kensington palace

i visited kensington palace this trip with a friend from work, jo. it is the second time i have been to the tour. the first time was about 7 years ago when i visited london with my aunt. i got to by walking through the gardens which were lovely.

the main reason for the "above average" (not outstanding) score is that the exhibits were all over the place. since this is a historic home, they can't exactly rip down doors and walls to create a more cohesive exhibit. that being said though, i felt like this was particularly bad. we had to repeat major parts of the exhibit to move on to the next part and lots of backtracking.

the first 5-7 rooms were about dressing for court. the first two showed styles from the early 1920s (some earlier) and the work it took to get ready for an event at court. the palace provided headsets to elaborate and provide more background on what we were looking at. these were helpful although i do prefer to read placards (since that can be faster). the next few rooms showed some of princess diana's gowns. they are quite beautiful. they had some video of her dancing with john travolta.

then, they had a special exhibit, "the last debutantes" about the 1958 season. they taught us how to curtsy, showed us what they wore and gave background on the political unrest of the period. unfortunately, this exhibit required lots of backtracking to enjoy every room. when the exhibit ended, it put you back at room #4 of the visit. you then scurried quite quickly through the rest of the rooms (including some of the special exhibit) to get to the next set of rooms.

the remainder of the time we spent in the palace, we looked at "old rooms" like queen victoria's bedroom. these rooms were recreated to look like how they had been once upon a time. some of them were quite spectacular. one annoying point: the brocheure and signs around the palace indictated no photography and video. in these rooms, people were snapping pictures left and right. i saw many people also video tapping. if the rule is going to be stated, i wish they would enforce it.

overall, very interesting content, but the museum is difficult to navigate.

times visited: 2
time spent in palace/gardens: 1 1/2 hrs
overall: B+

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