London Transport Museum Family Review

{We were gifted tickets in exchange for an open and honest review} We have just come back from a family city break in London.  A few years ago a relative told us how fun, educational and interactive The London transport museum is for a family day out.  This museum has been on our visit list for a while now and we needed family friendly places to visit on a rainy day as it was forecast to be a very stormy weekend.

Travelling to the London Transport Museum

The museum itself is conveniently located for seeing other popular tourist sites and landmarks. It’s nestled in the South East corner of Covent Garden. We arrived by a short walk on foot from the Covent Garden tube station, which we navigated fine with 3 of our children including a pushchair.  Both Covent Garden tube station and nearby Tottenham Court road tube station have lifts to use with prams.

Entering the London Transport Museum

• The ticket office is located at the entrance to the museum as is the shop and cafe.  Both of which you can use without needing museum tickets.  We had a pit stop in the cafe and can confirm that the coffee is good! The kids also enjoyed some hot chocolate to warm up and we all shared some delicious millionaire shortbread which tasted homemade.
• The ticket queue was quite small when we arrived because we chose to visit in the afternoon.  I had been advised that the museum is busiest and the queue the longest in the mornings.  Heads up if you purchased tickets online, there is a fast track queue system.  
• With your tickets comes information advising you on how to navigate the museum floors with a stamp collector card for the children to complete.
• Once through the museum entrance there is a buggy park and a cloakroom.  We were delighted and surprised to see that they run a free and efficient cloakroom service so we were able to offload 3 backpacks and all our coats so we could be more hands free!

Museum Play

Top Floor 

We headed to the top floor of the museum and the children found the time machine lift transporting us back to 1800, a fun touch.   On the upper level you can find the modes of transport that were found on the streets back then such as a horse drawn tram!For family members who like to soak up facts and history there are plenty of information boards and interactive buttons to press and for younger ones they can climb on board a horse drawn cart and stamp their passes to keep them entertained.

1st Floor 

The next floor down is definitely one for the train enthusiast, think Hogwarts train carriages, the beginnings of the London tube transport system and then the hidden London exhibition showcasing life in the underground during WW2.

The younger ones loved dressing up and role playing as rail workers and also by the Hidden London exhibition they got to let off steam in a play zone where they can drive a London electric bus and all aboard play zone where they can be hands on in the lost property centre.

Ground Floor 

Lastly we came to the transportorium located on the ground floor. Here you can access some of London’s older and more recent buses.  They can also find out all about each of the fleet with the interactive information boards.  On this floor you can find out all about the modern day tube system and also plans for the underground of the future.

This floor is home to most of the action as there are transport games hosted by the staff in time slots throughout the day, colouring in and a quieter chill out zone.  We enjoyed personalising our own roundels (tube signs) in one of the interactive areas.

In the corner of the transportorium there is an ice cream bar/cafe right next to a good sized play zone with a mini sized fleet of interactive vehicles. We can confirm that the ice cream was delicious and we tried out the brown bread and marmalade ice cream as we are Paddington Bear fans, especially when in London.  The staff were happy for you to try a flavour before you buy!  

Having the play zone here was a welcome rest for us adults to plan the rest of our trip whilst they were entertained under our watchful eyes.

Useful things to note when visiting the London Transport Museum

• You can picnic in designated areas.
• Follow the London Transport museum family advice on navigating the museum as it takes you in the correct order through the ages and ensures you collect all 13 stamps on your way round.  This kept my toddler busy and entertained so we could share more detail with the older ones. In fact the stamp card also appealed to our 13 year old as well!
• Utilise the practical cloakroom and buggy park or you can still take the buggy around if you wish as the majority of the museum is accessible via the lifts.
• Visit later in the day if possible to avoid the crowds
• There is an area suitable for babies to play, so look out for this.
• Children go free and Adult ticket purchase gives you unlimited access for the year.

We thought that the London transport museum is aimed well for families and is a fun first introduction to an educational family day out for toddlers.  We spent some quality bonding time there together whilst learning a few things ourselves!

•We were gifted tickets in exchange for an open and honest review.  All the words are my own.