Not so great meeting the Wax version of Celebs! (Madame Tussauds)

Member Name: denise40

Product:	Madame Tussauds
Date:	18/07/09 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertained me for a couple of hours

Disadvantages: Too many people and not worth the money

Madame Tussauds

On the way home from our honeymoon we stopped in London for a night and decided to go to Madame Tussauds after hearing lots about it. Madame Tussauds is a wax works museum where there are real life sized wax figures of famous people. You can walk around and get your photograph with what seems to be the rich and famous.

To get there you can go by train, tube or by bus, To get there by train make your way to Marlebone station and it is within 10 minutes walk from the station. We took the tube and had about approximately a five-minute walk to Madame Tussauds. The nearest tube station is Baker Street (which is on the Jubilee, Hammersmith & city circle, Metropolitan and Bakerloo lines). Another option is to go by bus, the routes past Madame Tussauds are 2,18,27,30,74,82,113,139 and 274. To get there by car the address is Marlyebone Road, London NW1 5LR. You can ring 0870 400 3000 if you have any queries.

Priority access tickets can be bought online and cost £22.50 adult, £18.50 child and £74 for a family. You can buy these on the Madame Tussauds website. It means that you don't have to wait in the longer queues and are able to pass through the quicker queue.


The opening hours is from 9.30am until 5.30pm but during peak times opening and closing times can vary. My advice is to go early in the morning as it gets very cramped and busy during peak time.

Once you have got into Madame Tussauds you will be given a map however it is easy to navigate you way around without it as everything is well signposted. You will walk up the red carpet where you will have to take the lift upstairs, here you will be greeted by what they call the paparazzi. Basically this is a huge picture of people taking photographs.

The first room you go into is called the 'A List' party and to name a few there are wax works of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Victoria and David Beckham, Cameron Diaz, Johnathon Ross, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and Will Smith. This room was packed with people pushing and shoving trying to scramble to get their photograph taken with their favourite celebrity waxwork. Maybe I just went on a bad day but I found this rather annoying. I did not get a chance to get my picture taken with all of the wax works I wanted to as everyone was pushing and shoving.

They have Davina's waxwork and you can go into the Big Brother Diary Room. I did not go into the diary room but any people who did seemed to be told to do silly things (for example dance around the room) and were asked questions. This was broadcast on screens around the room. If you opted to do this you could have a chance to sit in the legendary Big Brother chair.

Next up was the Sports Zone where you came face to face with lots of different sporting legends like Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Rooney and Pele. Some games could be played here, you can race on formula one cars, an agility test was available (it was hitting lights once they lit up) and trying to score goals. My husband enjoyed this section as he got his picture taken with some of his favourite sports people. There seemed to be fewer crowds in this section.

Then onto the 'Royal Family' (with the Queen and her family) and the 'Culture & History' section with Einstein. I bought some nice chocolate and honeycomb here. Here it got crowded again with more pushing and shoving. It was nearly impossible to try and get your photograph taken with any wax works without either someone else being in the photograph or someone just being rude and pushy towards you.

You will then pass into the 'Music Megastars' section where you will see wax works of Amy Winehouse, Christina Aguilera, Queen and Britney Spiers to name some. You walk just a little bit further and 'The World Stage' is next which has different world leaders.

The 'Scream' section is after this that you can bypass if you have young children. It might scare them as it has murdering madmen. Most of the waxworks tend to have low lighting and it may seem very dark to young children.

You can learn what goes on behind the scenes and how the wax works are made. Plus you will learn about Madame Tussaud herself. Some people may find this interesting. Everyone can enjoy the Spirit of London ride, which you can jump onto a taxi ride through London's past. It was a nice way of relaxing as you got to see some waxworks without lots of people in the way. Plus I enjoyed hearing the short story and getting some information.

Coming near to the end now and you will go through 'Warhol's Women' where you can get your own photograph taken. This is an additional cost though. As I didn't pay for it I am not totally sure how much it was. I do remember there was a waxwork of Marilyn Monroe though. Last stop is the shop and café where you can buy various souvenirs.

My overall opinion of Madame Tussauds was that it was ok and average. The wax works were good but you knew they weren't the real thing, even though by the way some of the people were acting you would have thought they were the real person. Some of the waxworks weren't in my opinion very realistic and I had to take a second look to know who they were. It is the type of place I will only visit once, as I didn't enjoy it overly much however I am told that they constantly are updating and bringing out new wax works. I feel that the price is too much as we zoomed through the place very quickly as we found it quite boring. Saying that we didn't stop at a lot of the wax works like most people did to get our photograph taken. As the place seemed to be cramped and I met some very rude people who swore at me for standing getting my photograph and pushed me out of the way this didn't help. I may have just been unfortunate to be in on such a busy day.

Summary: Not somewhere I would go back to