It’s hard to believe that there is a museum devoted to Coca-Cola...but, surprisingly, it’s there - a newer bigger facility for the soft drink.
The grand opening of the museum took place on 24th May, 2007.
The museum is twice the size of its predecessor, near Underground Atlanta and is the city’s latest hope in making Georgia’s capital a tourist destination.
It is named after Coke founder John Pemberton and coke is expecting plenty of visitors. The world of coke is taking advantage of a holiday weekend (Memorial Day) to draw the crowds.
Admission tickets to the World of Coca-Cola ranges from $15 for adults and $9 for children. Tickets give visitors specific times to enter. Visitors will be allowed to spend 90 minutes inside the building.
A complimentary 8-ounce bottle of Coke from bottle works, the attraction’s on-site bottling plant, is also included.
Normal hours of parking will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. June through August and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. Parking at the museum’s 315-space garage is $10.
If you wish to know what happens when money slides in a vending machine for a Coke, you will have to see eight-minute behind-the-scenes documentary on the characters inhabiting those big, bulky drink dispensers. It’s sure that you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder what goes on in vending machines after you go home at night.
There is a 30-foot-tall replica of the company’s famous contour bottle, which hangs above the entrance floor and is lighted at night. It’s suspended in a 90-foot glass cylinder and will have many craning their necks inside and outside of the building.
There is a Pop icon Andy Warhol’s interpretation of Coke. The collection, which includes photos, silk-screen and a 1961 painting on linen, demonstrates the company’s status as pop royalty for the everyday man.
It includes an Academy Award in its Milestones of Refreshment exhibit. The company didn’t really win the prize, but through most of the 1980s, Coke owned Columbia Pictures, which produced Best Picture winner Gandhi.
There is an area where visitors can sample Coke’s many products from around the world. Most talked about is Beverley which is an indescribable beverage from Italy. There are 70 different flavors to try, but according to the Coke Web Site there are a lot more than that.
You can have fun in the 4D Theater and its rollicking ‘Search of the Secret Formula’ show. The seats rock, water sprays and mist fills the room.
Among the new items to see are a 1890s marble-and-onyx Coca-Cola soda fountain recovered from a shop in Toomsboro, Georgia, a 1939 distributor’s truck from Argentina, and the Coca-Cola couch from the popular TV show American Idol.
Source: Gadling
