Family Friendly London #7 SeaLife Aquarium for £10.50 Each, Plus London Eye Review

On our latest visit to London, Smix asked could we visit the Aquarium. The huge SeaLife aquarium is located opposite parliament, just over the bridge beside the Shrek Adventure attraction and The London Eye.

Never pay full price for tickets! There are kids go free offers on Cadbury packs, and 2 for 1 deals online, but I found the absolute cheapest way to do it. Kellogg's have an adults go free offer, which you can get even on cereal bar packs in the Pound Shop. So with it you just pay the £21 price for a kid's ticket, and the adult ticket (£26) is free.

You can pre-buy a ticket online, but you have to choose a 15 minute time slot to arrive at. As we didn't know what time our train would get in from the airport, I decided to just buy our tickets when we showed up.

The website had warned there can be a long queue, but this was a busy Tuesday afternoon in August and we just had to queue for 15 minutes to pay and go in. We just presented our voucher cut out of the Kellogg's box on arrival.

To see exactly how it works and read the list of all the attractions over the whole UK that the voucher can be used with, visit the Kellogg's deal site.  It also works for the Shrek Adventure which is beside the aquarium, and locally, Carrickfergus Castle.

The London SeaLife Aquarium itself is really just like a bigger version of our Portaferry Aquarium. It's just that on a bigger scale, and takes longer to walk round. 

There are dozens of viewing tanks, more fish and species, but I'm glad we didn't pay more than £10.50 each because we had seen most of it all before. The only difference was it had a crocodile, and a pretty cool jellyfish exhibition. I liked the piranhas best.

Right beside the Aquarium is one of London's newest but best known attractions, The London Eye. 

The giant Ferris wheel gives 360 views of the city as far as the eye can see. We went on it on Smix's first visit to London in Easter 2016. We both loved it. 

It can be pricy, but if you have a valid rail ticket for the day you can get a 2 for 1 London Eye discount voucher. Simply print it at home before you travel.

The ride lasts about 45 minutes, and is well worth the price. If you are cautious of heights don't worry, the pods are enclosed and solid, no wobbling, and quite large and spacious. There is a place to sit in the centre of each, and iPads with facts about the views you can see as you rise and fall. 

I've heard that the view at night is something special, and might make a return visit to the London Eye on another trip to see the city at night. 

Family Friendly London #6 - Ripley's Believe It Or Not- Tickets for just £11.50

Ripley's Believe It or Not museums are my spiritual home. I've been to one in Florida, one in LA, another native offering of the Blackpool museum, and visited the Piccadilly one for the second time last Easter. It's a church of Kitsch.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not London is right on Piccadilly Circus.  It takes over the corner of a huge building and it's .hard to miss

Ripley's is home to the weird and wonderful. Stories of amazing and unusual people. Crazy natural phenomenon recorded for the ages. Bizarre artwork, images made from toast or jelly beans. Tales of great feats, wacky achievements, world record breaking acts. 

It really is right up my street, including strange taxidermy. 

If you love the weird and wonderful, it's definitely worth a visit. You'll spend a good 90 mins winding your way through the many floors and galleries, even if you don't read about every exhibit.  

Kids will love the museum more than perhaps a 'boring grown up' art gallery. There are exhibits you can interact with and play with along your journey, as well as top class photo opportunities. And unlike many London attractions you can take your own photos as you please; you don't have to pay £15 at the end to get a nice picture.

There are a couple of ways to avoid paying full price for your Ripley's ticket. The first is a 2 for 1 deal via Days Out Guide. To claim you just need a valid train ticket for that day. That site is well worth bookmarking as they have handfuls of similar deals for London attractions, discounts on restaurants etc.

This site has a similar good deal for tickets at only £11.50 each, rather than the £27.99 price quoted online for an adult ticket.

So it's really up to what's cheapest on the day. If you walk straight into Ripley's you can check the current ticket price, and see which deal is going to be best for you.  The latter deal doesn't even require printing, you can show them it on your phone to get the £11.50 tickets.

It really is worth paying for if you're like me and just love weird stuff. I think my most excited moment was seeing the 'blue & black or white & gold' dress, the internet famous frock right before my eyes. Now that's culture.

Family Friendly London #4- Kidzania: The Educational Mini-Amusement Park That's 60 Days Out All At Once

You may or may not know that Smix absolutely loves planes, commercial planes especially. So having already visited London Transport Museum & the Science Museum on previous trips to the capital, I had been Googling other aviation attractions before our most recent trip.  

I came across Kidzania, an educational attraction located in the giant Westfield mall at Shepherd's Bush. It's tricky to describe what Kidzania is to those who haven't seen it. It's part education yes, but also like a mini amusement park. Kids can train and work at sixty different jobs and professions. Each activity is almost like a little day out by itself.  There are several Kidzanias around the world, including Dubai, which is a really good watermark for what this attraction is- it's the Dubai of kids' days out.

Its really best to just show you- so here is a video I put together that can help explain what Kidzania actually is.  There are clips from our visit plus footage from the Kidzania UK YouTube page.

So you can book tickets online, or at Westfield. Kids over 8 can enter by themselves, under 8 will need an adult with them. You have four hours of play. Tickets are around £24 for a child, £16 for an adult. This might sound steep, but considering an hour at a trampoline park cost £10 or more, and this is for four hours, it's pretty good, it's £5 an hour each.

And here's a little tip- you can get a buy one ticket get one free offer with a valid train ticket, or check online for a 20% off voucher code.

So what can you do in Kidzania? Its incredibly impressive, and easily worth the ticket price in my opinion. The interior is a miniature city, sort of like Main Street Disney, with little shops, hotels, a police station, hospital etc. When we walked through into the city our mouths literally dropped open, much to the amusement of the attendant, who said, "You guys must not have been here before!". 

There are sixty different jobs, and so sixty activities for kids to choose from. Most take 10-20 minutes each, so you would be able to visit Kidzania many times and still have a new adventure to discover. The whole area is the size of Leicester Square, and has two levels.

There are lots of real world companies to work for within the city. Be a chef in the Cadbury and make chocolate bars. Make a snack at Mission Deli Wrap and a fruit bar at the Natural Food Company Factory. Cook up a storm in the Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

Work as a fire fighter and ride the fire engine round the city, or be a surgeon and ride the ambulance.

Try your hand as Renault F1 pit crew, learn about being an Estate Agent with Hamptons. Get arty in the Pokemon Animation Studio, Painting Studio or Face Painting Pod. All these activities are included in entrance.

Kids can earn KidZos for doing certain jobs, like window washing, medical courier and hotel receptionist. When they have  75 KidZos they can open a bank account and get a debit card. Then when they get paid for other jobs they can have their salary paid straight onto their card. They can spend their KidZos in Kidzania's Department Store, or save them for the next visit.

Does your kid love performing? They can audition for a puppeteer or actor then put on a show for the parents in the Kidzania Theatre. The Dance Club has jobs like dancer, DJ and singer. There's a full TV studio to do various jobs in, and a Capital FM studio to broadcast from. 

If you love animals you can train as a vet. Keep the city safe as a Policeman or Policewoman. Design clothes in H&M, or sell them in their store. Be a hair stylist in Expression Beauty Salon.

It's impossible to show you everything, but you can explore yourself with the interactive tour which works like Streetview. 

 For Smix, it was always going to be all about the British Airways Aviation Academy. Located on the upper level it has two activities. You can train as a pilot and fly a real flight simulator, and then work as cabin crew. If you watch the video I made up above, you'll see Smix taking part in the safety demonstration.  

With most Kidzania activities, kids queue and wait their turn, then adults can watch from outside while they try out each job. With some professions, the adults get to join in. If your child is acting as cabin crew you get to come on board the plane interior and get served an inflight meal by your little ones. 

There are wonderful souvenir photos to buy at the end of your visit. Smix had the little pilot license card printed, which is £15 and includes a digital copy of the pilot photo. He was absolutely delighted with his pilot pass and bought a lanyard to wear it. I don't think he's ever going to take it off! 

We loved Kidzania, and with so much to do I'm sure we will have a return visit on another of our London trips. Thanks to Kidzania for letting us come along to review our visit. There really isn't anywhere like this in Northern Ireland, so if you get the chance to visit with your children, you'll be sure to love it too.

Family Friendly London #2 The London Transport Museum

Tucked in a corner of the vibrant Covent Garden square, nestles the  London Transport Museum.

I have an Underground crazy nine year old, so on our last trip we made a point to devote a couple of hours to visiting this museum, after visiting the Natural History  & Science ones previously.

The location is very simple to find, and within minutes walking distance from Covent Garden tube station. It's also only a short walk from Leicester Square, so if you are approaching from the tourist hub of the theatre district, it's actually easier to walk above ground than go hop Underground stations from the Square to Covent Garden. 

There are also dozens of mini boutiques and cafes you may want to pop into along the way too. Covent Garden has a concentration of glorious little makeup stores of some of the more independent brands that don't show up in Department Stores. There's even a shop dedicated completely to The Moomins.

The Transport Museum has a small, modern, glass entrance pavilion, with a free to browse merchandice store and upstairs Cafe. You can then purchase tickets for the Museum on the day, or collect your prepaid online ones. 

Kids go absolutely free at this museum, adult London Transport Museum tickets are £17.50, but there are group discounts, concessions etc so click through to the website to see if you can take advantage of any of their offers. 

The museum is on several levels, all accessible by lift, and they layout is very easy to follow around. The displays are engaging and informative, with interactive portions so kids won't even notice they are being educated on the sly.  

Dotted throughout the whole museum are these card stampers. Each child will have their own card with numbers on it, to find and stamp as they pass through the exhibitions. The stamp cutter then chops their card into various different shapes, the same way a train or bus conductor would mark a ticket back in the day. 

Smix really enjoyed this game and it makes for a cute souvenir for the scrapbook back home. 

You'll learn the history of public and private transport in London from the early beginnings of the settlement, right through to the present day. 

The history of steam trains, with life size vintage carriages and even engines you can pop inside and pose for pictures in.

There are old London buses, with the history of the service within the city, as well as horse drawn carriages that used to be seen on the streets of 19th Century capital. 

Smix was most interested in the history of The London Underground, which the museum features heavily, so he was delighted.

The history of the various lines, how the tunnels were made,  the specs of the trains used, there was even a section on driver uniform and the different seat fabrics used for each train line's carriage (shown right). That was my favourite part- a capsule exhibition about the retro advertising campaigns was also a winner for me.

If you have young kids with you, even up to Smix's age, will enjoy the special play area on the main exhibition hall floor (see below).

They can drive a bus, ferry, train, or even work as the lost property in a mock up Underground Station. 

The interactive fun area gives Mums & Dads time to have a sit down & a coffee and snack, if you wish to. We were there mid-week, mid-summer & it was busy but by no means chaotic. Lots of tables & room to play. 

Smix stood for ages just watching this HUGE live map of locations of buses & tube trains over the city, very cool.

All in all, over the entire museum's exhibits we must have spent a good two hours there, but if you took time to read more of the displays and all the history you could easily spend twice that time. 

I would say with the kid entrance being free, if you are just paying for one adult then it's a fair price for a few hours of fun and entertainment in the centre of the city. 

Even the seating section outside the bathrooms (below) looks super cool, and we could have spent a fortune on Underground merch in the store. 

So a big thumbs up from us for the London Transport Museum. If your kids love trains, buses or The Underground it's a must-visit on your next day in the city.

Check out our review of the London Duck Tours for a family friendly London trip too!