On July 14, 2009, one of the things we did in Atlanta was go to the World of Coca Cola. The World of Coca Cola experience began with a movie that included queuing up in a lobby decorated with a bunch of Coca Cola memorabilia. The movie was kind of silly and not that interesting in my opinion. It had great graphics and unique fantasy characters that work inside a vending machine, but it is just kind of makes what could have been fine statements from workers at the company into something kind of stupid with rather odd animated characters.
After the movie we went through the exhibit that shows Coca Cola being bottled. This is pretty interesting, especially since this is the mini bottling plant that produces the bottles given out at the end of the World of Coca Cola and I also believe the ones in the shop. It was also interesting to see all the special Coca Cola bottles related to Atlanta that they had in a window near the end of the exhibit.
The next exhibit we saw was called Milestones of Refreshment. This exhibit starts with a recreation of an old fashioned soda fountain. The exhibit tells the history of the Coca Cola Company from the inventor Pembleton to him selling the secret recipe and it becoming a massively advertised product that led to it being the most recognized brand in the world. There is a lot of items on display as part of telling the company’s history. This includes various coca cola bottle designs, Olympic Coca Cola pins, Olympic torches from the 1996 to 2008 games, a truck used to distribute Coca Cola in Argentina, and a display of all the current Coca Cola Company brand products. There were even some baseball related items such as ads featuring ballplayers and a special edition Boston Red Sox World Series 2007 can.
Next we went up to the second floor. The first thing we did here was see the 4D movie called In Search of the Secret Formula. It is just a stupid sappy movie about what the secret ingredient is in Coca Cola and has rather incoherent dialogue. Not to mention it was not even 4D because the handicap row has the non moving seats. Not that I would want the stupid whiplash seats that were jerking all over the place in front of us and half of the time the movement did not really correlate to what was going on in the movie. The 3D was there, but really you got to go beyond the wow factor of 3D and 4D and have an actual plot to a movie even if it is just a short one.
After the movie we went through the Pop Culture Gallery. This exhibit had some interesting art including a Mona Lisa with a Coca Cola bottle. There were also things made out of the aluminum from Coca Cola cans, such as a ship with sails. One of the walls was covered with Coca Cola Santa paintings. The other cool thing was a Coca Cola living room design with a big red couch and a bunch of Coca Cola collectibles on display.
The next thing we saw was the Perfect Pauses Theater. This was actually a theater that played things worth seeing and not crappy trying to show off great animation or 3D/4D effects. This theater plays different Coca Cola ads from over the years including international ones, which are sometimes quite odd seeming, but are an interesting look into how advertising to different cultures works.
The final part of the World of Coca Cola is the Taste It! part where you can taste test a variety of Coca Cola products from around the world. Mik actually put his PSP away for this part and enjoyed going through and tasting different things, although he did not find anything new that he liked. He did enjoy getting some Classic Coca Cola, though. There were some other good ones in my opinion, though, such as Smart Watermelon from China and Inca Cola from Peru.
As we left the taste testing room for the gift shop we each got a free Coca Cola bottled at the World of Coca Cola. Of course, we got some souvenirs at the shop, but that is for another post.
