During a day trip to London recently I came across the well known 'Madame Tussauds' along Marylebone Road. Madame Tussauds is a popular tourist attraction in London and I had never visited it. I was with my Dad and sisters and they too seemed quite interested in the attraction so we all visited...
WHAT IS MADAME TUSSAUDS?
Madame Tussauds is a museum where visitors can socialise with their famous idols, stars and heroes, the only thing is though all the people who are infact models are made of wax! All the models are amazingly life like and they are a real pleasure to see.
There is a lot of history behind Madame Tussauds. She is an actual person that was born in the year 1761 in Stasburg, her name being Marie Grosholtz. She enjoyed art and designed wax portraits. She was however imprisoned with her mother during the French revolution. Marie made an exhibition of her wax portraits and then in 1795 Marie married Francios
Tussaud. In 1802 Madame Tussaud took her exhibition on tour in the British Isles. Later on in 1850 she died and her grandsons moved her exhibtion to the current site in Marylebone Rd, London 34 years later. In 1925 there was a fire and many of the portraits were lost, a bomb in later years also destroyed many more wax head models, but the London Madame Tussauds has since developed and now it is how it is today. There are also Madame Tussauds in over countries and there are now over 100models in the world today, Miss Madame Tussaud really made a name for herself!
THE PLACE ITSELF
To visit the museum there are various costs throughout each day, I visited during the day without pre-booked tickets so we had to queue for at least 1 and a half hours! However the later you got in. the cheaper the tickets were for everyone. Here are the general prices though, all prices revolve around these:
Adult - £13.95 Child - £9.50 Senior - £10.80
Once you have queued or handed in your pre-booked tickets the fun begins! You get inside a lift and zoom down to the garden party...
The first room is quite big and you are introduced to many well known people. The room is throwing a garden party and many people are present such as, Barbara Windsor, Pierce Brosnan, Graham Norton, Geri Halliwel and Chris Tarrant.
The next room appears to be dedicated to sport. It is a lot smaller than the garden party but David Beckham, Sven Goran-Eriksson, Eric Cantona and Muhammed Ali are all present.
The next room is the 'NEW' room, the NEW Kylie Fever room, yes the young madam has a whole room dedicated to herself! This has been well publicised this year but it isn't much I can assure you! It is by far the smallest room in the building and contains a half naked model of Kylie which looks a bit silly because there is so much wax showing, her body becomes shiny and less life like. Personally I think the model isn't even that much like Kylie!? But thats my opinion. The Kylie model is infact interactive and when you get near, she will talk to you. This room is only open until 7th September so I don't know what it will be after then. The room also features top male pole dancers which are great to watch.
The following room is bigger and more interesting. It is called the Premiere night and features many well known actors and acresses. We have Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Samuel Jackson, and of cause Marilyn Munroe.
Next we have the Grand Hall. This is an exceptionnally large room and has the royal family in it. You can have your picture taken with the family but I'm not sure if there is a charge for this. This room also contains JF Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Henry VIII and of cause Princess Diana.
Now you are coming towards the end of the tour and you go down several flights of stairs to the chamber of horrors. Here you have famous criminals and evil people and I think it was quite scary! You may know Vlad the Impaler, Jack The Ripper and George Joseph Smith, they are all down here along with around another 15 criminals.
Well that is the whole tour but you are offered a complimentary train ride to sum up all of Britains past, this was enjoyable and a nice end to the museum. You can then also go on the London Planetarium if you are interested, this does cost more and we didn't visit it so I can't really say much there!
MY OPINION...
The place is amazing, it's had so much hard work and a lot of effort put into it. It has a full history and over the years Madame Tussaud has become more and more well known, even internationally now. This place is really worth a vist, it is worth the money and you will enjoy yourself! If you're ever in london and you've got some free time, you know where to go and what to do!
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Pre-Book Tickets 2. Take A Camera 3. Go After 5 If Possible To Save Money
OVERALL RATING: 8/10
Place: Marylebone Rd London Phone: 020 7935 6861 Hours Open: M -F: 10am-5:30pm / Sat: 9:30am-5:30pm / Sun 9:30am-5:30pm Costs: Adult - £13.95 Child - £9.50 Senior - £10.80
It's quite hard to find the website for Madame Tussauds but if you use this exact link it should send you in the right direction:
We had friends round last night and were looking through photo albums and my husband turned round in front of everyone and said 'when did you meet Chris Evans' I was sitting on the bench at the Chris Evans wax work and my husband thought it was the real macoy! Excellent day out. Cheers Zoe :O)
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Advantages: Indoors, quite a lot to see Disadvantages: It is a walk-through place, so not a place for little kids who might be overcome by the need to touch
Aug 18th, 2002
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