V&A museum - visit tips

[superking]

I'm taking my DDs (12 and 9) to the V&A tomorrow - first time for all of us - and looking for any visit tips. What are the must-sees? I'm hoping it will be less busy than the Science and Natural History Museums but any tips for avoiding long queues also welcome!

The fashion and historical costumes department is lovely.

I find the jewellery section very impressive, also a fun bit is the theatre section. Aboud the cafe at lunchtime (12-2) so go for early tea and sit in the main bit, its beautiful. I love the V&A, I always see something new!

https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/families

Apart from the exhibits, the café is probably one of the most beautiful in London with stunning mosaics on the walls and is well worth a visit

Cast Court on the ground floor. It has plaster casts of lots of sculptures, eg Michaelangelo's David (it's very big). Probably won't mean much to your DDs but at least you can say you've "seen" Michaelangelo's David without having to go to Florence.

I think the Fashion gallery is overrated.

I like the silver gallery because of the beautiful ceiling.

Theatre/Performance gallery probably good for tweens.

Go to the cafe early so you can get a table in the tiled rooms.

I like the ceramics galleries at the top, partly because a lot of it is so gloriously ugly.

Don’t try to see it all. Really enjoy a few parts.

Thanks all, really helpful.

My favourite museum.

I always love the fashion galleries, the performance (I dress up if it's not busy) and the jewellery. Dh loved the locks. Since seeing it on Blue Peter I always make sure I see Tipoos Tiger and I like the galleries around that area.

I have seen some amazing exhibitions there over the years. Not sure what is on right now but they are always great. One year I dragged dh around a history of hats - he started off resistant and bored and by the end was pulling me back to show me things.

Have a great time

Oh and yes to the cafe. It's lush

Just back and it was a huge hit. Incredibly quiet - we had entire galleries to ourselves at times which was a very welcome surprise. We spent over an hour in the theatre and performance gallery. We enjoyed the fashion and jewellery and Cast Court was just breathtaking. By far our best museum experience in London and I would highly recommend to anyone with similar aged children. Thanks again for the advice!

Also because it was so quiet we were able to really take in the grandeur of the building itself - again we were the only people on the grand staircases and my youngest enjoyed pretending to descend them like a princess!

Glad you had a good time. Thanks for coming back to update us!