The Natural History Museum

This museum was wonderful. I went during the week and it was not overcrowded. There are exhibits for all ages from kids to adults with advanced knowledge of natural history topics. You can spend a whole day there; good concession, clean, EXCELLENT EXHIBITS. Well organized and layed-out. Make sure you take the Cacoon Tour. All this for FREE, no admision.

I was very impressed with every part of this museum, with loads of different sections and areas it felt like a proper day out and it was all very well organised. Even if you are not much of a museum goer, this is a great place to spend a few hours as it's just so interesting and good fun with it. We arrived at about 11.30am and got a bite to eat in the deli cafe, very expensive but wonderful food - for a cheaper option there is the normal canteen which we didn't know about til later. As we worked our way round the place was gradually getting busier and by the time we got to the dinosaur section in the afternoon we regretted leaving it til last. This was the only section where you have to queue it turned out, and with no air con in the exhibition it became really stifling - to the point that as soon as we finished queuing we rushed through to get back out again as it was just too much and too busy. The museum was great but that put a dampner on it, I wish we'd been told on arrival that seeing that section first would be a good plan before it gets really busy as we weren't expecting that at all after moving round the other exhibitions with no problems.

Its no suprise that you have to queue a while to get in! We arrived just before 10am and the only had to queue for about 10mins. (When we left at about midday we overheard that the queue time was 45mins!)

We bought a museum programme guide for £4.50 at the door which was a great souvenier. We took some lovely pictures of the outside of the building which is pretty amazing in itself.

We visited the blue zone first where we saw the life size model of a whale - this area was very quiet with hardly anyone there! Later we went to the dinosaur area which was a bit of an anti climax i have to say. You walk round the area with a snail trail of people and cant stop to look at anything and lots of screaming children. Later on there were HUGE queues to see this area- i think alot of people would be just as disappointed as we were with this exhibit.

I visited with just my husband as we dont have children. I found the place to be very overcrowded and the constant screaming and shouting from bored children became too much in the end! My husband was actually shoved out the way on several occasions by young children!!!

There is loads to see but the displays seem a bit crammed in.

On the up side, it is very educational and loads of interactive stuff for the kids (and adults too as i discovered with my husband!) Its great that you can see so much and not have to pay an entrance fee. I took lots of photos of the entrance hall as it really is a very beautiful building.