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I'm Danielle! Play Henderson is a resource for anyone who parents, nannies, or hangs out with kids. My two boys and I do as much adventuring as possible and we share about it here. I write reviews of parks, pools, classes, events, etc. and give you what you need to know to make the most of living in Henderson, NV.

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Anderson Dairy Tour

OVERVIEW

Anderson Dairy gives free tours of the dairy to kids with free ice cream at the end!

COST

Free

LOCATION

Anderson Dairy

801 Searles Ave

Las Vegas, NV 89101

Near Cashman Field

Just off Las Vegas Blvd, north of the 95

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Anderson Dairy has been in Las Vegas since 1907. Today there are no cows or other animals there, the family-owned dairy receives the milk from the cows in Utah and then processes milk, butter, ice cream, and other dairy products.

Tours are by appointment only and can be scheduled by calling 702-642-7507 ext 264 or emailing tours@andersondairy.com (see link at end of post for more information). Tours are given to groups on Mondays, Tuesday, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10:00am, 11:15am, or 1:00pm.

On the one-hour tour you will see areas of the dairy where milk is processed, tested, and bottled. The tour is very kid-friendly. It starts by “waking up” an animatronic dog on the wall who welcomes you to the dairy, and then everyone is filed into a large spacious room set up with farm scenery and more animatronic animals (think Tikki room, but farm animals instead of birds and no singing, just talking). Honestly the whole thing is pretty cheesy, but the kids were thrilled.

After the farm animal introduction and then the tour of the different areas of the dairy, you return to the barnyard room for a movie about the history of the dairy. This part was a little dry for the young kids, but pretty interesting for the parents. During the movie you get a generous cup of delicious ice cream.

WHAT TO TAKE

You don’t need anything special for this particular adventure. The tour is all indoors. You could take a stroller if you needed to, the hallways and doors were wide and the main room where the tour started and ended was plenty spacious. However, if it’s a child and not a baby that you would be strolling, be aware that there are portions of the tour (where they look through windows into the factory portion of the building) that they might not be able to see well if they are down low in a stroller.

OUR EXPERIENCE

We visited the dairy on a Friday morning. Our tour group probably had about 10 adults and 15-20 kids in it. My boys (2 and 4) were a little freaked out by the giant talking animals in the dark room at first (but other kids loved it). It was really fun to see the moving parts in the factory and all the extra features of the tour (fog machine, etc.) were thrilling. The movie at the end got a little long for them, but they held it together for the ice cream. We left with some fun mustaches and bookmarks to remember our trip by.

WHAT WE LIKED

The tour is well-designed and while some of the components don’t seem especially relevant to the dairy process (talking animatronics, displays of penguins with ice cream, etc.) they definitely keep the kids engaged. I especially liked that for a lot of it we kept moving along the hallways and to different areas and rooms. There wasn’t ever a part where the kids got too bored of being in one place. And the ice cream. We definitely liked the ice cream.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE

My only concern with this outing was the part of town it was in. However, this wouldn’t be a complaint in most cases. The dairy is separated by fences and parking was close to the entrance and felt safe. I only mention the part of town because my gas light was on, but I was definitely not about to stop at a gas station near the dairy with my kids in the car. (We made it home.)