Friday was definitely our best day in London. Our 3rd pre-booked activity was London Dungeons. This is totally in darkness and photography was forbidden so I’ve no photos to show. It’s a mixture of live actors, props, noises, spooky music and two rides covering the dungeons in Henry VIII’s time, the torturer, Guy Fawkes, Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett, The Black Plague, The Great Fire, a mock court and jailhouse and a ride to simulate a hanging. Really well done and scared the bejeebus out of Conor. Definitely wouldn’t advise it for u10s but we all had a ball, even Conor!

Afterwards it was food time. We had vouchers for McDonald’s so headed for the nearest one in Leicester Square. As we got nearer we spotted a Pizza Hut. It’s our favourite place to eat and very rare we get an opportunity to visit one so we ditched McD’s for the “all you can eat” buffet.

Outside we took in the atmosphere of Leicester Square which has to be the coolest place in London. I could have sat there all day listening to the music and watching the world go by.

Next stop was Catriona’s choice – Harrods. We decided to walk this time and really glad we did as the route took us by the M&M store, The Apollo Theatre, Piccadilly Circus, The Wellington Monument, Hyde Park Corner and Kensington with all it’s very fancy car dealerships and stores.

Harrods was crazy, even more than the M&M store but for very different reasons! It was equally as busy but only about half of the people there were spending any money, probably about 10% spending serious money. The wealth on display from this 10% and the disregard for cost was eye opening.

While Catriona and the boys looked around the sweet hall for something small to take home I went looking for the beds department just to see what the other half buy. It was amazing although I was seriously unimpressed by the sales guy I could overhear showing a customer around. If he works on commission it didn’t show! I considered leaving my CV 😆

After Harrods it was back on the tube and back to the apartment. All the way home I couldn’t help but wonder what all those mega wealthy people were doing right now.

The pre-booked attraction for our 3rd day was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. It wasn’t until 1230 which gave us the chance to have a bit of a lie in after all our walking the day before.

I’d done a bit of research on the Oyster Card before going to London and despite excellent advice from Simon I’d decided it still seemed expensive, was going to cost us £20 (4 x £5) to buy and not save us much. Plus we were going to walk everywhere. Basically we* got it all wrong! A very friendly and helpful information guy at Tower Hill took the time to explain the card properly, explain how the £20 was refundable and would save us at least 50% on payg tickets. So carded up and happier to be walking a lot less** we took a wander around the outside of the Tower and down to the Tower Bridge viewpoint before getting the Underground to Baker Street.

*we = me of course 🙈

**we still managed almost 11km of walking despite using the tube quite a bit today.

As we still had some time to spare and I’m a big fan of Elementary I dragged everyone to see 221b Baker Street which isn’t actually 221b Baker Street!

I didn’t really think that they had used the actual address in S7 of Elementary but was still slightly disappointed it didn’t match the show

Then it was back to our favourite thing to do in London – queue. Madame Tussauds was very busy but good queue management and efficient security meant we weren’t waiting too long and it wasn’t jammed once we got inside. I didn’t know what to expect so was surprised by the layout. There were less exhibits than I expected, less older celebrities but overall I was very impressed. All 4 of us really enjoyed the full experience and although the time flew past we felt that we experienced the whole thing. Some of my favourite photos are below but we took a lot throughout the exhibition’s many floors.

My only complaint with the museum was bringing everyone together for the 4D movie show (which was excellent). The queue starts in the Marvel gallery (which means you can’t get space to see the Marvel exhibition unless you wait for everyone to leave as the next queue gathers) and as everyone leaves the movie together the next Star Wars exhibition is jam packed and difficult to view.

After Madame Tussauds we headed to the Science Museum and this is where we (me again!) got it wrong again. We should have eaten before going. There wasn’t anything handy to Madame Tussauds but there was nothing at either Baker Street or South Kensington tube stations and once at the Science Museum, nothing within reasonable distance. Our only option was the Science Museum cafe which wasn’t geared towards kids at all. Far too many silly options of food that can only be described as “notions“. Kids want plain, ordinary and usually deep fried and breaded food. We really struggled to get something plain that the boys (and ourselves) could enjoy and be filled. It was way overpriced too! They would be better with a small entry fee, say £2 each, and charge more reasonable prices for food. They would probably make more profit that way.

The science museum itself was just OK. The ground floor had some interesting displays. The boys particularly enjoyed the space displays and the old stuff – mostly things I remember from my childhood! Upstairs there were galleries about the body, mind, climate and the future. We enjoyed it but it wasn’t gripping. I don’t know what I expected and although we spent about an hour and a half exploring and enjoyed it I don’t see how families can spend the day here as I’ve heard before. I think I expected something more similar to W5 in Belfast. Our experience could have been tainted by tiredness and not being properly fed though?

The really good thing about South Kensington was that the underground took us straight back to Tower Hill with no stops! It was packed and very hot though so we were glad to be released back to the regular air conditioned train to go back to Grays. A trip to the chipper on the way home and normal service was soon resumed.