London folk - Least busy time?

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

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We're taking our kids up to London at some point in the next couple of months. Which time would be least busy out of the these two options? (I'm aware it will be busy at both times!)

- Midweek during the Easter holidays
- Weekend outside of school holidays

Main things we're doing will be natural history and science museum.
 
I'd say midweek during easter as many folks go elsewhere during that time.

Make sure you do the British Museum and Greenwich too if you're after cheap/free things to do that are nice, a Thames Clipper will take you all the way to Greenwich for a few quid a head :)
 
Feek said:
Don't waste your time, it's a shadow of its former glory with many galleries closed and many things not working. It's a real disappointment these days.
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Combine with the natural history museum or Greenwich as suggested above, make a day of it
 
It really depends on the age of the kids as to whether they'll enjoy Greenwich. I think it's great but I'm a big kid and it's where GMT was invented :cry:
 
Last went to a London museum (British Museum) a few years ago on a weekday in the summer holidays and it was unbearably hot and busy, ended up leaving and sitting in a park for the afternoon instead :p. No idea weekends vs weekdays.

I would say the science museum was much more worthwhile than the natural history museum last time I went. There were loads of cool things to see, compared to the natural history museum which had much more closed off, and just seemed full of run down exhibits aimed at small kids and had relatively little to actually see unless your kids are <8 years old maybe.

I'd add a vote for Greenwich, and using the boats to get there would be a nice idea.

I personally enjoy walking through the city of London on a weekend too just to see the towers all (relatively) quiet and empty. Some of them apparently have viewing spaces, never been to any of those myself though. Could start at St Paul's, go through the City and end at Tower of London maybe. Maybe depends on your kids whether they'll find that interesting or not and how much they'll complain about walking :p.

Imperial War museum good too, although kids would probably need to be a bit older to appreciate it.
 
Tubes always quieter on weekends.
South Kensington.
As for the museum's..
I doubt they get packed out these days, at worst a slight queue to get in at natural history is worst I've ever had.
 
Feek said:
Don't waste your time, it's a shadow of its former glory with many galleries closed and many things not working. It's a real disappointment these days.
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I haven't been in a long time so can only base it on other people's experiences but I remember as a kid you didn't stand a chance of doing the whole thing justice in a single visit - friends/family who've been recently said they and their kids were bored out their minds before an hour was up (both before and since COVID became a thing).
 
What's your plan? Are you travelling and visiting in the same day and how old are the kids. Are you stopping a night?

I ask because I did a day trip to the Natural History in Jan when it was unbelievably quiet. If you're arriving by train it's a decent hike to South Kensington from either King's Cross or St Pancras a long walk from station to tube and from tube to Natural History. You have to pre-book tickets for entry and you may end up queuing outside be warned weather wise. The Natural Hstory is massive my 7 and 8 year olds were good for a few hours but understandably eventuallly got tired and bored.

If your kids are a bit older you might manage 2 museums in one day but if they're as young as mine you might struggle. We arrived in London about 10am got to Museum by 11am went straight to Museum and were done by about 3pm stopping for picnic and feet up mid way through.

The tube is so busy these days when we went in January we lucked out with an Inset day 7th Jan and it was quiet like the quietest I can remember. The wife and I did a midweek in Feb half term when kids with grandparents and it was proper busy on tube. Depending on your kids it might be a little intimidating.


Sad to hear about the Science Museum I loved it as a kid will have to check some up to date reviews before we take the kids.
 
PlacidCasual said:
Sad to hear about the Science Museum I loved it as a kid will have to check some up to date reviews before we take the kids.
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I had a quick look on Google just now and plenty of 4 and 5 star reviews though a fair few 1 star as well. From a quick look though it doesn't seem to have the range it use to.
 
Rroff said:
I haven't been in a long time so can only base it on other people's experiences but I remember as a kid you didn't stand a chance of doing the whole thing justice in a single visit - friends/family who've been recently said they and their kids were bored out their minds before an hour was up (both before and since COVID became a thing).
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Different proposition to when I was a kid. Lots of the exhibits, science museum especially, just can't compete with modern tech, which we didn't have so it all seemed great back in the day.

Have taken the kids before and yeah a couple of hours was plenty.
 
chroniclard said:
Different proposition to when I was a kid. Lots of the exhibits, science museum especially, just can't compete with modern tech, which we didn't have so it all seemed great back in the day.

Have taken the kids before and yeah a couple of hours was plenty.
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When I last went as a kid one of the things which was fascinating was the fleshed out exhibits of truly future leaning tech, not just maybe in the next few years, but like 20 even 30 years ahead - even if a lot of it was only mock ups and concept pieces. Strangely enough none of it has really been the direction reality took and/or seems quaint today.

From a quick Google that kind of stuff seems quite limited now and little which is truly radical in idea.
 
Yea the natural history museum and science museum are not what they used to be.

Paired up with the fact you can find so much information etc on the internet/YouTube etc.

Back when I was a kid it was just what you had in books plus your imagination, so those museums were great.

There is one of the Apollo landing modules in the science museum (or at least there was) as in, one of the actual ones that flew, not a mock up, that was pretty cool.

Ok they are free so...do a few of the museum's if the weather is ok I'd go for a walk around then find a Wetherspoons, feed the whole fam and get **** faced for like £40 :)
 
The problem with the Science Museum now is that they've replaced a lot of the things where you could push buttons or turn handles to make things work with screen oriented stuff. A huge amount of it doesn't work and what does work, simply isn't very exciting.

They used to have that whole section in the basement where you could actually see things working, you could push a button and watch a little mechanical Archimedes screw move water, you could pull ropes to see how pulleys affected things, you could get a shock from a Van de Graaff generator, you could look through a real submarine telescope, try and crack a safe, etc etc.

It was fun. Proper fun.

Now it isn't.
 
Feek said:
Don't waste your time, it's a shadow of its former glory with many galleries closed and many things not working. It's a real disappointment these days.
Click to expand...

If that is true then it is national disgrace, I could spend days at a time in that place in the early 80s.
 
Another example. The Shipping gallery was huge, it was full of boats and boat stuff.

They closed it in 2012 and made a big thing about how they were digitising everything there.

"Once the gallery had been emptied, two billion precise laser measurements were recorded from 275 laser scans of the galleries by ScanLAB Projects. The exhibits and objects were added afterwards to create a walk-through video showing how the gallery looked before it closed."

And what did they do with all that data? I remember being quite excited to think that it would be available online, that one would be able to look at the models, zoom in, spin them round and look at different parts.

They made a seven minute video. That's it.
 
Weekends in the morning generally the quietest times.

London is always busy and don’t be lulled into false sense of security that because it’s a weekday it won’t be. You’re going in Easter holidays when literally every attraction will be heaving with people and their kids.
 
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