Not Really An Experience... (Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience)

Member Name: Brooke3

Product:	Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience
Date:	08/07/09 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: There was some interesting information

Disadvantages: Lack of interaction, rude members of staff

-Getting There-
Getting to the Britain at War Experience could not be easier. If you get off of the tube at London Bridge you turn right and walk up the street. It will be on your right, further up the street than the London Dungeons.

When we approached the Britain at War Experience I noticed that there wasn't a queue and at first I thought that it was closed...it wasn't closed, it appears that it's just unpopular and if my experience is anything to go on I'm not surprised!

-Admission-
An adult ticket to the Britain at War Experience will cost you £11.45.
Last admissions are at 5pm and they close at 5.30pm.

-The Video-

The first part of the "experience" was watching a video. I found the video to be quite boring. I can't even remember now exactly what was said in the video. The only thing that stands out in my mind is that there was a woman complaining in a letter to her husband that women have it hard because makeup was being rationed (or something equally as unimportant). She even said that men were lucky because they didn't use makeup...I would hardly think fighting in a war was lucky!
I think the fact that this is the only thing that stands out in my mind (and it only stands out because it's such a ridiculous thing to say) says something about the film...it was boring and completely lacking in any personality. The only positive thing I will say is that the room where you watch the film is set out like a bunker which adds to the "experience" feel of the museum.

-The Museum-

The next part of the experience is a museum area .
I'm the kind of person who likes to read a lot of information when I visit a museum and this museum had a lot of information available, it wasn't so good for my friend who was ready to move onto the next part way before I was!
When you first enter this part of the experience there are various scenes set up with statues and items from the era, for example there is a scene set up like a pub. I thought it was interesting to see these things and it does help to bring it to life somewhat but I didn't think there was enough explanation about what these scenes were supposed to be. The first one I guessed was something to do with a radio station of some kind but I can't say for sure because there was no information that I noticed (and I did look) that explained it.
I have a pretty good knowledge about the war so I wasn't exactly looking for new information, I was hoping to refresh my memory and get more of a feel for history through the experience side of the museum.
Throughout the museum there are a lot of little things from war time that people have donated and I thought that this really added something extra to the museum, it made it all seem so much more real and not just something that happened a long time ago that I'm disconnected from.
There is an Anderson shelter set up in the museum. You can sit it in and listen to sirens sounding through the speakers and pretend that you're in the Blitz. Fortunately (especially considering the friend that I visited with is well over six foot tall) it is a lot more spacious than a real Anderson shelter would have been. We sat in it for a minute before concluding that it was actually pretty boring and hoping that there would be more to the "experience" than that.

We then moved onto the section about women in the war which was fascinating. Being a feminist I am particularly interested in the way in which both World War 1 and World War 2 helped women to progress from the home to the work place and the information contained in this part of the museum illustrated that really well.

Unfortunately at this point a man working in the museum told us we had seven minutes to move onto the next part. It was 5.03pm which meant that at 5.10pm we would have to leave this part of the "experience", that's twenty minutes before closing time and ten minutes after last admissions!
We tried to rush around the rest of the part about the women and the part about the children in Britain during the war (which is also an interest of mine) but there's really not much you can do in seven minutes and I ended up just feeling really rushed and stressed.

-The Blitz-

So we moved onto the Blitz.
Up until this point there was very little in the way of experience, unless you include sitting in an Anderson shelter. Unfortunately entering the blitz didn't really change that. It is set up how I assume it would have been in London during the blitz but there didn't seem to be much to do except walk around it and look at it...which I don't consider to be experiencing something! This took less than five minutes and we were out of the Britain at War Experience by 5.15pm. This annoyed me a lot because I could have finished looking around the museum.

I was expecting a lot more in terms of experience. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of the London Dungeon where there are actors and it's all a lot bigger and more interactive. The Britain at War Experience is nothing like this, it's just one room, set up like the Blitz where you can't really interact with anything in the room. I think that calling it an experience is a bit misleading. For less than £5 more I would recommend going to the London Dungeon instead where you will actually get an experience and far more value for your money.

-Disabled Accessibility-
The museum claims to be accessible for wheelchair users and the video had subtitles for deaf people.

-Staff-
The staff were really rude and unfriendly. I found the woman who sold our tickets to us to be rather abrupt and the man who told us we only had seven minutes left didn't do so in a polite manner. It seemed very obvious that he just wanted to get us out of there as soon as possible. At no point during this visit did I feel welcomed by the staff.

-Conclusion-
I found the museum part of the Britain at War Experience to be quite interesting and I'm giving the experience one star for that. It was interesting but not worth paying for. Most museums in London are free and the only reason I paid to get into this one is because I thought I would be getting an experience, my expectation was that it would be on the same level as the London Dungeon. This attraction offers very little in the way of an experience and is a complete waste of money. Staff were rude and unfriendly and I will most definitely not be going back.

Not recommended.

Summary: Not recommended