Eureka! I've found it! (Eureka Museum)

Member Name: carlz2001uk

Product:	Eureka Museum
Date:	15/10/09 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interactive and educational fun for children of all ages

Disadvantages: Car parking charge, shop on the way out

Eureka is without doubt the best children's museum we have found, and even better - it's three miles away from our home! Our children absolutely love Eureka and with everything at Eureka designed to inspire children to find out about themselves and the world around them, it is the perfect space for little ones. I went myself a few times through my childhood, and at the time I never felt that I was learning, but as an adult you can sense that every part of the museum is aimed at teaching your child something new. There are 100s of hands-on exhibits, all with fun and learning at the front of Eureka's mission.

Eureka is an award-winning attraction and educational charity for children, based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, which is open 10 - 4 p.m. every week day, and 10 - 5 p.m. at weekends and during half-terms and holidays. It was recently named one of the top three favourite family days out by The Independent. I like that Eureka runs events and activities throughout the year which you can join in, for example in the summer we went to an open air viewing of High School Musical, which we watched sat on the bonnet of our car! Upcoming events include National Hawking School, which is a display of some of the owls used in Harry Potter; Eureka School for Witches and Wizards; The Witching Hour which is a late night opening with spooky stories and games, and a pumpkin parade; The Christmas Fair selling unique toys, gifts and homemade crafts; Santa's Magical Toyshop where you can meet Santa in his grotto; and Noon Year's Eve Party with an alternative, day time celebration with baby-raving, music and dance.

Admission prices
Adults: £7.50
Children age 3+: £7.50
Toddlers age 1-2: £2.50
Babies age 0-11 months: free
Saver Ticket (admits 5 people): £32.00

After 15:00 from Monday-Friday during term time, visitors are admitted at half price. Eureka! is a charity and these prices include a 10% donation. A good thing to consider if your thinking of planning a trip to Eureka, is they accept Tesco Clubcard 'Days Out' vouchers, enabling you to get in for free! We always take advantage of this, and as a family of four, save ourselves over £30.

The Eureka Car Park
This is my one and only gripe of Eureka, and that on top of the admission prices, you have to pay for parking, even though Eureka is not really in the centre of Halifax.
Up to 4 hours - £3.00
Between 4 and 12 hours - £5.00
More than 12 hours and overnight - £10.00

Eureka can get very busy at times, we normally arrive when the doors open on a weekend and have the run of the museum for a couple of hours, being ahead of everyone else who arrives later. I wouldn't recommend arriving after lunchtime. It normally gets busier in Autumn and Winter too due to the bad weather - bear this in mind when you plan your visit.

Finding Eureka
By Car: Leave the M62 at J24 for Halifax. Follow the A629 to the Town Centre looking out for the brown tourism signs. Follow these signs to the museum.
By train: Eureka! is located next to Halifax railway. Steps located to the left as you exit the station lead directly to Eureka.

Food at Eureka
The Eureka Cafe serves a selection of hot and cold meals and snacks every day from 10.00am to 4.30pm, however in my experience over the years I have found that the café is not always open. When we have eaten here, we haven't always been overly impressed. I would recommend either takig a picnic or if your budget permits, visit Pizza hut round the corner!

Birthday Parties at Eureka:
A Eureka birthday party gives children the chance to express themselves through play as they explore the museum's interactive galleries with their friends. The parties include all day in the museum, one free adult admission per child, party bag, dedicated member of staff, party food, activities and invites. As my children are aged three and one, we haven't yet experienced a childrens party at Eureka, but would definitely consider it as a venue when they are a little older.

The galleries
With six galleries there is so much to keep your children entertained, and you never know, you might quite enjoy it too! I will explain below the different galleries and what you might expect to find in each of them.

Desert discovery is for the under 5s, giving them a little peace and quiet away from the bigger children, and a chance to explore. There is a storytime tent, where you can make your self comfortable around the fire pit (not real of course!) and tell a story, or dress up with the costumes in the tent or even put on a puppet show. Desert in the dark is a particular favourite of my children where you can put your hands in the feely holes and try and guess what's inside, or stroke the friendly coyote and he'll yap and howl back to you. Within desert discovery there is also cactus construction where your child can move rocks and boulders around with wheelbarrows and buckets and also construct towers. Boulder mountain lets your child understand how things can move along, as they transport the boulders in the bucket lift and watch them fall down the other side. The baby oasis is a safe and secure area designed especially for children who are not yet walking. It has a soft, padded interior, and seating for parents to explore the space with their baby, while they play among the peek-a-boo palm leaves, look in the mirrors and feel the different textured shapes.

The living and working together gallery was my favourite as a child and is now my children's favourite. It is the town square of Eureka, perfect for role play. Children can explore the world of work as they become cashiers, postal workers and mechanics or try out some everyday grown up tasks such as writing cheques, going shopping and making lunch. Within the square is the Bank, which is fairly new, where you can be the cashier and play with cheques, bank cards and even the cash machine. Your child can explore different bank notes from around the world, with a light board and magnifying glass, but no doubt they will head straight to the bank vault where they must not set off the alarms! Great fun! In the square there is a musical fountain, a story tree with hundreds of books available to read, and they can even play a game of hopscotch. The dig is an area within the square which replicates an area dug out by the gas company and you can go into the dig and see underground pipes, try out the metal detector and even take a look at some fossils underground. The square comes complete with a Police Box and more importantly a Marks & Spencer's (unfortunately not a real one!), where your child can play being a customer with a trolley or basket, being the cashier and using the scanner and till or even the play being the Manager and sending money up through the shoots. The square also has a garage where they can pretend to drive a lorry, wash a car, or even put on some overalls and change a tyre. The last role play area is the Post Office, where there are uniforms and bags to try on and parcels to deliver.

The next area within the museum is the house, complete with all the rooms you would expect to find, teaching them a little about each area within the home. They can flick switches to see how electricity works, use the dressing up box in the bedroom or go through the magical star lit wardrobe. In the bathroom they can look through the see through toilet and bath and watch the water go down the drains or play at the big water table. Out on the balcony they can also learn about different seasons and investigate the weather.

Next is the me and my body area where they can find out how much they weigh and even how much their bones weigh, measure their stretch, reach and stride, and look in the fairground mirrors at the strange reflections. There is also the giant mouth where they can learn all about teeth, although my one year old got a little scared by this! You can also see an x-ray of lungs, and listen to how people breathe different when they are doing different excercises. There is also an area about how life begins where they can see a scan of an unborn baby (this area is perfect if they are going to have a brother or sister, as it makes them understand a little more), feel a baby kicking in the womb, and listen to the sounds which an unborn baby hears. There is also a passport area where your child can take one and write what they have learnt, and add their passport details to the database of other visitor's facts about themselves.

Our global garden is the next area which helps children understand how different areas of the world look. Gordon Gnome introduces the children to their journey in short cartoons on the outside walls and hides in each of the seven gardens. The different gardens to explore are the town garden, jungle, ice, desert, ocean and country, each one showing what creatures live there, the noises you would expect to find, and in the relevant gardens the pollution that you would also find there.

The next gallery for some reason never seems to interest my children so we normally skip through it, I'm not sure if they are too young or why they don't like it, but I don't begin to understand how my children think! This area is all about sound, and has a space feel. You can make music in this area with drums, chimes, pipes and giant guitars.

The last area is the sound garden, and although it's not particularly for one age group only, I this is a perfect area for smaller children under the age of four. The sound garden is supposed to give the children the idea that they have been shrunk and because of this everything is giant sized. The leaf cradle within this area is perfect for non walking children with a soft, padded area where they can cuddle the friendly ladybird and feel her wriggle, play with the dew-drop xylophone and look at the butterfly flying above. There are flowers which play lullabies, and a tree trunk with animal dressing up things inside.

Hopefully, after all that I've kept you interested, but as a parent it is so hard to find different ways to keep little ones entertained so as a very satisfied customer of Eureka over the last 15 years I would recommend this to you all. My only advise is that to get out of the museum you have to walk through the shop, so try and avert their attention, or it will be costly!

For those of you who have just read this thinking it would be excellent for your children but you live no where near Halifax, but do live near London, you will be pleased to know that Eureka are hoping to open a new museum in London and a potential site has been identified in the new King's Cross development. I'm not sure when this will be opening.

Overall, I will be giving Eureka 5 stars (It would have been 4.5 due to the car parking cost and the shop on the way out), but I'll be generous and round up instead of down!

Thanks for reading.

Summary: 5 stars (just!)