Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

[BeccaBean]

Hi, please can anyone help me plan a day / day and a half at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard? We'll be arriving in Portsmouth at lunchtime and leaving the following day around 5/6pm. DD is 9 years old, loves history, boat trips, climbing around ships (we live in London and she loves HMS Belfast and Cutty Sark!). She's also a good walker.

Seems like there is way too much to do in that time - can anyone suggest an itinerary or priorities on a trip of this length?

Thanks!

I’ve been twice recently and have opinions!

Mary Rose - absolute must - need up to a couple of hours - the museum is structured around the wreck and then there is a short “4d” film about how they lifted it. 9 years is a perfect age

Submarine museum is much smaller but it’s a boat trip across the harbour from the main area and the boats aren’t that regular. Once you arrive you get a time slot to enter the submarine itself so can be a bit of a time sink.

HMS victory - definitely do the free audio tour - you get a little dongle that tells the story of a sea battle as you walk around scanning qr codes - maybe need about an hour - my kids are impatient so raced around quicker and didn’t listen to everything

HMS warrior - big boat to explore in your own time

The munitions museum is on a different site and we didn’t enjoy it as much.

The canteen at the main site has some vintage (maybe 1920-30s) arcade games at the back and my kids loved these. Standard National Trust/Museum level prices and food.

Hope this is helpful! The tickets are expensive but there is a lot to do

So worth the trip. My two love going but we are local so can get maximum use from the tickets. You will have a great time.

Hi @BeccaBean

We love the dockyards!

I think a day and a half is plenty of time to get round most things.
I'd leave out going over to Gosport, buy would do the Harbour boat trip.
Priorities have to be the Mary Rose, allow a good bit of time for this, apart from the ship itself, the artefacts are amazing.
Then HMS Warrier and Victory.
There are a lot of small museums which might be a bit dry for a 9 year old, though the one with the figure heads is good fun.
I think I'd do HMS Warrior and Victory on your half day. The boat trip and Mary Rose on your full day and then fit in which of the museums sound most appealing.

I'd also suggest you try and fit in the Spinnaker Tower. It's an amazing view of the city and harbour and you can watch the ferries coming in and out.

Have fun

Definitely Mary Rose, Victory and Warrior. I enjoyed the submarine museum, but I might not do it if limited time. The Harbour boat trip is good, if the weather is. The Royal Navy museum probably isn't so interesting to children, but if the weather's bad, the figureheads could be fun.

(I'm doing some voluntary stuff there later this month. This reminds me I must find out details of where I'm meant to go...)

One of my favourite places! Enjoy your trip.

Do as much of the little stuff on the first afternoon. Do Mary Rose and Victory first thing in the morning as soon as the gates open. MR first then Victory.
Do opt for the audio guides.

Thank you so much for all your detailed input! So lovely to hear so much positive feedback about the Dockyard and we now have some ideas about how we'll spend our time.

We had originally thought of daytripping from London before we realised we wouldn't cover much and it would be quite tiring. Glad we're staying overnight! We're going to get the Ultimate Explorer ticket so if we can't cover all the attractions, we could daytrip in the school summer holidays on the same ticket and see the rest.

We'd love to visit the submarine museum but sounds like that's one to park for another day and we'll visit Mary Rose, Victory and Warrior and also try do a harbour tour on this visit. We would also love to visit Spinnaker Tower.

Thanks again - really appreciate all the comments.

It's very expensive to eat at the Dockyard ( we are local but always take food.. plenty of places to sit and eat it). But also there are lots of places to eat at Gunwharf nearby. If you have time and it's a sunny day or evening do walk the sea walls to the round tower..
Harbour tour is great but extra cost and really only good if there are a lot of ships in ( one of the big aircraft carriers isn't there ATM)we really like the submarine museum. DGCs are fascinated by submarines but there is only one there to go on .
If you are driving and can fit it in . Portchester Castle at the top end of harbour is also really worth a visit .

There is way too much to do in a day but IIRC a ticket gives you 1 year of access so you can (and should) make 3 or four visits.

We got the ultimate tickets a couple of years ago. We were visiting mil in the area, and used Tesco clubcard vouchers to get them. We managed to do Warrior, Victory and Mary Rose all in one long day, which we really enjoyed. We then went separately to Gosport for the submarine museum the next day, spent a couple of hours there I think. Also really interesting but not as good as the first day. We went back with a few hours to kill on our way to the isle of wight ferry some months later and did the ww21 boat we'd missed first time, which wasn't that great if you need to miss one, not didn't take long. We also revisited Mary rose as that was so interesting first time and suited the rainy day.

We never got round to many of the exhibitions, play area etc or boat trip. I suppose we spent 2 long days there in total if you add it all together, but we did see Mary Rose twice.

Just seconding the fact that food in the dockyard isn’t great, but gunwharf is right next door and has loads of good places to eat. Gunwharf is also an outlet shopping village if you’re in the mood for some cheap crocs or havianas!

We used to have annual passes when the children were younger but now we have an Art Fund pass which allows access to lots of museums / galleries all over the country for a year. Portsmouth Dockyard is one of the included attractions so it is excellent value for money. Take a look and see if you would make use of it :)

Oh I did post a link but it hasn't appeared- I'm on train wifi. Try again.