We took a trip to the Horniman Museum during the half term, and we had a really good time.
First things first, the museum is free which is always a plus in expensive London! However, they do sometimes add extra exhibitions which you pay an entry fee for. We did that with Brick Dinos and Under the Sea soft play.
Brick Dinos cost: Adults £9.00, kids £4.50
Under Sea soft play cost: Adults £2.50, kids £7.50 (session lasts 1 hour)
The Brick Dino exhibition are dinosaurs made from lego!
The Brick Dino exhibition was in a big room, with large and small lego creations of dinosaurs and there were lots of interactive stations around the room for kids to play with the lego by building their own stuff.
Elijah seemed to really enjoy how interactive the room was and spent a lot of time playing and building with the lego. I personally though that the displays that were there were great, but I also felt that they could have had a few more large dinosaurs and where they had a lego version of a dinosaur they should have displayed its actual picture so that people (kids) could have compared the two. Overall, though, we were glad we went to see the display.
We then went on to Under the Sea Soft play:
It was advertised for ages 7 and under but really, I think it should have been for 4’s and under. It didn’t help that Elijah is tall for his age, but as a 5-year-old he seemed almost too big for what was there. I also felt that there were too many children in one session and because of the wide age gap, babies were toddling around and then the bigger kids wanted to run around, and as a parent making sure your kid doesn’t accidentally knock into a small child can be quite exhausting.
Elijah had fun in there for a little while.
However, he actually asked to leave before the session was over, which is something he has NEVER done, when it comes to soft play. Overall, I do not think I would book that again unless it was for a younger child.
We then had a wonder around the rest of the museum and there was lots to see, there were the animal displays which were really interesting, a table was set up with some things for people to touch like snake skin and the staff at the table were knowledgeable and answered many questions about the items (Poor lady at the table got more than she bargained for with Elijah’s animal knowledge!). I am not sure if they are always there but that was a nice touch. The musical section also had so many instruments to see, Elijah had loads of questions about them and there was also a little music room there where he could play and try out different instruments, he really loved that.
In all the areas we went to in the museums had a lot for you to see, with small interactive areas which helped to keep younger visitors on board.
Then once we had finished inside, we went outside to walk and play about in the grounds that the Horniman museum is located on. It’s a really big beautiful space, infact it is park in itself, you could go there and not enter the museum and spend the day outside and have a great time. They had a small animal walk through which had some farmyard animals, like goats, rabbits, hamsters and also Alpaca's. They were really fun to see, and Elijah enjoyed that. This is free, you can just walk through it at any time.
There is a butterfly house but unfortunately that was closed for maintenance, so we could not explore that. There is a small charge to enter that.
There is also a restaurant on site, I was not very impressed with the restaurant I thought it was really costly and then the food that came was not great. I forgot to take pictures of the food, but basically, we ended up with two jacket potatoes, mine had cheese and Elijah’s had cheese and beans. This came to about £15 and that was before we added drinks! I would advise especially in the nice summer months that you eat in the gardens, bring some lunch, have a picnic or plan to go a nearby restaurant after your visit.
We liked the Horniman museum very much and our verdict is that it is definitely worth a day out, before you go though, do check the website https://www.horniman.ac.uk/ so you can see what exhibitions are on and plan your day!
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