As you may have seen from this post we recently visited London and took advantage of visiting The Natural Museum and the London Science Museum whilst we were there. I wanted to pop a few pictures up of our visit and let you know how we found it during COVID-19 times. I love that there are so many free museums in London.
London Museums
For the most part I would say we found being in the London museums a really pleasant experience. In fact if you can and you feel comfortable with travelling within the UK at the moment I feel like this is almost the perfect time to go. I usually struggle with the crowds in the Natural History Museum and generally avoid it for that reason but the Covid measures meant it was so spaced out and relaxing.
You will need to book a slot but travelling during the week meant there were tons available and their allocated slots still had space left over as we arrived so I imagine it wasn’t at full capacity. We did take a look at how things were looking for weekends and they were mostly booked up for a while in advance. Being able to visit on a Thursday was a definite plus of the homeschool / flexi-school arrangement we have right now.
When weighing up what we felt safe and comfortable with we also weigh up the everyday decisions we are making at home (i.e sending Mabli to school three day a week or travelling on a bus within our city). In many ways visiting a place that had so many safety measures felt similar if not better than the ones in place in our everyday activity. I know everyone has a different comfort level or health situation so this is just our personal opinion within our circumstances.
The kids got so much out of the visit (we were even able to see the dinosaur section and not have to queue as it was so spacious. My favourite was the rocks and minerals section though and we were maybe one of five people in the whole place.
We didn’t end up eating at the cafe but when I walked past there were a fair few empty tables there too. Overall we really rated a trip to The Natural History museum during this strange time and felt the kids got so much out of it, they have been talking about it for weeks.
London Science Museum
Our experience at the London Science Museum was a little different. On the whole, I think the set-up was fantastic and within the science museum, it was similar to the Natural History. Our only issue was when we paid to go to ‘Wonderlab’ at the very top of the building. We felt we might as well as it’s usually so booked up and busy and although it was spaced out we didn’t feel as comfortable.
The staff at the London science museum were wonderful and all the interactive elements were wiped down and cleaned by using signs (you can attend ones marked as clean and turn over the sign when you are done to ‘unclean’). However some of the other parents at Wonderlab made the experience a bit tricky. As an example Tom took Wilf to listen to a talk and everyone was socially distanced. When it was about to finish some of the parents got up early to leave before the lights had come on and pushed passed or stepped over Tom and Wilf in a rush to get out first.
Whilst they were doing that Mabli and I were visiting different sections and on the whole everyone was really respectful in taking turns but a few parents were just letting their kids push in and touch the same things etc which felt really counterproductive (and rude!) we didn’t end up staying as long as we wanted as it was starting to get frustrating. That being said there were lots of opportunities to sanitise hands at each station etc and we felt pretty covered when it came to keeping hygienic.
We wished we had time to do the trio and visit the V&A (which might be my fave museum apart from the British Museum) but I wouldn’t hesitate to come back to London at this time. Obviously taking into account the situation at the time and government guidance.
Have you travelled within the UK since March? Do you live in London? I’d love to know how you are finding it.
You can book the Natural History museum here and Science Museum here
See how we found travel to London here