Kids in London - Madame Tussards

Originally posted in February 2007

Usually, being a Londoner, I am an enthusiastic supporter of our main attractions. But I am afraid the Madame Tussauds has managed to make me very angry AGAIN.

A couple of years ago I took a friend and my two young children to visit the Wax Works at Baker St. We didn't realise that Good Friday was the busiest day of the year. The queue was enormous and with two young kids I had little option but to pay the extortionate "jump the queue" price rather than wait the estimated minimum FOUR HOURS! This meant it cost about £90 for two adults and two kids for about an hour of very crowded wax works. Then we had to pay over the top for a couple of drinks.

So it was with some happiness that yesterday (Saturday) when I returned with my young daughter to see the Wax Works there was no queue outside. After having our bags checked we entered. There we found a dark internal queue that was jostling with tourists and absolutely no staff. After waiting for nearly 25 minutes in this dark, slow moving and rather warm queue we saw the sign that advised we had reached the point where we had only to queue for a further 30 minutes!

Why don't they tell you at the outset what the queue time is likely to be? Having committed 25 minutes to queuing, my daughter decided that enough was enough and we left in disgust. Those poor tourists stayed in the queue. Bearing in mind it would be almost 430pm by the time they got to the pay desk, it would have hardly been worth waiting.

To add insult to injury, we also learned that the Planatarium has been converted into some sort of cinema showing cartoons. Hardly the quality educational entertainment we expect to see at one of London's most famous attractions.

Yes, we could have booked online. Or paid again for timed tickets. But what about a spontaneous visit? And what about families who are on tight budgets?

Really, really unimpressed.