See Santa at London Transport Museum

If you’re looking for a last-minute visit to see Father Christmas, or want a trip out over the holidays, then head on over to see Santa at London Transport Museum.

We were given tickets to visit Father Christmas and check out this year’s seasonal offering and, as always, absolutely loved it.

Santa at London Transport Museum:

Where is it? The London Transport Museum is in the corner of Covent Garden Piazza, with a deceptively small entrance considering the museum is home to over 450,000 transport-related items, including trams, several buses and even tube trains.

Where’s Santa? You can pay a visit to Santa in his grotto (above) or find him wandering around the museum, looking for people to take festive transport selfies with.

Once Santa wonders back to his grotto, you can line up to have a chat with him – and all children get a badge.

This is the second year we’ve been now (which makes it a Christmas tradition, right?). I absolutely love the look and feel of the Santa area – it looks really, really magical and very special.

You can also take part in Christmas crafting in the room next to Santa; we made Christmas bunting – or more specifically, the adults sat and watched for hours as the children made Christmas bunting. This is all included in the price of the ticket.

What else is there to see at London Transport Museum? In short, loads – you could easily spend a whole day in the museum, minus Santa. We’ve been several times but there’s always something new to see.

For most part you can sit and climb up and in and out of the busses, trains and trams, and press buttons to your heart’s content (it never ceases to amaze me that for my children, who use public transport all the time, it’s still a novelty to sit on all the buses here).

There are also two brilliant transport-themed play areas, as well as a stamp trail for children which keeps everyone occupied for a long while:

There is also the new Hidden London exhibition, which is all about the secrets of London transport and all the things you might not know, with a really moving section about the people who sheltered in the tube during the war.

*Whispers* Is it interesting for adults, too? YES! I don’t know any adult that doesn’t have a love / hate relationship with London Transport, and there is so much here to see and find out that’s really fascinating, from all the historical facts through to the moquette sofa and all the amazingly-designed historical posters.

PS who doesn’t love sitting on trains and pressing buttons as a grown-up, either?

Where is there to eat at London Transport Museum? For a festive snack, although it’s in the middle of central London and surrounded by places to eat, it’s worth visiting Canteen, the newly revamped Transport Museum cafe (we were given a voucher for our meal). This is where you can eat train-shaped pasta and roundel cupcakes, among other things.

Compared to our previous visit here, there’s a lot more space now, and the vintage transport decorations look great, too. For a central London restaurant it’s also pretty reasonably priced. And you get a great view over into the gift shop (me: spying all the vintage posters I want to buy).

How long will there be Santa at London Transport Museum? Santa and the Christmas activities are there till 5th Jan, so there’s plenty of time to head over.

And finally...Although, unlike some of the big central London museums, it’s not free to get in – but did you know if you buy a ticket then you can come back free all year? Happy Christmas, indeed.

We were given free entrance to the museum and a meal in the restaurant for this post, more info on tickets is on the website. More great things to do in London…The Florence Nightingale Museum and the Horniman Museum