CHOCOLATE WORLD!! YAY!! We’re off to Cadbury World today…well, me, Mags and the kids are…Jordan is off to do a grooming competition
in Kenilworth…it’s for a good cause an all that jazz, but it’s a good excuse to travel 40 mins out of the way with the kids and visit the real life Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory…I couldn’t bloody wait to have a bunch of Oompa Loompas sing of my misfortune, and lick snozzberries off the walls…which let me tell you, is frowned upon in Cadbury World…don’t ask how I know.
So, the usual military precision for leaving the house…right, we need to leave by 8am at the latest…7:50am and everyone but myself are desperately clinging to the last moments of sleep…”I haven’t slept all night”…funny that Jo, could swear I heard you snoring when I got up at 6am…between being woken up by her snores and sleep farts, you could be mistaken for thinking that I was indeed the one who did not sleep much…but hey, sleep is for the weak…Alexa, announce ‘get the hell out of bed you lazy buggers!!’…something worked, we left 20 minutes later…cheers Alexa.
Right…diesel, air for tyres…ah we’re running late…’ok so we’re gonna kick mammy out the car quickly when we get there and then go to Cadbury world’….’YEEEAAAAAAAAH!!!’…bloody hell Alaska, your love for mammy disappears fast when there’s chocolate involved…sorry Jo, off you go…best of luck.
Phwew, only a few minutes late…check in to the factory tour nice and quickly…oh and here’s your complimentary mountain of chocolate…oh, cool thanks…one bag please…the bags marked ‘swag’ were sold out by the looks…’just a regular purple Cadbury bag to carry the chocolates then please’
Little trip back to the South/Central America where Cadburys put a fun little spin on the history of Cortes murdering the Aztec people and unleashing Smallpox on them to maintain the monopoly on chocolate…hmmm, thanks for the history lesson Cadbury…not sure of the message your sending kids…murder is cool, as long as it’s for chocolate…please don’t tell Jordan.
Enjoyed the little shows on the way round, little theatre history of Cadbury…Gray was raging not to be at the front in the first show, so made sure he legged it past everyone else for front row seats to the second…this time, the seats were moving…thought poor mags was gonna be flung into oblivion, glancing to my left and seeing grandma clinging for dear life whilst pissing herself laughing was fun.
Ahh up the stairs then, wonder what’s up here? Oooo a ride at the exit, rad…’excuse me, is this lady with you?’…ah bloody hell mags, what have you done now? I told you, this isn’t Willy Wonkas factory, you can’t randomly start licking the walls and biting the hand rails, they’re not edible!!!…’ummm, yes?’…to be fair, she hadn’t done anything wrong…this time, and one of the guys working there had kindly told us we could cut the line for the ride on the way back to stop her standing so long…ahhh nice one bud…’shall I just leave her here then?’…’haha, no there’s loads to do before the ride’…don’t know what he was laughing for, I was struggling to stave mags off playing a game of ‘which parts of the factory are edible’, and quite fancied the break…come on then, let’s go see what’s ahead.
Ooo, ok this is cool…the part of the tour you get to mess around with chocolate…chocolate doodling in one section, and tempering on the other…right, roll up your sleeves little Loo, this gonna get messy!!
“This chocolate is recycled, please don’t eat it”…Augustus Loo-p, I’m looking at you…kids…DONT EAT THE CHOCOLATE HERE!…ok dad…recycled chocolate? Mental...hope they don’t recycle them to make teapots, I hear they’re useless…
Chocolate doodle time first…literally, squeeze bottles of chocolate…marble surfaces, and artists…what could go wrong? “Right, I’m gonna do a smiley face, but of a circle….ah ha…Dad, look at my masterpiece!!”…it’s not quite Da Vinci Gray, but its great for a 5 years olds chocolate art…well done buddy…ooo, what have you made Alaska? Oh nice, looks like like Dobby poo…very abstract, well done babe…
Next section, quick dollop of chocolate each…DONT EAT IT!!, and some palate knives…another masterpiece from Grayson, and some more abstract art from the chocolate ninja Alaska…Bruce Cadbury - Enter the Factory!! She looked wicked with her dual palate knives to be fair, I didn’t want to mess with her.
Continuing the tour…Green Screen photo time…ooo what pose shall we do then gang? “Surfie the Dairy”…what did he say?…’we’ll surf a dairy milk bar please’…ahhh ok…yep, a completely normal thing to do on a Sunday I guess…could you point me in the direction of the chocolate river please?…not that sort of Factory I guess…don’t raise your expectations too high people…lesson learned.
Quick bypass past the face painting booth…they didn’t notice…phwew, and we’re off to the ride…Grams, he said we could cut the queue if you don’t want to stand…’no I’m fine’…off to find a seat whilst me and the kids queue…thanks for that grams…oh and thanks Cadbury World for putting an ice cream stand half way through the ride queue, you swear Grayson didn’t have a bag full of free chocolate in his hand the way he was nagging for a chocolate ice cream…just have some Cadburys Caramel and Wispas and stop nagging….FINE!!!…poor deprived Grayson.
Speaking of said giant bag of chocolate…Alaska had become worried that we may be tempted to so much as look at the chocolate and so insisted on carrying chocolate bag incase we stole it…it’s ok Alaska, I’m watching my weight, the chocolate is all yours.
Finally, at the front of the line…’oh Dean, I can’t go on the ride, it’s says if you have heart problems and high blood pressure you may not be able to’…Mags, it’s a bloody slow car ride, not Velocicoaster….get your ass on here!!!…pretty cool little ride to be fair, like ‘it’s a small world’ with cocoa beans and a better sound track….and it only went upside down once…after a quick defib, Mags was fine though…”where the hell was the fast moving car or sudden stops”…I don’t know Grams, I think they just have to say that incase…and she lives to fight another day…yay!!
Chocolate tasting…oooo, little Loo’s eyes lit up…little tubs of melted chocolate with a choice of toppings…very nice, chocolate with chocolate and chocolate for you is it Gray? Cool, enjoy guys…they were loving this tour…who wouldn’t?
Right, pick up our green screen and bean ride picks…looking good guys…’now off you go down there now, see if you can see anything special’…”oh, don’t worry, I’ll see everything, I got special eyes!!”…strange brag there Grayson, but ok, let’s see what your special eyes can spot…pretty cool end to the tour, basically a trip through ‘streets’ that took you through the Cadbury adverts through the years…the crunchie rollercoaster, roses ads, and THE DRUMMING GORILLA!!!!
Phil Collins ‘In the air tonight’ plays across the speaker…the room lights up…and then the Gorilla…awesome…how they manage to get a Gorilla to perform every 10 mins with such precision is beyond me…Wonka, keep your Oompa Loompas, Cadbury World has a drumming Gorilla!!!
Cool little game room for the conclusion…few virtual games where the kids grown chocolate and subsequently stomp chocolate…they wouldn’t bloody leave…and the beauty of having 2 independent children that love to play…when I managed to coerce one away from the games, the other would refuse to leave…I thought I was going to be stuck there forever…an endless nightmare of growing and stomping virtual chocolate…
Thankfully, the allure of the gift shop made Grayson see sense…of course the tour finishes at the gift shop…was a good shop to be fair…chocolate was crazy cheap, and some cool merch…the kids got a few mascot plush toys…drumming Gorilla and Freddo for Gray, and Caramel Bunny for Alaska…could have bought so much more…I’m suck a sucker for merch mun…and I wonder where all my money goes…ahh well…YOLO!! (Do the kids still say that??!)
Quick bit of food and we were refuelled…there’s more to explore out the back…play area and a 4D cinema…this should be fun…thankfully Grandma heeded the warnings this time and didn’t come on with us…but the cinema was brilliant…reminded me of minion mayhem from Universal Studios spliced with the 4D cinema ride from Bean the movie…’Brace yourself!’…chairs were flinging around like mad, luckily Alaska was on my lap or she’d have been a victim of the crunchie coaster…great fun!!!…even if Alaska did panic at the first 3D effect coming toward her.
Getting late, we need to make a move to collect Jordan…go on, quick go on the play area…just one go round though…’ok Dad’…yeah right…after finally getting Grayson to go down the tunnel slide, Grays new found chocolate salted balls drove him to a desperate need to do it again…had to literally try drag him away from climbing back to do it again…as you can imagine, I’m the parent, and I had to be listened to…just after he’d done it one more time…yep, lost that battle.
Anyways, finally heard from Jordan…she’d done well, the dog she’d groomed looked great, but unfortunately she didn’t place…too bad hun, it’s the taking part that counts (I know, loser talk right?…it’s for charity mun!)…I’ll be there in half hour babes…
Everyone in the car, off to pick up Long John Jordan…Jo had consoled herself with some lovely new earrings that I thought looked like the the cursed coins from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie…so of course I told her how lovely I thought they were…because I’m a lovely husband…nope, like the dick I am, I made pirate jokes all the way home…arrrrgggh!!
BTW, Jordan…I do actually like them, and think you look lovely with them :)…no idea why pirates sprung to my mind, but once the seed is planted…I can’t resist.
3 hour journey, quick pit stop for dinner and back home…feet up, chill…great day!!!
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