Jorvik Viking Centre, 19 Coppergate, York, YO1 9WT.
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When looking to visit the Jorvik Viking Centre, tickets can be purchased both online and on the day. However, it is advised to pre-book to ensure a slot is available.
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Ticket prices (these were correct as of the 25/04/2024):
Adult - £16.50
Under 5 years old – Free
Child 5 -16 years – £11
Carer - Free
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The Jorvik Viking Centre also offers family tickets starting from £46.
They are open to the public daily 10am-5pm. However, these times can differ throughout the year so please check their website before visiting.
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We spent around 40 minutes there.
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At the Jorvik Viking Centre, you start your journey in a room with a glass floor where you can see a replica of how the ground looked where houses were built. You then lined up and sat on in a kart (theme park styled - plastic booster seats were provided for the children and we also had battery operated lanterns) and slowly travelled through an animatronic Viking village. On the karts there were screens where you could select your language and when picking English, you could choose to pick a child version. We chose the child English version and heard a story from a Viking child as we were travelling through, and the screens showed us what she was discussing e.g. a cartoon image of the bone mentioned. When we got off the kart we looked through some glass cases which had Viking belongings including shoes and coins. Near the end of the centre there was a member of staff who was pressing coins. These coins were £2 each and the staff member talked in depth around the history of these coins. We then ended in the gift shop.
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We thoroughly enjoyed the attraction and didn't have a favourite part.
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There are plenty of pay and display carparks around the area. Most of the carparks we saw were around the £11 mark for 12 hours. We parked at the National Railway Museum’s carpark, spent the morning there and then caught the road train over to the main town centre. We walked back from the Jorvik Viking Centre and this only took us around 20 minutes. This carpark was £10 for all day parking.
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While at the Jorvik Viking Centre, there is no food catering available, however there are plenty of bakeries around.
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When we visited, our eldest was 3 years old and our youngest was 18 months old. We found this day out had something for everyone, no matter your age, however we feel the children may have enjoyed it more if they were slightly older to be able to appreciate the history.
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We found 1 set of toilets. These included one female, one male and one changing room/disabled toilet. This toilet was in the glass floor room. Once you have gone past the coin pressing, there was a door to be able to access the glass floor room again to be able to use the toilets.
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We found the attraction ground flat, however pushchairs are not allowed through the attraction. There is a lift and stairs to get downstairs to the glass room floor. Once in this room, there is a small side room for pushchairs to go for you to be able to collect at the end of the attraction.
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Overall, we would visit again if we were in the area. When we saw staff, they were friendly, helpful and dressed in character (while also keeping character). You can tell the staff had a genuine interest in the Viking Centre and its history. The museum was extremely educational, and we loved the kart aspect especially with the screens in front of us as this isn't done in many places. Due to the kart idea it meant the children couldn't run around and gave us time to take in the information being given in a fun entertaining way, however we felt the centre wasn't as big as we were expecting, the kart chairs were hard plastic so wasn't as comfortable as they could have been and we found a line grew quite long due to the lack of toilets, therefore we have rated this day out 4 stars out of 5.
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Date of recent visit: April 2024
