# Tell Me About Madame Tussauds **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123 "2011-02-12T13:48:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/21 "2011-02-14T18:45:00Z")
I’ve been to the London one twice - once in the 70s & once in the 80s. Enjoyed it both times. I don’t remember the prices, so it can’t have seemed too bad. One time there was a “Dr Who” exhibition & there was a Dalek going “exterminate, exterminate” at a group of bewildered Asian tourists. I wish I had a photo of that moment. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/22 "2011-02-14T18:50:05Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > When I was a locksmith we once had to do some work at Madame Tussauds (while it was closed) and being a couple of wise-ass twenty-somethings **we of course took the opportunity of being left alone in there to take a bunch of humorous photos of ourselves with the celebrity figures in provocative and compromising positions**. As far as I can tell that’s really the only fun to be had there, and of course as a paying guest during operating hours you won’t get the opportunity to do that anyway. So I say don’t waste your time or money. Dare I ask. ---
**Author:** ![A.Gwilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@A.Gwilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.Gwilliam)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/23 "2011-02-14T19:52:48Z")
> [@maplekiwi](#): > > I’ve been to the London one twice - once in the 70s & once in the 80s. Enjoyed it both times. I don’t remember the prices, so it can’t have seemed too bad. According to their website, current admission is £25.92 for an adult, £22.14 for a child, and £89.10 for a family. :eek::eek: If you buy the family ticket you get a free guidebook. :rolleyes: Oh, wait… those tickets are at a discount for buying in advance. If you just turn up and buy 'em, they’re £28.80, £24.60, and £99.00 respectively!! I advise any USAers to sit down first before doing the currency conversions. > [@](#): > > One time there was a “Dr Who” exhibition & there was a Dalek going “exterminate, exterminate” at a group of bewildered Asian tourists. I wish I had a photo of that moment. 😛 Heh! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/24 "2011-02-14T20:06:01Z")
Wow. It definitely can’t have been the 70s & 80s equivalent of that! (& the conversion rate from the NZ dollar would be far worse :eek: ) I also remember going to an attraction in the 80s which had some of the stuff not currently used in London on display. That was very odd, seeing all these shelves of waxwork heads. I thought it was Wookey Hole but there is nothing on there website. Anyone recognise this? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/25 "2011-02-14T20:43:27Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > It’s well worth it. > > If you’re still 8 years old. > > And it’s still 1972. Wrong!!! The London Tussaud’s was definitely the BEST part of our vacation! Take my word for it… I know, because I was there…and it wasn’t 1972 and I wasn’t 8 yrs old. It was 1971 and I was 9. ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/26 "2011-02-14T21:45:24Z")
I also have a feeling that on the 80s visit that you could get a cheaper ticket if you skipped the Chamber of Horrors section. ---
**Author:** ![maisoui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@maisoui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maisoui)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/27 "2011-02-15T01:50:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Although Madame Tussaud’s has branched out ( [Madame Tussauds - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Tussauds) ), many of the Tussaud’s wax museums elsewhere are Louis Tussaud’s museums, run by the same folks who run the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museums. See my post #7 above. Is Madame Tussaud’s paying you, or something? :dubious: 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/28 "2011-02-15T02:54:39Z")
Two of my favorite pictures of our trip to DC: 1) the boys next to JFK & Jackie 2) Me giving the finger to Dubbya. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/29 "2011-02-15T12:40:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Is Madame Tussaud’s paying you, or something? Naah. I’m just a servant of the God of Nitpick. ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/30 "2011-02-15T13:16:05Z")
I went in the 80’s when I was about 13 and thought it was a truly bizarre thing. For a start, the queues were horrendous. I expect with online booking, this has improved but back then you queued around the block. Once inside, I found it a split between the vaguely amusing with all the slightly out of date popstars and the genuinely shocking (to me) Chamber of Horrors. Which was, as Cal Meacham, also found, recreations of various real life murders. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. To this day, gazing at the recreation of one of the rooms in 10 Rillington Place, complete with body sticking out of kitchen cupboard, is one of those things that I genuinely sometimes wonder if I just imagined. The tackiest thing ever. Do they still DO this? Is the 10 Rillington Place set still there? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/31 "2011-02-16T02:28:12Z")
There aren’t any queues at all for the one in Bangkok. It’s on the sixth floor of a shopping center. On the second floor – or first floor for you Brits – we were eating in Outback recently and sat by the window overlooking the Madame Tussauds counter, which is on the ground floor. There’s an elevator there that will take you straight up to it. Staff will try to rope in anyone passing by, as it’s right next to the front entrance to the mall. They seemed to be doing okay roping people in, but there still weren’t all that many. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/32 "2011-02-19T10:15:15Z")
Hmmm. Madame Tussauds may be getting a little desperate. I mentioned the distinct lack of a queue at the Bangkok location. Now in Friday’s newspaper, I saw they’re offering a special price of 350 baht (US$11.50) for Thais and expats, discounted from the normal price of 800 baht. Less than half off. On top of that, there’s a joint package for here and a nearby aquarium called [Siam Ocean World](http://www.siamoceanworld.co.th/) for 600 baht (US$19.75.) The aquarium is actually not bad, but we’ve only been once, as farangs like me pay 900 baht (like most attractions, it’s cheaper for Thais). It was okay. But even with the discount, we just don’t seem interested in Madame Tussauds. As the aquarium will be having some penguin chicks hatching soon, we might go back there. If we could pay for the package without being shoved into the elevator for Madame Tussadus, that could work out well. We’re simply not interested in Madame Tussauds. Meanwhile, Louis Tussauds in Pattaya last week, in a Valentine’s Day stunt, set a [new world record for longest continuous kiss](http://www.examiner.com/strange-news-in-national/and-the-winner-of-the-world-s-longest-kiss-is) – 46 hours and 24 minutes. They’e still checking to make sure the winners weren’t mannequins. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/33 "2011-02-19T19:36:14Z")
Tell me, waxworks aficionados, do you think they have raised their game in recent years? I ask because my only exposure to these things is when there’s a story about how some celebrity now has a figure in Madame Tussauds. But when Cameron Diaz was added recently, I was struck from the photos how the waxwork actually is quite convincingly like her. For a moment when I saw [this](http://www.life.com/image/79830295) photo, I wasn’t sure whether they’d flown in the real Ms. Diaz for a publicity stunt. [Here’s](http://www.life.com/image/79830287) a close-up, in which the waxiness is a little more apparent, but still, it’s a damn good job. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/34 "2011-02-19T20:21:06Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Tell me, waxworks aficionados, do you think they have raised their game in recent years? I ask because my only exposure to these things is when there’s a story about how some celebrity now has a figure in Madame Tussauds. But when Cameron Diaz was added recently, I was struck from the photos how the waxwork actually is quite convincingly like her. For a moment when I saw [this](http://www.life.com/image/79830295) photo, I wasn’t sure whether they’d flown in the real Ms. Diaz for a publicity stunt. [Here’s](http://www.life.com/image/79830287) a close-up, in which the waxiness is a little more apparent, but still, it’s a damn good job. The ones at Madame Tussauds in London have been technically impressive for years (at least since I was a kid), just not very interesting - in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/35 "2011-02-19T20:46:50Z")
OK. I just have a vague memory of going to Mme. Tussauds on a school trip and being underwhelmed by the models. Beyond the fact that they were quite obviously made of wax and various other inanimate material, the likenesses were so bad that it became a game to guess who they were supposed to be. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123/36 "2011-02-19T20:50:08Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > OK. I just have a vague memory of going to Mme. Tussauds on a school trip and being underwhelmed by the models. Beyond the fact that they were quite obviously made of wax and various other inanimate material, the likenesses were so bad that it became a game to guess who they were supposed to be. Maybe I’m overestimating how long they’ve been so good for. There is still the occasional duffer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-madame-tussauds/571123.md?page=1)