Discover Children's Story Centre

This is a wonderful place to take your child, with an expansive indoor and outdoor section for kids of all ages to play and explore. The staff were generally very nice and helpful HOWEVER we happened to visit on a day when they were running a story festival. The festival comprised storytelling sessions geared towards various age groups throughout the day. We were told that because the festival was running, we would have to pay £7 each rather than the £4.50 that they normally charge. We were fine with this until we found out that the sessions that suited our one-year-old were fully booked until a few hours later in the day. Obviously coming all that way to visit, we could not wait around ages with a one-year-old. We were annoyed at the system that required that you pay extra even if you could not realistically benefit from it.

The manager heard us out but seemed to imply it was our fault for not referring to the website before we set out. I had referred to the website a few weeks ago, checking the entry fee and did not see any mention of a different price on the price page of the site. I do not know of any other attraction or museum in London that charges more on a given day. Instead they operate a system, whereby you pay extra to attend. This seems a much fairer system, particularly as the manager told us we could have pre-booked (if we had known!) and given our experience I'm not sure we'll go back. While £4.50 a person is a perfectly reasonable price, £7 certainly is not! Sadly, despite it being a lovely time for us as a family, I don't think we'll be back as it has left a bit of a bad impression on us overall.