London Transport Museum, Covent Garden, London

This is a great museum for kids and the exhibits are very interactive. The gift shop is worth a visit if just for their mugs-the tube ones! The location is well connected and there is plenty to keep a young mind engaged for a good couple of hours. I really do not think that you will regret visiting.

this is a great place to have a wonder around and discover the history of modern day transport and look in to what the future may hold. There are plenty of interactive activities to keep children and kids-at-heart adults amused. It is a great opportunity to see how transport has progressed and look at examples of old vehicles. They have special events of s keep an eye on the website for fun ideas for weekend activities. The location is incredibly convenient as you can find somewhere to eat, drink and shop in Covent Gardens after the exploration of transport.

Although cars and trains are not my cup of tea but it is also quite interesting to visit the London Transport Museum.

You can see London Buses, cars and trains in this museum. I give it a 3 star rating is not because of the museum. It is just not quite suitable to those not like cars very much, but if you love transport, it will be your place to go.

This is one of my favourite museums of all time. It is packed with transport from a hundred years ago to today. It has just re-opened and is better than ever. Take a look at the route master buses which have disappeared from our streets but are coming back, there are lots of interactive displays which you can really get into and the museum itself is quite large.

I especially enjoy the story of how the london underground map came to life and how it has evolved from what it was to what it is today. Great for kids and everyone!

A great museum for young and old. It will keep even young kids quite occupied as it’s very interactive - lots of things for them to push and pull. Allow plenty of time to get around - especially with kids - as there’s so much to cover.

First, the bad news: it’s not free, unlike seemingly every other museum in London. That’s the only draw-back though: everything else about this place oozes interest and engagement for both children and adults alike. Our two boys (aged 5 and 3) are train-mad and loved it. There’s plenty of chance for interactivity, be it steering an Underground train or playing a cool computer game. A card that needed to be stamped as you went round certainly helped hold their interest too. All in all, well worth a visit -- although if you’re on a shoestring there could be cheaper alternative days out.

This is a great place to take the kids to show them how transport use to be before all of this modern technology. Based in Covent Garden the museum is easy to get to and provides a pleasant day out. From taxis, to busses to the tube, they have it all. Even my girl friend enjoyed! You do have to pay to go in however the experience is worth it. The set up of the displays are good and there is plenty to keep the mind occupied when looking around. There are currently refurbishments taking place so I would recommend holding off to the summer 2009 to have a hassle free visit!

This museum is OK, but for a better understanding of car transport, you’d be far better off visiting the Motor Museum at Gaydon, Coventry.

The London Transport museum is good for families. Adults without children should try to see it on a weekday, as hoardes of people visit it at the weekends. It’s a nice museum, and lots of bells and whistles have been installed to make it “interactive” but I wouldn’t say you learn a large amount about London’s public transport system there. It’s also terribly expensive. But the gift shop is fantastic, and I find myself going back all the time for presents!

This museum is in a very easy to reach location in Covent Garden. It has an excellent exhibition on London’s public transport from as far back as horse-drawn carriages. It’s cheaper than many other London attractions and even London public transport itself. It only costs £10 per adult and kids go free.
There are a lot of interactive activities for children and it serves as a great way to spend an hour or two. The museum has recently been refurbished to a much more pleasing entrance. There is also a gift shop which sells a lot of interesting items for good value.

i have been here very intriging but it is not for a whole day out as there is not many form s of transport to look over but the museum does back onto the canal and for a small fee you can take a canal boat ride it is good but will not suffice someone for a day trip. inside there is rooms eached filled with a piece or form of transport that was used or is still in use in london

Well hmmm…I hate sound the duff note in a ringing chorus of approval but we just visited the new refurb last week and I wasn’t hugely impressed. My son and I used to go a lot when he was 4-7, now he’s 12 and admittedly a bit over the whole museum thing.

I’m glad the mess of the old entrance is gone, and the place is much more tidily organised with the time travel motif down the floors. There is a lot of info for those who are interested, with easily scannable and great quotes for those of us just browsing (or chasing a toddler). Plus now although the entry charge for adults is up to £8, kids under 16 are free. That’s the good side.

On the down side: a lot of the interactives, both mechanical and screen-based, were not working - not a good sign so soon after the re-opening. We visited on a fairly light day and it was still very difficult to get on to the simulators which were working. Although much attention has been paid to crowd control at the entrance none seems to have been given to what they should have known would be popular activities. Keeping up maintenance of what’s there would have helped at least. It’s a terrible let-down especially when you’ve paid to be there.

It also would have helped greatly, I feel, to have more people working in the exhibition hall, both the counter-act the automatic button-pushing I saw with some focus on content, or to gently move kids off the popular things when necessary. Maybe this happens at weekends - I hope so, otherwise the place would be a complete misery.

I also found the explanation screens difficult to both understand and use - and I’m fairly computer literate. Often I found the information there would have been far easier to look at in a booklet - or perhaps if the screen sensation was of turning pages.

The other disappointing aspect was the whole finale of the museum, where the 'Future’ is displayed. This part of the museum was especially confusing, crowded with prototypes that corporate sponsors are working on which felt more like advertising than information, and some already out-dated info about LT’s plans. There was a display of dummies on bikes but nothing said about cycling or its future in London.

Or was there some animated map of cycle routes I stared at for a few minutes? Honestly by the time I left I was a bit dizzy with it all. In a way the last part felt a bit sad, as though what was once a proud and unified public service has devolved back into the mess of private interests it was before the early part of the 20th century.

Oh yeah, that is what happened.

I absolutely loved the newly refurbished London Transport Museum. It’s very well done and excellent for both kids and adults. A fascinating look at transport history, you can climb in old Tube cars, see old trains and also get a feel for the future of TfL. I wouldn’t advise going on a weekend, as the place does get overrun with kids wrecking the place (and hogging the simulator!) and making noise. Some of the exhibits could do with being slightly more interactive, but the totally AWESOME gift shop full of paraphenalia makes up for it all.

This was my first visit to the newly-refurbished museum, and I was really pleased to find that my old favourites were there alongside new features. The visit starts well with a lift ride up to the second floor: instead of the levels going up, the lift display shows the years rolling back to 1800, a really nice touch.

The horse-drawn omnibuses and sedan chair are still there; as you descend through the building and move forward in time, there are trams, trolley-buses, the Routemaster, tube carriages through the ages… You can still try driving a tube train, enjoy the old posters and changing tube maps, take in a temporary exhibition…

Added to all this are new items, extra information, and computer displays. The latter weren’t as easy to use as they might have been, and I’m not convinced that they added a great deal. At some point the ground floor started to feel a little frenetic and it was almost a relief to leave. Somehow, the sense of focus was a little lost along the way as vehicles had traditional display boards, quotations from workers, computer displays, mannequins, artefacts and sounds all vying for attention.

However, overall this is a brilliant way to explore the city’s history, and you can always disregard the (literal) bells and whistles and just enjoy the vehicles, photos and artefacts. Oh, and don’t forget to stamp your ticket as you go around: there are 13 stamps to collect, and adults were definitely enjoying them at least as much as the children!

Finally, beware of the shop and cafe. The shop has lots of lovely stuff, but the museum’s own products are expensive. The cafe is ridiculously pricy if you have food: I was told that the £8.50 burger didn’t include any sides, not even chips!

I confess I have not yet been since the reopening, except to browse in the shop. But many years ago we had a family pass and as we lived nearby in Covent Garden I used to take my then toddler brother every week to play on the trams and buses. The most exciting exhibits then were the model of the new Docklands Light Railway (“look! NO DRIVER!!!”), and the simulated tube-driver experience, which might become more popular with the new film about the tube driver coming out now. I love the smell of the old bus and train seats, the ting of the old bells, the cranky old ticket machines. I am also a fan of the old advertising posters and miniture street signs on sale in the shop. My little brother is now big and thinking of looking there for his first summer job because he remembers it as providing some of the happiest days of his childhood. If only I could afford it I’d go there lots and lots. It is free to freedom pass holders and children - worth noting for grandparents taking grandchildren on outings. I have just looked at the website and see that they now host some pretty eccentric and interesting events (“art deco train” ride, Vivienne Westwood’s manifesto against propaganda…?).