Naturally, it was ready when a large development project was started in downtown Atlanta. Thus, "The World of Coca-Cola" was created.
Our visit started with something of a thud. We were receiving the welcome lecture that comes at the very beginning of the facility when the fire alarms went off. In other words, everybody out. OK, we all went outside and waited something like 20 minutes for the all-clear to be heard. Then we went back in, we were told to walk back the end of the orientation speech (probably no loss) and skip the six-minute movie that supposedly is an introduction to the place. Even if it uses animated characters, that might have been nice to see.
There are a few different sections to the place, including the story of the secret formula. There are plenty of artifacts about, and another area has exhibits connected to the beverage's secret formula. The massive safe at the end of that section is a little hokey. If you want to see some old dispensers and machines, this is the place.
Upstairs, a movie theater awaits visits, with the Coke Polar Bear posing for photos (at a cost). We skipped the film and headed straight into the tasting station that features soft drinks from all over the world (made by Coca-Cola of course). Can't say I've ever had a soft drink made for consumers in Peru before. Oh, right, the floor was as sticky as you might think it would be. An area designed to show the bottling process was under construction during our visit, sadly.
Lastly, a gift shop awaits. It's huge, and has every imaginable product with a Coca-Cola logo available for sale. The lines were really, really long.
During our visit, the place had a lot of children on school tours. Let's see - bunches of kids with unlimited access to caffeinated products. What can go wrong? OK, it's rather noisy in there.
This all comes off as an advertisement for Coca-Cola, and little else. The artifacts scattered throughout the building are fine to see. It's all fine for me. Honestly, though, it's hard to believe it has a great deal of educational value for the school kids, who certainly are partly responsible for the seven-figure attendance number it draws yearly.
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