On the same day we visited the Tower of London we also visited Madame Tussauds – London. Like the London Tower tickets we also bought our Madame Tussauds tickets online a few weeks before we arrived. We purchased the skip the queue tickets for 2pm, and were glad we did when we saw the frighteningly large crowd of people all queued up to get in! It took us a minute or two to work out that if you have skip the queue tickets you walk past the scary impatient looking horde of people waiting in a roped off area near the main entrance and instead enter from the other end of the front part of the building (towards the Royal Academy of Music Museum).
Be aware that even though you have ‘skip the queue’ tickets, which do exactly that – and get you into the building quickly, you still need to go through their security check which includes them searching any bag you have and walking through a metal detector much like at the airport. But once through that, you are inside and off you go on your self guided tour. You are allowed to hold onto your cameras and phones and subsequently you can take photos and videos inside.
On entering, my initial impression was that Madame Tussauds wasn’t very big, and we were going to be disappointed as it seemed like we would have seen all on offer in about 30 minutes. But no – you will be amazed at the size of this place, it is enormous! It goes, and goes, and goes! It has several different areas across six floors in a very large building built in 1884 – the building itself is pretty cool, but yes the wax figures are great and our expectations were certainly met. Though to be 100% honest a small amount looked just like what they were, wax figures and not terribly lifelike, however the majority look almost exactly like the person they were modelled on and were very lifelike. In fact on at least two occasions I ended up giving a “hey, how are you” facial expression and nod of my head acknowledging someone I thought was looking at me – only to realise they were not flesh and blood, they were a lump of carefully sculptured wax.
Not only are there over 150 lifesize wax figures, there is even a pretty decent size fun-ride feature which travels along a custom built track, and you get your own individual carriage for you and your partner to sit together in while the carriage automatically follows the track through extensive moving wax figure displays, it lasts around five minutes. There is also a horror area which contains the wax figures of and details of several serial killers including the famous Jack the Ripper, some of these figures have moving parts making them that much more frightening!
Now for the good and the bad. The good, amazing to see all the figures and displays, definitely a once in a lifetime experience. The bad, they let a huge amount of people in at once, to such a degree that at times it is hard to make progress around the place as you can barely move. Even taking pictures of the figures is a mission as many people simply walk in front of you while you are trying to take a picture. The good old polite and thoughtful Kiwi culture is unfortunately missing in the UK, and it is a bit like every man, woman and child for themself!
Ticket prices start at around 30 pounds and we recommend you allow two to two and a half hours to see everything properly, if you can handle the crowds for that long. I must admit that even though we were blown away from what we saw, we were glad to get out and escape the craziness. I’m not sure what the regulations are in the UK around fire safety for their public buildings, but with the sheer number of people allowed into Madame Tussauds all at once, I would think everyone being able to evacuate quickly and safely in an emergency would be very difficult if not near impossible. But if you are willing to take that minute chance a fire or similar may break out while there – it is definitely worth a visit.
We rated Madame Tussauds 8 out of 10 Kiwis