March 2024 by David Learner
Extraordinary. It's impossible not to be stirred by the stories here. Buy the yearlong ticket. Take the train.
March 2024 by Not Me Not Me
Is this museum worth it? That depends on what period of history you like. The museum was entirely focused on the old ships HMS Victorious (and the Battle of Trafalgar), the Mary Rose and HMS Warrior. However I was disappointed to find there?s almost nothing in the museum from WW1 and WW2 (no mention of the Battle of Jutland). And this place has nothing on marine engineering and technology. It doesn?t seem like a ?whole? Royal Navy museum as it doesn?t have the historical range and engineering teaching that other museums like the Imperial War Museum or Duxford Air Museum has. The harbour tour was worth it. It takes an entire day to walk around and see all the exhibits, I doubt it would be possible to do this museum and the Submarine Museum in the same day.
March 2024 by JL P
Prices as at 09/03/24.
March 2024 by Jak Ando
Quite simply the best museum.Okay, more detail? The initial ticket price seems high but once you're in you quickly realise it's easily worth the money.I only booked off enough time to spend 1 day there, I got there when the doors opened and the museum staff had to (very politely) ask me to leave at the end of the day. There just isn't enough time in the day to get it all done. HMS Warrior was truly the star of the show.Tickets are valid for a YEAR which meant I could come back and get everything done. I'm not the sort of person to read every bit of text and I didn't, but it still took 2 FULL DAYS to complete the Portsmouth side and the Gosport side. On the second visit I even missed out one of the boathouses and M.33 so you could easily be there longer if you wanted to do everything.11/10 will be going again
March 2024 by Lord Leonard Bast I
A mixed bag reallyFrom the top, there's lots of good stuff such as the old boats like the HMS winner and the warrier, and the mary rose was quite cool to see (especially how henry viii sunk it under his own weight)My flaws are that in the mary rose museum I ended up in a bit i wasnt supposed to and got lost for about an hour, had lots of bits and bobs in it i wasnt meant to see but i did get moaned at by a member of staff for that, also on the hms winner i am genuinely appauled about the fire safety, but its not really my problem unless im on the thing! I dont care if someone else doesnt make it. I saw someone having a smoke on on the ship and that couldve burnt the whole thing down!Staff were okay except from one named paul who was a bit annoying, has that face u wanna slapCool boats, lotta stuff to doAction stations FTWBuy in advance
March 2024 by Spirit
A tip if you will go here, purchase the season ticket so you are also able to go to the submarine museum and the explosion exclamation mark museum of naval firepower, or else your wallet will cry. I loved the ships here, shame there?s not a lot of things you can do at the dockyard apart from look at some old restored galleons, but there WAS one thing which was great. Action stations. When I was a child, that, honestly, was the only reason I liked it there. 2 things made me love action stations: first thing being the helicopter flying simulator, and second, the helicopter simulator experience movie. Sadly, the light helo experience has since been taken away, which destroys the most fun aspect of action stations. Also, the problem with the helicopter simulator is that personally I think there should be two. This is due to the fact that you are almost guaranteed to wait at least half a day to get on it, since there are usually queue hoggers. Other than that, it was a great museum, just go to all 3 in a day.
March 2024 by David
Perfect family day out. Ticket lasts a year
March 2024 by A L
All staff were knowledgeable and helpful in the exhibits and experiences. We loved the Mary Rose, victory, naval museum, and action stations. We ran out of time for the rest, but the tickets are valid for a year, so we will be back.The restaurant in shed 4 was expensive and disappointing, the cafes were OK, though. The gift shops were good and had some unique finds.
March 2024 by Falc
A good opportunity to delve into the history of the British Navy. We visited as part of a cruise stop in Southampton. Easily reachable on your own in 45 minutes by train. The museum really tries to vividly portray life on board during the different eras. Unfortunately far too expensive for a day visit. Yes, maintaining the rotting pots definitely costs a fortune, but the British state would then have to step in and financially secure the preservation of this important heritage and not leave it to the families who want to show their children something real instead of just watching them in front of the television to park. Unfortunately, around ?160 for a family is absurd, as there are travel costs etc. on top of that.
March 2024 by Wendy Peskett
Such a lot to see. You can't do it all in a day. Harbour boat trip, nice cafe areas with helpful staff, children's play area, the Mary Rose, The Warrior, Nelson's flagship.The staff at the pay desk were so helpful. One reminded us to use the blue charts discount which gave 30% off. That's a huge saving. So if you have a blue lights card DO NOT BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE. we were given the online price and the discount at the till do £50 tickets cost us £30 each.If you don't have this card, then to save £5 per person buying tickets in advance. These tickets last a year.The cafe area was reasonable prices and nice quality food and drinks.The historical actors onboard the ships were so interesting. They speak to to normally but they are keeping in character and telling to about things in their time period. At first it's not obvious then it clicks.Everywhere is well sign posted so it's easy to get around.Parking is fairly nearly, about 7 minutes walk and not bad price at 7.50 for up to 8 hours.The displays are interesting, the audio guides give to a lot of detail. The projected scenes on the Mary Rose are fantastic.It's a good day out.
March 2024 by StuJ Dodd
I cannot count the amount of times I have visited the Historic Dock Yard, from just a kid into adult life, it never fails to impress! There is more to see here then a single day will allow (providing you look at and read about it all in detail) and so to buy annual tickets is for sure worth while, giving you the chance to keep coming back and seeing more and more!Definitely worthwhile and even on a rainy day there is still plenty to see indoors! Great for all the family for sure!
February 2024 by Ian. Gosport, Hampshire UK
So much to see and get up close to....It was the half term school holidays so we took our 12 year old Grandson across the harbour to Portsmouth Dockyard.First point of call was the impressive HMS WARRIOR proudly sitting at the entrance to the dockyard as we walked up onto her deck you can't help but stare at the size of this 1860 built war ship-with loads of interesting levels to explore our Grandson (GS)was in his element (please note:there are some steep steps to negotiate).Then onto HMS VICTORY (1759)mention Portsmouth City to anybody and HMS VICTORY is the first thing they would normally associate with the city(She is a beauty) ..even with the essential repairs being carried out.With our audio device's in-hand we boarded her.At each highlighted audio point our handheld devices gave us information about the ship,the conditions on board or the battle that the crew were experiencing,very good addition from my last visit (please note:the deeper you go down the decks the lower the head room).The Mary Rose(1510) Museum yet again so much to see I will be here all day so I will try to keep it short just to say it's amazing- if you appreciate the efforts of raising this "wreck "from the sea bed and all the hard work that has been done and still is in keeping her preserved all housed in a modern museum then definitely give it a visit.There is loads more to see and do that I haven't mentioned you possibly won't be able to do it in a day.Our GS thought it was BRILLIANT!and we will return.
February 2024 by Iain Cautherley
Loved it going back soon
February 2024 by Oliver Goodwin
Great experience and so much to see, a great day out for all ages, very hard to squeeze everything in one day as there is alot to see
February 2024 by Michal Valent
We arrived to the Dockyard ten minutes earlier than it actually opened. We waited untill they opened the gate which was at 10am. The staff was very helpful with telling me all the details of what were all the tickets for because there were three tickets for particular places, we bought the yearly ticket that can be used to visit all of the buildings. Sadly the HMS Victory was in restoration so we couldn't see the whole ship from the outside but we could visit the inside and see how they were fixing it. There were gift shops EVERYWHERE. Every corner we turned there was either a small gift shop or a massive one. They even put a gift shop into one of the ships that we went into... But on the other hand it was a great experience, seeing what the ships looked like from the inside and even the crew acted like they were from the victoriana era which was a plus. The crew even showed us how the canons would have worked and how loud they would've been. It took us the nearly the whole day to the look through every single building. The restaurant in building no.4 was open but didn't serve food, only drinks. They also had a whole part dedicated to the Mary Rose. They had a 4D video about how they found the ship, they showed us how they got the part of the ship out of the water and in the beginning they started spraying bubbles to make it look real that we were going underwater, they also sprayed bubbles at the end when the video had finished. The building was quite large and we spent at least an hour and a half walking around looking at how life was like in the ship. There was also a harbour tour. We didn't need to show our tickets (like in most of the places we were in). It took us to see the ships that were for the British Navy and they were telling us everything about the ships. They took us to see many of the different army ships that were stationed there and were telling us every detail about what the ship went through and where they will go next. If the weather had turned out like we hoped it would've been better but even with the weather like it was, it was a really nice and fun thing to do in Portsmouth.
