As a blogger, I may be compensated in some way (either pay, product, or experience) for sharing the post below All opinions are my own. ~Heidi
I have a running list of field trip destinations that I want to take the kids to visit. The Turkey Hill Experience has been on that list for several years now. A fellow #DisneySMMoms #Philly attendee – Christina from Mom’s Messy Miracles – had a contest on her blog a few months ago, giving away a family four-pack of tickets. I was lucky enough to win!
These days, with my kids getting older and having schedules of their own, it’s getting more difficult to find a day when we all have nothing on the calendar and can go on a field trip. Finally, this past Friday was the day! We arrived in Columbia, PA mid-morning and were excited to check out the Turkey Hill Experience. We checked in at the registration desk, picked up our tickets, and set out exploring the facility.
We enjoyed learning the history of Turkey Hill. Ian got to milk a “cow,” we sat in a real milk truck, and we learned about how milk used to be delivered door-to-door in the past.
Next, we each got to try a sample of Turkey Hill ice cream. They had a variety of flavors to choose from. I went with Mint Chocolate Chip. Everyone seemed to enjoy their flavor choice.
We watched a short movie, telling us about some of the cool things we’d be able to do with our ticket, then we went and sampled some iced tea. Turkey Hill makes a TON of different tea varieties – some of which I’d never seen in stores – so it was fun to sample them. Ian even took a quiz, which told him that his PersonaliTEA was Raspberry Tea. He’s never had any interest in tea before, but he tried it and said he really did like it.
Next, we had fun going through the rest of the exhibits and learning – hands-on – how ice cream ice made.
One of the fun things you can do is create-your-own ice cream flavor. Once you’ve done that, you can then create-your-own label for your ice cream. This is done on large touchscreens. You add your e-mail and your creations are waiting for you to see and share once you get home. Here are mine:
There are employees floating around throughout the exhibits to lend a helping hand and answer any questions that guests may have. We had fun interacting with some of them. They were all very friendly and helpful.
My favorite part of our day was taking part in the Taste Lab. This is a new experience for 2014 where you go into a room and each person is given a pint of “white base” ice cream. Then, you are prompted to add flavoring (I chose coffee), mix-ins (I went with almonds and chocolate-covered espresso beans), and a ribbon (I chose caramel). Once your ice cream is mixed, they put it in a hardener (since all your stirring softens it up a good bit). They share more information about Turkey Hill and ice cream in general. At the end, you are given your bowl of ice cream to take with you and enjoy. Mine was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself! (I may or may have not been flying high the rest of the afternoon!)
We took our ice cream to a table downstairs, outside the gift shop, and enjoyed it. Afterwards,we browsed the shop. I bought us each a pin for our pin boards. And, I couldn’t resist buying myself this t-shirt:
I rarely buy myself a souvenir, but this shirt’s message was so “me” that I couldn’t pass it up! (And I should mention here that we were VERY impressed with the gift shop’s prices – they were VERY reasonable. My t-shirt was only $9.95. Ashley got a hoodie for $21.95.)
We all commented how much we enjoyed this field trip. I’ve been recommending it to anyone who asks. I’m sure we’ll visit again someday. If you’d like to visit, head over to The Turkey Hill Experience now and start planning your trip.
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