A couple of months ago I went to the London Planetarium as part of a 'two for one' Time Out splurge around London.
You can buy tickets for the Planetarium for around Ģ7.00 or so or buy them as a joint ticket with the Madame Toussards Exhibition next door. This works out a bit cheaper but you still need to remember to remortgage your house before setting out.
At half price, the family ticket for both was still around Ģ30 - if you see what I mean.
Anyway, I digress. Having cost around a third of the joint ticket price, I was not expecting hours of fun but perhaps just two hours, maybe.
The entrance lobby had a few interesting gadgets and interactive displays, but I remember thinking it wasn't anything special. For this reason, I was keen to move on into the main section.
Through to the next part, there were a couple of posters and a poor attempt at some interactive displays. A queue indicated that this was the waiting area for a show. We sat tight waiting for the doors to open to the auditorium.
We sat in total for about 45 minutes. The children were bored to tears and so were we!
At last we were led into the show. The seats were in a semi-circle and the film was shown projected into the ceiling - an impressive dome.
The almost 3D effects were very good and the 20 minute or so film was excellent. It may have been longer but time went quickly and I didn't check my watch.
The lights came on at the end and my faith in the Planetarium was restored - after the long wait and boring displays, I had really enjoyed the brief film. I was enlightened, and quite ready to explore the rest of the attraction.
The exit from the auditorium led us to the next room...
I was quite amazed. We had got the tickets at half price and slightly reduced for buying in conjunction with Madame Toussards, but it was still a huge rip off! Imagine if we'd paid full price for the Planetarium alone - it's certainly not a full day out!
My advice is leave well alone. If you have to go - wait for an offer and make sure you've got more things planned for that day - or you'll be sorely dissapointed!
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May 20th, 2002
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