First: The new building looks great!
It shares a plaza with the Georgia Aquarium, and when purchasing tickets, you have the option to bundle with the Georgia Aquarium and/or an Atlanta Braves game.
General Admission is $16 for adults, $12 for children (ages 3-12), $14 for seniors (ages 65+).
Parking was $10. The parking garage is convenient to both the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca Cola.
The entry lobby has Coca Cola bottles decorated to represent countries from all over the world which were used during the 1996 Summer Olympics held in Atlanta. They have a photographer stationed in front of the bottles for the first photo op of the tour (they scan a card so you can view and purchase your photo later).
The lobby also has a wall of flat-screen televisions displaying different Coke products. I had to get a picture of Max with his favorite, Diet Coke.
The lobby is a holding room for the first part of the tour - a film about Coca Cola.
Next we went into another holding room - this one with an overly jolly tour guide who gave us a very enthusiastic history lesson on "COOCAAA COOLLLAAA" while we waited for the film.
The room had a lot of vintage signs, lights, paintings, and other collectible Coca Cola advertisements from decades past.
Finally, we could see the film! It had the characters that were created for the 2007 "Happiness Factory" super bowl commercial which they showed us while we were in the second holding room with the tour guide.
Here's the commercial, if you haven't seen it before (love the song, by the way... remember my post on Wave Your Flag?) -
The film is called "The Great Happyfication," and is about finding happiness in your life. It's got a good message, but in all honesty, I found the characters rather unattractive in a not-so-adorable way. And the characters with the lips freak me out.
If you can't wait until you visit The World of Coca Cola to watch it, I've also embedded it below -
After the film, the remainder of the tour was self-guided. There are different rooms where you can discover things about Coca Cola at your own leisure.
We were greeted by this not-so-lovely giant cheerleader upon exiting the film...
Max and I decided to bypass the line to have our picture taken with her and instead head to the bottling factory. It was a good thing, too, because we got to watch the last bottles of the day get filled.
Next, we moved on to....
The Vault - where Coca Cola's top secret formula is kept!
There are some neat interactive elements in here... you can try your hand at recreating the Coca Cola recipe by adjusting wheels to "Spicy/Smooth/Crisp/Sweet/etc."
That's us on the screen -
We were then led to a secret room with.... The Vault! While I seriously doubt that there is a recipe hidden in there, an alarm did sound when Max propped up on the railing to get his picture taken, having forgotten the "No Touching" rule.
Next, we we wandered into a room set up like an old soda shop.
After taking a look around inside, we looked downstairs... THE POLAR BEAR WAS THERE!!! I insisted that we get our picture.
Then we headed upstairs.
Max was thirsty and headed straight to the taste lab.
This is the one thing about the new World of Coca Museum that I didn't like as much as the original (note, I visited the original over ten years ago, but I had a vivid memory of the Coke Around the World room because it's the one thing I enjoyed about the museum as a child). In the old museum, they had a giant fountain which actually squirted a stream of soda from the center of the room into your cup. It was really cool. This room, however, was set up more like Club Cool in Epcot.
We left the taste room back into the museum (it's also the exit) to see the 4D show. I won't spoil this for you with a video, though it is out there if you want to see it beforehand. It's another somewhat corny video about Coca Cola creating happiness.
We then ventured into a room with more Coca Cola art and artifacts.
There was a digital design center where you could create your own Coca Cola artwork and email it to a friend or to yourself.
Next was a station where you could write your own Coke story. The keyboards, however, were very difficult to type on. I submitted a Diet Coke love story about Max and me (we both drink Diet Coke religiously - how weird is that?).... you'll probably see us on advertisements in the future - haha!
We looked downstairs and... THE POLAR BEAR!!!
I insisted to Max that we needed to get another picture just because we could.
In the meantime, I took some more artwork photos.
And the ceiling. I'm an architect student, remember?
The polar bear is rather lifelike. He blinks and opens his mouth. Pretty cool technology!
We went back upstairs to do some final exploring before heading out.
But before leaving, we had to drink more Coke!
While there are Coke products from around the world to try, there is also a safe corner with popular North American products.
Max playing it safe.
Yeah, you got caught, buddy!
I guess he was having Diet Coke withdrawals.
Upon exiting, we were given a classic bottle of Coca Cola.
And dumped into a gift shop, Disney World style.
The merchandise was really cool, though.
The World of Coca Cola Museum takes around 2-3 hours to tour. We visited on a Tuesday evening (entered around 4:00) in late June and didn't encounter many crowds. Combined with a visit to Georgia Aquarium would make for a great Atlanta day trip. Add a Braves game and tour of the CNN Center for a fun-filled Atlanta weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment