I am a bit of a train geek. I am blaming this on the fact that I have two boys and the eldest has always loved trains. On Saturday we headed over to the National Railway Museum at York for the launch of Santa’a Christmas Steam Adventure, and we loved every minute!
The museum itself we have visited many times and Kieran has also been with school. It is free to enter and there is so much to see and do! More details on the NRM can be found here.
On arrival to the special festive event we were cheerfully greeted and shown into the festive area (for ticket holders only) where we could see a whole array of festive delights!
Our tickets were for 12.45pm and at 12.40pm we were ushered onto the Santa Express. Kieran was agog! A train AND Santa? Surely it doesn’t get any better than this? The children were all invited to take one of the cushions and warm blankets that were dotted around and get snuggled up and comfy. The storytelling began and the storyteller had a fantastic knack of capturing the children’s imagination and keeping them involved as the story progressed.
I won’t tell you much more about this because I really don’t want to spoil the surprise, but Santa did arrive and everyone was given an age appropriate gift by the wide-eyed man in red! The tickets for this event are £7.50 for a child and £5 for an adult (which includes a mince pie and hot drink in the cafe) and it is worth every penny. The gift that Kieran received from Santa was worth more than the ticket price alone, no “tat” like you sometimes see at various grottos and the like.
Santa’s Christmas Steam Adventure runs literally right up until Christmas, see below for details and visit here to book.
Dates and times
- November 19, 20
- November 26, 27
- December 3, 4
- December 10, 11
- December 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
Times are 10:30, 11:15, 12:00, 12:45, 13:45, 14:30, 15:15, 16:00.
This was a fantastic way to spend the day and Kieran is still talking about it. This is the first time Santa has visited the NRM for a long time and seeing as he has already been a bit hit, I hope we can see him next year too!
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*We were offered free tickets to this event in exchange for a write up of the first day of the event. This review is based purely on our experiences as a family and the NRM have had no influence over this. Neither has Santa.