Problem
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is Free, but there are three or four extra paid for acitvities you might like: the Aquarium lower ground; and the summer indoor activity, the Colour Exhibition lower ground, and the Butterfly Garden, in a Conservatory.
If you look carefully at the map at the entrance to the park, you can see that there's crazy golf outdoors in the park (in good weather in summer) which is up the hill. It costs about £8 for adults and about £6 for child.
Do you need these extra activities?
Answers
If you live nearby, you could start with the free activities, then go back another day for the paid ones.
Timing
However, if you have travelled some distance, as I did, or are short of time, you might want to make the most of your afternoon or day, having invested the time and money in travelling there. On a bright, sunny day, you might want to make good use of fine weather for outdoor photography.
The butterfly entry is timed to prevent overcrowding. As I stood at the ticket desk inside the main building, I initially decided to do the nearby big exhibitions first and postpone the short walk to the butterfly house to last.
Then I realised I would have to get there before it closed. I thought, I'll to it at the end of the day. But if I forgot or walked slowly, I risked missing it. Besides, I would have to constantly check my watch to be sure of not missing my slot. If you have paid for the butterfly house entry, you want to make sure you do that. You can come back to the free exhibits another time. So I decided to do the butterfly house first.
Tips For Your Trip
Cameras
Make sure you have a working camera on your working phone. If you take a lot of photos and videos, eg of yourself or the exhibits or your family and children or gandchildren in the park and butterfly house, you could find your phone dies. So make sure you taken another phone, or have the leads for connecting to a power supply to recharge, or pocket size recharger which costs only less than £35 online - and check it is charged by charging it and pressing the buttom which shows a blue light.
Timing your activities
I felt I could stay for hours in the butterfly house. The Butterfly house is very humid so ten minutes to half an hour is enough. You might also find that the humidity causes your camera to case to work. It might recover if you go outside again.
My camera died. I looked at everybody else taking photos.
I hesitated for a long time. Eventually I had the courage to ask another visitor to take a photo and send it to me. I took the precaution of giving them both my what's ap phone number and my email. As my phone wasn't working, I could not tell if it arrived. But I hear the whoosh. I checked the spelling of my email - which they got wrong the first time and we corrected.
Receipt and Address
I always keep my entry tickets. When you get home, if you want to tell somebody else about the outing, the address and phone number is on your ticket.
Horniman Museum and Gardens
100 London Road
London SE23 3PQ
Tel: 020 8699 1872.
Author Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please see my other posts and recommend them to your friends.
PS My phone and laptop have too many photos and the system has jammed. This will take a day or two for me to sort out, with the aid of family and helplines and website forums. Come back later for lovely pictures. Meanwhile look at my other posts and the websites of places I have described. See next posts for further descriptions of the Horniman Museum, Butterfly House and Aquarium.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is Free, but there are three or four extra paid for acitvities you might like: the Aquarium lower ground; and the summer indoor activity, the Colour Exhibition lower ground, and the Butterfly Garden, in a Conservatory.
If you look carefully at the map at the entrance to the park, you can see that there's crazy golf outdoors in the park (in good weather in summer) which is up the hill. It costs about £8 for adults and about £6 for child.
Do you need these extra activities?
Answers
If you live nearby, you could start with the free activities, then go back another day for the paid ones.
Timing
However, if you have travelled some distance, as I did, or are short of time, you might want to make the most of your afternoon or day, having invested the time and money in travelling there. On a bright, sunny day, you might want to make good use of fine weather for outdoor photography.
The butterfly entry is timed to prevent overcrowding. As I stood at the ticket desk inside the main building, I initially decided to do the nearby big exhibitions first and postpone the short walk to the butterfly house to last.
Then I realised I would have to get there before it closed. I thought, I'll to it at the end of the day. But if I forgot or walked slowly, I risked missing it. Besides, I would have to constantly check my watch to be sure of not missing my slot. If you have paid for the butterfly house entry, you want to make sure you do that. You can come back to the free exhibits another time. So I decided to do the butterfly house first.
Tips For Your Trip
Cameras
Make sure you have a working camera on your working phone. If you take a lot of photos and videos, eg of yourself or the exhibits or your family and children or gandchildren in the park and butterfly house, you could find your phone dies. So make sure you taken another phone, or have the leads for connecting to a power supply to recharge, or pocket size recharger which costs only less than £35 online - and check it is charged by charging it and pressing the buttom which shows a blue light.
Timing your activities
I felt I could stay for hours in the butterfly house. The Butterfly house is very humid so ten minutes to half an hour is enough. You might also find that the humidity causes your camera to case to work. It might recover if you go outside again.
My camera died. I looked at everybody else taking photos.
I hesitated for a long time. Eventually I had the courage to ask another visitor to take a photo and send it to me. I took the precaution of giving them both my what's ap phone number and my email. As my phone wasn't working, I could not tell if it arrived. But I hear the whoosh. I checked the spelling of my email - which they got wrong the first time and we corrected.
Receipt and Address
I always keep my entry tickets. When you get home, if you want to tell somebody else about the outing, the address and phone number is on your ticket.
Horniman Museum and Gardens
100 London Road
London SE23 3PQ
Tel: 020 8699 1872.
Author Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please see my other posts and recommend them to your friends.
PS My phone and laptop have too many photos and the system has jammed. This will take a day or two for me to sort out, with the aid of family and helplines and website forums. Come back later for lovely pictures. Meanwhile look at my other posts and the websites of places I have described. See next posts for further descriptions of the Horniman Museum, Butterfly House and Aquarium.
