Hunting for dinosaurs (with a baby in tow) (Natural History Museum (London))

Member Name: zerub

Product:	Natural History Museum (London)
Date:	23/03/09 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: dinosaurs, and other animals too, for free

Disadvantages: hot and crowded

We visited the Natural History Museum on Saturday with our three children, aged 7, 4, and 15 months. We were exhausted by the end of the day but they had a great time.

---Getting There---
South Kensington underground station is the closest but doesn't have step-free access. So dh carried the pram and held onto one child while I carried the baby and held onto the other child, up two long escalators. Then there are two quite long flights of steps to be negotiated too. Once you get outside you should turn left to enter the museum through the entrance with a lift. Sadly I didn't know that, and we turned right to the main entrance. There is a short flight of steps to climb up.

--Getting In--
We arrived at 11am, an hour after it opened, and the queue was going down the pavement. I was a bit horrified but actually we only queued for a few minutes. It is free to get in so the queue is caused by the security people having a quick look through your bag.

--Little Explorers--
At the information desk in the main hall, you can get Explorers Backpacks. You have to give them your credit card details in case you don't return the backpack, but it is free to borrow. It is quite a large red backpack, containing: a clipboard, some pencils, some paper, a quiz, 3 clues, a pair of toy binoculars, and an explorers hat. The hat was the main draw for us, my son wore it for the entire visit and loved it. The quiz involved going to a particular gallery and then using the 3 clues to find a certain animal. The clues were a tooth, a bone, and some hair. This was fun as far as it went, but then we'd finished the quiz and had a large backpack to carry around all day. Fortunately my son insisted on carrying it himself, and wearing the hat and using the binoculars, so it was worth doing!

--The animals--
There are a lot of galleries with large stuffed animals in. The animals sometimes look a bit scruffy, and there are notices explaining that they don't want to replace the animals (which were mostly caught in the 19th Century). Fair enough. In any case they are exciting for children to see - giraffes, elephants, a huge whale. This section was very crowded and not very well laid out - a one-way system would have been good. As it was we kept reaching a dead end and having to work our way (with pram) back past people coming in.

--Lunch--
There are several cafes, but more importantly for us, there is a picnic area. It's in the basement so there are no windows, but it is big, has lovely big tables and benches, and wasn't crowded. There are a couple of food and drink vending machines and a counter selling cakes, hot drinks, and sandwiches. And the toilets are right there too. I'd brought a picnic, and having somewhere nice to eat it was great. It gave the baby a chance to crawl around too, so he was happy.

--The toilets--
Plenty of these all over the place, which is essential when you have small children. They all had child-sized sinks too. The babychange room that I used was a bit grubby, with a ripped changing mat. Also, it was in the ladies toilets, which was annoying since my husband had offered to do it and had to come back for me!

--The dinosaurs--
Obviously this was what we really came for. There is a big dinosaur skeleton in the entrance hall so that satisfied the small dinosaur-seekers straight away. When you go into the dinosaur gallery you immediately have to go up some stairs. You then queue along a raised platform, looking at dinosaur bones on either side. This would be ok except that the (single, small) lift was not working and there were a lot of people going through. We're getting good at lifting the pram though. The children didn't notice they were queuing as you are looking at exhibits all the way along. Then there is a bit of queueing with boards on either side and nothing to look at, so that wasn't so good. Then you get to see the huge moving dinosaur - it looks real (well, I think it does, never seen a real one so I guess I wouldn't know!). It is very good and my husband and daughter enjoyed it. The baby was asleep by this point and our 4-year-old decided it was way too scary so I had to whizz past it with him. Then you get to go and look at the rest of the dinosaur exhibition, which is very interesting although not very well lit, and rather hot. I assume this is to do with preserving all the bones.

--The shops--
You come out of the dinosaur exhibition straight in front of the shop, so the day wasn't so cheap as we'd hoped. They do have some lovely things in there though.

--The non-dinosaur stuff--
We had a look at the giant sequoia tree trunk and the earthquake/volcano exhibition too. There is an awful lot more to see but we were worn out by this point. We'll save that for another visit, possibly when more of the children are old enough to appreciate the exhibitions a bit more.

Opening times: 10-17:50 every day
Entrance fee: free

Summary: Raaaaah!