Start at the desk, not the stairs. Our family backpacks — free with admission — hold a magnifier, a replica amulet to keep, and a trail map that turns five floors into a treasure hunt. The under-sevens trail takes about forty minutes; the explorer trail closer to ninety.
Head for the Learning Lab first. Weekend drop-in sessions run all day, and the touch tables let small hands lift real-weight replicas: a scarab, a shabti, a pot that survived four thousand years only to meet a four-year-old. Staff call it “controlled chaos”; children call it the best part.
Three stops that never fail
One, the Mummy Room balcony — peer down at the coffins, then whisper your name and hear it travel. Two, the Weighing of the Heart wall, where the feather always wins if you’ve been good. Three, the atrium café for hot chocolate, because archaeology is hungry work.
Under-12s always enter free, buggies are welcome in every lift, and the lane garden out back is made for running off the wiggles. Come on a pay-what-you-wish Friday and the whole day costs less than the ice creams.
