The weather is turning cold but for our family, Turkey Hill ice cream is a year round treat! It is one of our favorite brands of ice cream so when we were heading to Pennsylvania for the night we decided to check out Turkey Hill Experience in Columbia. Jersey Family Fun has visited before but my family hadn’t, so you’ll see Turkey Hill Experience photos from their visits and ours. It was cold that day but once we got inside we definitely were in the mood for ice cream!
What I thought might be a simple tour about the history of ice cream with a brief experiment into making ice cream, turned out to be so much more. I could not believe how much there was to do and how much ice cream we were able to sample at the Turkey Hill Experience.
About The Turkey Hill Experience
The Turkey Hill Experience takes up two floors in a converted silk mill right off Route 30. The Turkey Hill ice cream isn’t made there but you sure can eat it while you learn about the process of ice cream production. Our whole family stopped by just after lunch on a weekday and it was busy with ice cream lovers. We had reservations for a 1:45 pm Turkey Hill ice cream making session and started off touring the exhibits about an hour before.
In full disclosure, we were given admission to learn about Turkey Hill ice cream at the Turkey Hill Experience to make this Turkey Hill Experience review possible. We appreciate their support of Jersey Family Fun and our efforts to tell our readers about things to do in Pennsylvania. As always all opinions are our own.
Things to do at the Turkey Hill Experience
Follow the map to get the most out of your Turkey Hill Experience. The stops along the way are so ‘cool’ and ‘sweet’.
Make sure you stop to admire the uniquely-decorated cow at the start of your experience and get some photos.
Turkey Hill Experience Activities included with admission
Learn about the ice cream making process
Turkey Hill ice cream is made from milk from Lancaster County cows, and that’s where the Turkey Hill Experience begins. Meet the Frey family who started the Turkey Hill Dairy and then milk one of the mechanical cows. Ice cream might be yummy, but it can be hard work!
The Experience does a great job of educating visitors about all the technical processes that go into those cartons without being boring. There’s even a movie about how ice cream is made.
Visitors will also learn about the history of the Susquehanna River Valley and how ice cream got started in this area.
Learn about the role of the milkman
Go back in time with stories from milk delivery men.
Pretend to drive the milk delivery truck.
Count the cows
Expect to see cow pictures, sculptures, and more throughout your tour of the Turkey Hill Experience. Count with the kids how many cows you all see.
Battle the Bacteria
Bacteria plays an important role in the formation of ice cream and the Turkey Hill Experience does a wonderful job engaging kids in learning all about it. Big words like pasteurization and homogenization are explained in fun ways with video games and displays.
- Examine what bacteria looks like.
- Battle against the bad bacteria and help the good bacteria milk needs thrive.
Emboss and sniff
It’s better than scratch and sniff! Emboss and sniff the different scents and flavors that go into ice cream onto a card so you can bring those scents home with you.
Design your own ice cream flavors
The creative aspect of Turkey Hill ice cream making is available to you too! With virtual ice cream making you create your own flavor (chocolate-covered grasshoppers anyone?), measure out the ingredients, design an ice cream carton label, and even make a commercial. There’s a lot to consider so this can take a while when you have artistic kids like I do!
This isn’t connected to your Taste Lab experience though, so don’t worry about tasting those creations. Make them crazy! You can access them from home through the Turkey Hill Experience website.
Turkey Hill Experience Playground
For the little ones who need to get energy out, Turkey Hill has a great ball pit and slides. There’s some seating throughout the displays but tables are available in the Turkey Hill ice cream sampling area.
- Jump into the homogenization ball pit (for younger kids).
- Push the mixer in the mix tank and slide down the slide.
Taste the Turkey Hill Ice Cream
Did we mention samples are unlimited? But don’t fill up because you’re going to want to eat all you get at Taste Lab!
Say Cheese for the Photo Ops
We hadn’t finished all of the second floor, before our visit to the Turkey Hill Ice Cream Taste Lab so we went back after the Taste Lab to explore some more. One great feature of Turkey Hill Experience is the photo ops everywhere!
Turkey Hill Experience Activities NOT included with admission
The Turkey Hill Ice Cream Taste Lab
The Turkey Hill Ice Cream Taste Lab is available by reservation (walk in is first come first serve but we recommend reservations as it was really busy when we visited) for an extra fee. You’re definitely going to want to do this!
When you check in you’ll get a ticket to show at the Taste Lab at your assigned time. We had a great instructor, Jean, who led our large group on our journey of mixing our own Turkey Hill ice cream flavors.
Each participant starts with a pint of vanilla ice cream and a spatula, and we all ended up with our own unique creations! With extracts and swirls in front of us and inclusions (add ins) lining the walls around us it was an ice cream lovers dream.
We enjoyed our blends even the mint/strawberry/marshmallow blend (well one of us did). You can take the ice cream out of the Taste Lab but it won’t stay frozen so plan to eat it all – or as much as you can.
Sip the Turkey Hill Tea during the Tea Discovery
Don’t forget that Turkey Hill makes delicious iced teas as well. Walk inside a giant tea bottle to taste a variety of Turkey Hill teas and learn about how it’s made as well. This additional $5, 30-minute experience, includes activities like
- Smelling the different tea aromas.
- Watching how Turkey Hill started making teas.
- Discovering your tea personality.
During our 2017 visit, this activity was included in admission. It is now an additional fee. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the Turkey Hill Experience.
After just over 3 hours we were ready to travel to our next stop but we had a lot of fun at Turkey Hill Experience! Any day with a pint of custom made ice cream is a GOOD day!
Here’s what else you should know about visiting the Turkey Hill Experience
- General admission is $12.50 for ages 3-12 and 62 and older and $13.50 for ages 13 to 61 years old. The Taste Lab is about $9 more for all ages. The Tea Discovery activity is another $5.
- Admission is free for children 2 and under.
- Parking is free.
- On your ticket is a CYO code, that will link your virtual creations together so that you can work on your virtual ice cream product and email yourself your work. Each CYO can only be linked to one ice cream creation and one email address. If you are going as a family of 4 and everyone wants to create a flavor, you will need 4 email addresses.
- Parking is free, at peak times off site parking is available with a free shuttle.
- The lab is not allergen free. There are tree and ground nuts.
- Allow for 1-2 hours for your visit. We went through most areas fairly quickly (the nature of boys) and still spent about 2.5-3 hours at Turkey Hill Experience during our visit.
- The Turkey Hill Experience is located at 301 Linden Street in Columbia, Pennsylvania not far from Lancaster. To learn more visit their website.
Things to do Near the Turkey Hill Experience
The Turkey Hill Experience is about a forty minute drive from Hershey through some vast expanses of farmland that boasts corn as far as the eye can see.
The experience at this attraction, near Hershey Park, was great and it’s a great way to break up what might be a long drive from New Jersey or elsewhere.
For more photos of our visit to the Turkey Hill Experience visit our Facebook Albums.