Feb 2023 Half Term Trip – Day 3 Creswell Crags

(For all the pictures shown in this post, you can simply click on them to enlarge)

When did we visit:

We visited on a Friday in mid February. It was cloudy and very windy in the morning. The outdoor area was not crowded when we went for a walk. The museum was very quiet too. We got to explore the displays as long as we liked. But the guided tours were fully booked according to the receptionist.

What age is it best for:

From primary school age kids onwards.

The displays in the museum was very traditional with everything in the display boxes (which was understandable given the importance of the exhibits), and a bunch of descriptions next to it. You would really need to read the words to understand the displays. They might not look very appealing to young kids, at least J was not too interested in them.

On the lower floor there is a very small area of activities which kids can get their hands on them. There is a small pretend sandpit where you can pretend to be an archaeologist and use the rakes and brushes provided to “discover” what’s hidden underneath. There is a microscope with a bit of leaves and pine corns and shells for you to look at high magnifications. And a few other displays to touch and read about.

The guided tour that we joined is called Life in the Ice Age. Primary school kids would be suitable and understand the contents. The guide brought us to the Robin Hood Cave and talked about, well, life in the Ice Age. She showed us pictures from her iPad, and some replicas of the tools which she passed around and we can touch. In my opinion, 2/3 of the things she talked about could be done anywhere without us being physically inside the cave. There was not much info really related to the cave itself.

J enjoyed it much more compared to the museum and I was glad to have joined it because that was the only highlight of the day.

How long we spent at the venue?

We arrived at 11am and left at around 4pm.

The museum itself is very small. I would say it’s a 30 minutes visit if you take your time and study the exhibitions in the museum.

You can take a walk around the lake outside, which is around 30 minutes.

The guided tour was 1 hour and a bit.

What else are there to see or do?

• You can pay to join the bird trails or the bird feeder making (see pic below)
• There is a very small outdoor playground.
• You can walk further uphill which seems to be a popular walking trail as we were groups of people doing it on the day we visited.

Things that definitely worth to see or do:

• Join the guided tour. We joined one of them, called Life in the Ice Age. There are a few others too. I do recommend book your places in advance. I booked mine 3 weeks ago. There were only the 3 of us. All the other tours were empty. 1 week ago before our visit I checked it was still the 3 of us only. The other tours had a few places booked. On the day we visited I wanted to see if we can move up a time slot so we can leave earlier. But the receptionist told me it was completely fully booked!! I was surprised! She said people tend to book the last minute.

Disappointments:

No disappointments. It was just the museum and the exhibition were boring to us. The way they displayed it made them boring and not attractive to kids and adults in my opinion.

Any extra charges once I’m there?

Entry fee to the Museum Exhibition can be found in here , which is included in the tickets that I booked for the guided tour.

Other things you need to know before you go:

Highly recommend booking in advance if you would like to join the guided tour(s). If I were to come here again I would book Life in the Ice Age in the early time slot e.g. at 11am or 12:30pm , and the Witch Marks in the afternoon at 3pm, so to get the most of it while I am here.

The cave can be slippery (like on the day we visited), please read their “essential info” page for more info before deciding.

Will I recommend it as a family attraction?

Based on my experience I would recommend it as a family attraction only if you have primary school kids or older kids and that you joined at least one of the tours. It’s a short visit, less than half day is more than enough (unless you decided to go for 2 guided tours or a longer walk outdoor).

I don’t think it’s suitable for younger kids unless you do a lot of talking and explanation. I don’t think they would find it interesting.

Just visiting the museum itself is too boring for us, as explained earlier.

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Here are some pictures of the day and descriptions.

The outdoor scenery:

All caves are barred:

We tried walking uphill like the other people but decided not to go further as we were not sure where it will leads us to, we had to be ready before the 2pm guided tour.

Inside the museum, this interactive sandbox is the one and the only one thing that we found interesting and fun:

J getting ready for the guided tour:

Inside the Robin Hood Cave: