watching how the chocolates were made and filled.

I loved the Egg n Spoon chocolate, sadly the DCs were not so keen. They would prefer a chocolate bar or a solid egg.

Therefore I probably would not buy them again - unless for myself and DH. I tried the milky one and it was delicious.

One comment about the packaging is that I was surprised there are only 2 spoons for the 4 eggs and the purple box has no labelling at all. We did not keep the outer sleeve after opening (at CW) and now have no description about the product.

There was so much new information on Cadbury that we didn't know before. I found the workers benefits very interesting and quite remarkable for such a long time ago.

Yes we would definitely recommend CW for a great day out. I also did not realise how much there is to do there, we had a fun filled day.

Did anyone go on the ride? We skipped that because there was so much else to see and time was limited. Was it good?

Thank you for a fantastic day!

We enjoyed every bit of the day from the meet and greet with the captain thru to the egg and spoon race.

Our highlight was the captain. He was so funny and his sense of humour appealed to us all. I found the history of the Cadbury family interesting and what we learned fitted in perfectly with dd1s half term homework which is to design a poster telling people about a famous Victorian. Guess who she is going to do after today's trip?

I found the ride (and the 50 min queue) a bit of an anti climax, but my dds said they thought it was good. But, that was the only week spot in my opinion.

Neither the dds or me have had our eggs. Even though I only had one chocolate bar and the warm chocolate from the chocolate tasting area I feel so full of chocolate. Perhaps it was from the smells! However, dh has kindly tested one on our behalf and really enjoyed it. He said it felt really light and not too bloating. He liked the portion size and said he would buy it again, but not in a four pack format as he would probably just eat them all!! He would prefer to but them individually. Is that an option?

Yes, I would recommend Cadburys World as a day out. I would suggest to anyone who goes to leave time to explore Bourneville as well. We didn't, but from what I've read since, I'm disappointed that I didn't.

Once again, thank you!

hello!!! My turn to report back. We too had a fab day out and all really enjoyed ourselves. For me the highlight was finding out about the history of the Cadbury family and I thought this was presented in a varied & interesting way. For DS the highlight was the 4D cinema bit although personally I think a bit more could have been done with the 4D. I wonder if a bit more detail could be given about some of the activities beforehand - for example the 'Cadabra' ride had a huge queue and would have been great for little ones but DS(7) and me & DH found it a bit childish. We spent so long in the queue we didn't have time to do the tasting and actually if we had know what the ride was we wouldn't have bothered. That ride is more for 6 and under, I think!!

We all loved the Captain, he was brilliant, and fully expect to see him on the stand up comedy circuit in the near future!

DS loved his egg & spoon, loved the packaging & the spoon, DH wasn't keen - said it was sickly. I might buy it for DS as a treat but wouldn't want to buy a pack of 4 for him. I think it is always going to be hard to beat the original Creme egg.

The children's entertainer Stu-di-doo was quite good and the kids all seemed to enjoy his bit.

DS also enjoyed the Adventure playground and we really liked the whole Bourneville village. It would be good to go on a sunny day and spend longer relaxing around the cricket pitch etc.

It was lovely to be able to put a face to someone from Mumsnet - Jennifer and Mark looked after us all really well. Thank you for a fab day out!!

Another thought of mine was that I adored the smell. It hit you immediately as we got out of the car.

Wondered what the ride was like, the queue was horrendous ....

Has anyone else uploaded their videos - warning it takes a-g-e-s

We all had a really great day today and are very thankful and grateful to MN and Cadbury for the treat.
My children really liked Captain Spoon - he was a surprise to us all actually. My first impressions were "oh no, here we go, another slighty twatty kids entertainer" but in fact he turned out to be rather witty and likeable. I do think though, that if he is a permanent fixture at Cadbury World, they really ought to sort him out a decent costume rather than the crappy, ill-fitting, cheapo get-up he was in!
We were all quite taken with the projected displays in Bull Street / Cadbury story - they were really effective and interesting.
The children also enjoyed the interactive areas - was it called the purple planet? They were fun.
DP and I had a bit of a trip down memory lane with the old tv adverts and especially liked seeing the gorilla.
The whole story of the quacker Cadbury family was quite inspirational I thought. Shame those sorts of social values are often lost in enterprise these days.

With regard to learning new stuff about chocolate; I think we rushed through the first sections of the info here - the Aztecs etc but did find the bit about Tudor times really interesting. DD is studying the Tudors at school this year so that tied in well.
I think I was the only one who tried the egg n spoon thing. DD said there were two types - a choc one and a creamier one. Think we had the creamy one. It was very nice - much lighter than a creme egg I thought, which can be a dangerous thing when they come in boxes of four!!!
If it came up in conversation, I think I would definitely recommend the place - although I must admit I have I would be put off by the price - £46 for a family of four is quite a lot of money IMO.

I would have liked to looked around Bourneville itself as, on the drive in, it looked beautiful and DP's work is all historic buildings so wish we'd had more time for that.

There was one little negative for us. The cadabra (I thought it was cadaver at first) ride was pretty pants. Actually it was worse than that. Luckily, as we had been in the queue and left it at Marks suggestion, he arranged for us to queue jump right to the front later so we didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes. But if we'd been there like everyone else, we'd have had a long wait for a really crappy waste of time.
It was also very busy, we thought. One chap working there said they would get 3600 visitors a day over busy periods like half term hols so be prepared for that.
Could I say on behalf of myself and my family a big thank you to Jennifer, Mark and the staff at Cadbury World for giving us such a lovely day. I've had a pretty crappy week this week so it really helped to take my mind off reality!We now also have a MASSIVE stockpile of chocolate. DD and DS are delighted!!!
(ps I tried really hard with the videos and apologise if they are a bit cac.)

Yes the smell was devine
The only other little disappointment for us was that the factory part of the tour was a little underwhelming. We we hoping to see millions of choc bars being wrapped and sent whizzing round on conveyor belt and stuff but all we saw were empty rooms bar a couple of chubby chaps having a chat.
Think we've seen Will Wonka too many times!

We had a really great day at Cadbury World. Thank you to Jennifer Mumsnet and Mark from Cadbury for organising everything and making sure everything ran smoothly and none of the group got lost! You did a great job and we're very grateful.

The biggest hit of the day for us was the Captain. What a bloke! I inwardly cringed when I realised there was an entertainer in the room, but soon realised he was something quite different to the usual kids' comedy turn. My children were absolutely spellbound by him, and I was very impressed with his ability to entertain everyone from the young children to the grandparents. He was very, very good.

We all enjoyed the tour. I learnt some chocolate facts, the children were interested in the sections about how the Cadbury family looked after their workers, and we all liked the film where the seats shook etc. I loved seeing all of the old advertising material and packaging that I'd forgotten about, and the children liked seeing how their favourites used to look. The disappointing part of the tour for all of us was the factory section. We expected to see huge vats of molten chocolate being stirred, lots of people working and exciting things. We saw a few glimpses of crates being loaded with boxes .

We also didn't think the Cadabra ride was worth the waiting time. It was very short and uninspired, just a series of animated scenes with chocolate drop characters in. It seemed like an elaborate way to capture a souvenir photo opportunity for every visitor.

The family magic show in the marquee was good fun for the children and held their attention well, and they loved the outdoor play area.

The Egg n Spoon was a mixed bag for us. One DC loved it and scoffed it in moments, the other loved the outer shell but didn't like the mousse filling. I too found the filling very sweet and sickly. However, I liked the novelty value of them. I wouldn't buy them again I don't think, simply because I prefer the taste of other novelties. They would make a good Easter gift though, being something different to the usual Easter eggs.

I'm not sure I would recommend Cadbury World to friends, knowing the entry fee and taking into consideration that not all visitors benefit from the Captain's company (I think, not sure if he spends time with all visitors or was there especially for the Mumsnet group). We had a really great afternoon, but I might not have been so happy coming away if we'd have paid £40+ and not received all of the 'extras' our group was so lucky to receive. I am SURE my DC will be recommending it to everyone at school though!

Thanks again to everyone. It was such good fun, and we came away with some wonderful memories of the day (and enough chocolate to last us a week lifetime)

quick question about uploading the vids? Mine just says 'awaiting feedback' - does that mean they've been uploaded do you think?

I'm not part of this, but chocolate if it's the same smart phone app I've used for MN things, Field Notes? Then, yes, that means it's been uploaded.

thanks Tee - yes it is Field Notes. That's good to know!

darn, wrote a long post and lost it! OK, will do again later today, as just off to a party.

But a huge thank you to CAdbury for the day - we felt like real VIPs

chocolateshoes - mine is saying the same thing & I can see all the videos in there, so think/hope it's ok!

we used ot go and ask for a Mars bar in the shop

went down a STORM

hahah Belinda!!! DS was saying his fav choc bar was an Earo earlier on yesterday morning - had to stop that before we got there!

FP - glad someone else has the same thing on field Notes. Hopefully someone will let us know if it hasn't worked.

Yes my field notes is the same. Cannot wait to see the footage

I'm glad I checked here as I wasn't sure at all if I'd uploaded vids correctly. I'm afraid DS is probably picking his nose in half of them

I'm worried my footage is all rubbish! I really did try. I hope someone got some good footage of the Cap'n, I need a fix