To blanch at the cost of UK attractions

[Monket]

Thinking ahead to the summer holidays, entertaining a 4yo and 6yo (and newborn) in London, and everything is so expensive… I appreciate we can do some free activities, park/picnic etc, but I’d like to take them to some more attractions eg. the Aquarium, London Eye etc. The reviews of the Merlin passes are very poor, so not inclined to purchase one.

Aibu to think prices are crazy, and to ask for tips and tricks to get cheaper entry?

They are insane, we have just paid £150 for entry to two linked historical ones, not even ‘major’ obvious ones like Tower of London or anything.

For Merlin stuff you can use Tesco Clubcard vouchers. They have other days out on there as well. Not as good as it used to be but 2x is better than nothing.

I agree at some of the prices though. My daughter wants to go to the tower of London but the price plus travel costs are extortionate.

You're not wrong. I cannot fathom who the heck is affording those prices.

Sealife seems to have a multi pass thing where you can buy entry for up to 5 attractions, and visit within 90days of each other… I need to look at the details.

You are AIBU in that this is very well known.

The aquarium is very expensive I would like to take my children but cannot justify the cost of it!

We have annual passes for a couple of big attractions locally (not London) and go regularly to those so it works out much cheaper, especially as both let you take your own food.

For free things my 4yo loved Hamleys and the Diana Memorial playground.

You might find it cheaper to travel out of central London instead. At 4 and 6 they’d probably be happy with soft play/playground activities anyway. Mine would’ve run round an aquarium in about five minutes flat and been bored at that age!

Merlin passes are great if you live close to enough attractions and make use of them.

We tend to get passes to one or two attractions a year and then visit those places frequently. So Merlin or Zoo or kew or Royal palaces.

Or buy the sun for the sun super day and get free tickets. You've missed the aquarium and alton towers free tckets but chessington and others are still to come.

Better to go to museums and galleries. Also look up the many free events at South Bank, Canary Wharf, Battersea Power station - places like that.

For £110 you can get an annual pass for the Royal palaces (Hampton Court & tower of London) for two adults and six children. https://www.hrp.org.uk/membership/?utm_medium=paid_search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=membership&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwh4-wBhB3EiwAeJsppJD9h3QPF6Qyz3_mt9J4ovRFhLC0VAIiNfNkCpp1BgJDMTxmotsgrxoCJbQQAvD_BwE#gs.70jfww

You really have to watch out for offers. The main attractions are constantly doing offers of some kind. Even Tesco Clubcard points are a massive help. But there are also often 2 for 1 entry offers, etc. Merlin are well known for it.

They're just doing the usual "mug" pricing, i.e. charging a ridiculous amount for people who can afford it and don't care about the cost, but always having some kind of reduction/offers for those who can't. Just the same way that lots of chain restaurants are ridiculously expensive if you don't have coupons/vouchers, but can easily google for a money off voucher that are nearly always available online.

We've done loads of attractions over the years, including Blackpool Tower, Alton Towers, various Sea Life centres, Madam Tussauds, London Dungeon, etc., and never paid full price.

At the moment there are various 2 for 1 offers in the national rail website if you travel by train.

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/days-out-guide/days-out-in-great-britain/

We recently took our toddler to the London Aquarium by buying cereal that had a 2for1 Merlin offer on the box? Not sure if its still going (we bought the tickets in Jan to go in late Feb). Its still very expensive but if you have lot of adults (eg grandparents visiting etc), it saves a lot.

Sometimes National Rail has an offer as well, called Days Out or something? Basically if you buy an overground / national rail ticket, rather than using contactless, you can then get money off entry to some attractions. We live in zone 3 so took the train from an overground station instead of going by tube.

I don't think this is particularly new though. Mine are older now, but pre-COVID when we still went out to more of these things aimed at children, it was easily £60 for a family to get into a shitty children's farm around here (not London or home counties) for the day. Before factoring in lunch and paying for extras like rides and things not included in the entry. And that was like 2019.

There are still some fantastic free attractions though. And it's why something like a National Trust membership, as wanky as it may seem, is such good value. £12 a month for the 4 of us and we can get into whatever we want and free parking lots of places too. I know it's not Legoland, but it tends to not be busy and it makes for an interesting enough day out and enough variety.

This site is great - all you have to do to be eligible is travel by train, which is easy enough in London.

I used this to go to the aquarium.

I used a combination of Merlin Pass, NT pass (when the DC were younger), health club memberships that did activities for DC, various other memberships for example one year it was Leeds caste, another year Hever castle, meet friends in parks, early morning cinema.
When I used my Merlin pass in London we’d add on a park and a picnic so for example Madame Tussaud’s then Regents Park. Or we’d do a couple of attractions in the same day such as London Eye and Aquarium then maybe add on a look around Hamleys or a park. My DC used to carry their own lunch a couple of bottles of water or squash in a back pack so I wasn’t carrying loads of stuff, I’d just buy one latte.

Yes, most attraction are outrageously priced. However if you’re going to London there’s loads to do for free. We’ve done several London trips with small children without paying for any attractions. Natural History Museum, Science Museum, in fact most are free. As they’re free you can just pop in and see the bits small children would be interested in. Instead of London Eye try Skygarden or Horizon 22. My kids are happy just going to the Lego store!

I remember about 10yrs ago when my DC were mid teens, I had a week off over Easter and thought we could go on holiday. The prices of holidays were a bit crazy so we decided to stay at home and visit local attractions. We should have gone on holiday - it would have been cheaper!

Could you ask grandparents to gift something like this for birthdays or Xmas. I bought my DD, SiL and 2 DGC Bristol zoo passes for the year last Xmas. My DD takes the DC to see the animals a lot and even just after school to go to their lovely park and buy an ice cream some times. I agree attractions are expensive but as others have said look out for coupons in newspapers or on Kellogg's cornflakes boxes. I used to buy the cornflakes just to be able to post my DGC the vouchers. I think it was 2 for price of 1.

I think you have to bear in my mind how much it costs in the upkeep of these places. Anything involving animals/aquatic creatures are expensive because of the cost of looking after them. Historic buildings require a lot of maintenance etc plus they have to pay staff and I think if it wasn't for volunteers some of these places would have to close.

Second club card vouchers.

Modern day definition of 'more money than sense' is paying the on the gate price to get into 'an attraction'. There is almost always a way to do it cheaper, either as a one off, or with multiple visits for not much more than the price of a single visit.

Many museums in London are free and have special events in the school holidays
2 for 1 vouchers on cereal packets etc
NT or EH membership
Employers membership for many public sector occupations
If you google 'place discount' or look on Moneysaving Expert, you should be able to find ideas about how you can get into the places you mention for less.

Plus always take a picnic or eat before or after unless you like your food to be poor quality, expensive and at the end of a long queue.

We thought we could do chessington on a 241 recently, from the cereal box offer. Went to get the tickets and it’s only available for the walk up price on the day- not the pre booked price of £33pp. A walk up price is £66pp. So it’s not a BGOF, it comes out the same. Both those prices are for the off peak term times so would obviously be way more out of those times. I’m sure it didn’t used to be like that and you actually used to get a ticket free.

We go to Leeds Castle a lot. It's £75 for a family for the year. Also have EH and NT. perfect for kids at those ages. NT good for parking too - lots of beaches eg are NT land.

Agree it is very expensive but it always has been.

We always bring a picnic. I refuse to pay the overinflated prices for generally not great food.