Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
London
Reviewed by Dorothy White
Ripley's Believe It or Not! in London is 6 floors with over 700 weird and amazing exhibits.
Sunday morning my daughter, 10 year old granddaughter and myself were outside Ripley’s Believe it or Not just before 10am – the opening time! Ripley’s is just above Piccadilly Circus tube station, we used exit 4 so is very easy to get to.
We were first in the queue and quickly in the lift on our way up to Floor 5 where the visit started.
There are some really amazing exhibits, from dinosaurs to knitted cars, pictures made out of materials ranging from bottle tops to cigarette ash – how do they think of these things?
We had been warned we could miss out the dungeons as it could be disturbing for young children, just let a member of staff know. The 10 year old was sure she wanted to see the dungeons, so we didn’t say anything. She changed her mind once we had walked passed a couple of exhibits that made us all jump!
From one floor we could look down to the cafe on the floor below, the 10 year old wasn’t keen on the exhibits on this floor so we hurried through it and down to the cafe level. We were met by a member of staff who told us the Mirror Maze and Laser Race didn’t open until 11am, we had time to kill so opted for a hot drink.
We were soon joined by an excited group of children on a birthday treat. How many of them could pile on the scale to equal the weight of the world’s heaviest man? It would certainly take many the size of my granddaughter, how did she measure up to the world’s tallest man?
Drinks over we made our way through to the Mirror Maze which was downstairs. We were given plastic gloves to wear so as not to put fingerprints on the glass as we made our way round, unfortunately others had not always done so! We tried to follow the rule I am sure I had been told about finding the way out of a maze, but went round in circles so ended up following the 10 year old who quickly found the way out!
Back upstairs to the spinning tunnel – I was told there was a door to the side so I didn’t have to walk through it, but I did, with my eyes closed. I didn’t know they were going to take a photo whilst I was in there!”
Suddenly we were in the lift pressing level 0 for the last part of the tour, the Laser Race. We had to wait a few minutes in the gift shop as it still wasn’t open.
I decided not to do the Laser Race as it entailed crawling along the floor or jumping over laser beams, you could choose the level of difficulty. The 10 year old loved it, she and her mother activated so many beams I don’t think they would have made the leader board! My granddaughter decided to have a second go on her own with my ticket although we could have paid extra for a second go.
The doors from the Laser Race opened directly to the outside world, well via a flight of stairs. We asked about the dungeons, it turned out that was the part the 10 year old hadn’t liked and we had hurried through!
Before we knew it we were back at Piccadilly Circus!
We had all had a lovely morning, it was over much quicker than we had expected, but that could have been due to us being there very early and first through before the crowds started.
Rating: 4/5
For more information or to book tickets online and save 15% visit www.ripleyslondon.com
