Review: Madame Tussaud’s Blackpool with the Family

I’ve never had any particular desire to visit a wax museum, I’ll be honest. I’m not really into celebrities, TV shows or popular culture at all and neither is my husband (as proven by the fact he asked “What’s the Rover’s return?” in confusion at the ticket girl who asked if we wanted to buy a voucher for a pint there, and then asked me later, “What’s Coronation Street?”). It was only because we had tickets to Madame Tussaud’s included in our Blackpool Resort Pass that we thought – why not? Considering entry was included and we were literally walking past it to go to Blackpool Tower and the Sea Life Blackpool, we might as well spend 5 minutes in there and check it out, right?

We were accompanied by our toddler, who is very easily bored and I didn’t think would get much from a wax museum. It was actually quite interesting to see how he reacted to the figures. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of them and definitely thought they were real at first. He got more confident as we made our way through.

The museum is laid out across multiple floors. Whilst there is a lift for those who need it, it’s quite small and needs to be manually activated by a staff member. I’d recommend leaving the pushchair in the buggy park and carrying or baby wearing if you’ve got little ones who aren’t mobile.

Having never been to a wax museum I wasn’t sure how realistic things would be – but it’s really impressive when you see them up close. They are incredibly detailed and realistic, and really give you an insight into how these celebrities would look standing up close. I was constantly surprised at peoples heights, some were taller and some were way shorter than I thought from watching them on TV.

They’re all posed in ways that make great photos and this is a real opportunity to get tons of photos in really fun and unique ways, which I think is great for a family, there are also official photo stations where you can purchase photos taken against a green screen (we didn’t), as well as dress-up opportunities and interactive exhibits.

Another surprise was just how many different exhibits there were. You start in Strictly Come Dancing and move through Doctor Who, to have a photo opportunity with E.T. and sit next to David Attenborough! There’s quite a bit of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and a massive array of Sporting Heroes too. Our favourite was definitely the Marvel Superheroes section which is really well done – but William found a few of these quite scary.

We didn’t get much from the Coronation street section as we don’t watch it, but a surprising amount of people were drinking a pint in the Rover’s Return at 11am on a weekday morning!

We loved the music section (William go to play the drums) which features lots of iconic musicians and opportunities for photo poses, and considering our son’s name is William, my husband couldn’t resist recreating this classic seaside postcard…

Overall we ended up spending about 90 minutes here and could easily have spent twice that long if we’d been taking our time and getting lots of poses. It was really good exercise for the toddler and very stimulating for him – he really enjoyed it and so did we!

I’d definitely recommend Madame Tussaud’s Blackpool for the whole family, even if you’re not into the things on the main displays.