Viking exhibition at the British Museum - ambitious with a 4yo?

[vladthedisorganised]

DD would love to go to London for her 4th birthday and I'm wondering about the British Museum. She's Viking-obsessed (thanks mainly to How to Train Your Dragon) and I know she'd like to see the longship that's currently on show at the Viking exhibition.

Trouble is, I have no idea what else they'll be showing. If it's a lot of spear heads and coins, I suspect I'd be paying a small fortune in order to run through the exhibition in five minutes, but if the exhibits aren't too dry I think she'd probably love it (our visit to a castle was surprisingly successful).

Seeing as it looks like it will be raining hard on her birthday, my alternative plans of the London Eye or the zoo aren't looking too promising. Is it worth risking the British Museum or am I better going straight for the dinosaurs - which she's less fussed about - at the Natural History museum?

I went a couple of weeks ago and there were some kids of that age there but as you say most of the exhibits are items in glass cases which take a fair bit of explaining. There is a kids trail type leaflet but it is up to the parents to explain/interpret everything and some parents were doing a great job! The long boat is basically a metal frame with a small amount of wood at the bottom and while impressive, it is not a boat as such.

Personally if outside school holidays I would go for the dinosaurs or the basement area of the science museum next door. (Assuming the interactive areas are still there).

Go to Dinosaurs, it's rather dull at the Vikings sadly.

It's very, very busy at The Vikings, but if you can go first thing in the morning during term time it'll probably be OK.

And you could pop up to the Sutton Hoo room too.

We went with DD, nearly 7, recently. She is very interested in history and normally ok with such exhibitions.

But, it took us 1 1/2 hours to go through it, they do a decent children audio guide and they give you a free trail. But the trail was useless, it was far too busy for DD to read the texts and find the items.

The longship, while impressive in size, is mainly the steel structure and some wooden parts. I can't remember how much wood has survived but it is a lot less than you would think from the photos and comments made in various shows and magazines about the exhibition.

For us, it was worth it. But I doubt DD would have survived it 3 years ago.

Did it with a just shy of five year old. We have picked what we did Abd took the advice of the museum lady - don't start at the beginning - go to longship and work back. My son is blood thirsty so frankly, mostly enjoyed the bones and skeletons. We also have a Viking sticker book so we referenced everything to his book.