We enjoyed our trip to Magna but there are some serious faults too. First the good things. Nice friendly staff, and lots of interesting things to see and do - you can spend several hours there. Visually it is also interesting, quite artistic and stimulating. It's an old steel works which is absolutely HUGE, awe inspiring to realise it was this big. It is divided in to four zones, air earth water and fire, and within each of these areas are things to do, information, games, mock-ups etc. etc. Probably the best for younger kids is Water with a water play area, and Earth which has a digger where you can sit in the seat and make the thing scoop up balls - and there are losts of clunky mining machines etc. to play with. The bad things - well, we went in winter and it was FREEZING everywhere, so wear coats and hats, and imagine you're outside! But more seriously, when you enter the place you go through a great big black hall and there are various information points where it's so dark you can't read what's going on and there's a heck of a lot of walking while you keep wondering what you're supposed o be doing. This can really dampen a child's enthusiasm, not to mention an adult's. You begin to wonder if you're ever going to get to anything tht is worth doing! And we really wanted to find out more about steel making but we never found anything that explained it from beginning to end in a clear way. There was some kind of contraption which you had to pull across a screen but we were entirely baffeld with this, it may have been an art work in fact. There were also sound sections where you could hear people talking about their working lives in the steelworks, but not much to look at and nowhere really to sit whle you listened. So I think this place really, really needs some kind of defined introduction area which tells you what you can expect, what the building is, what steelmaking is, and generally which welcomes you in. I liked, however, the dramatic feeling and sense of space, it's just that it needs to be organised better. A number of the exhibits didn't work, and so I think that the air pavilion should have had a much more challenging play area with activities which don't depend on electronics and gadgets. As it was, kids were just pressing buttons and not knowing what was going on or having any fun or even knowing whether the things were actually working or not. Whereas in Water, there was a mock up canal lock, water guns, etc. There were people hanging around in red sweatshirts who may have been explainers but theykept a very low profile, didn't approach anyone or engage in any way, although they were willing enough to tell us where to find the loos, etc. I think they should be better trained.,to show visitors what the exhibits are supposed to do. Our party included an engineer who could understand many of the basic principles, otherwise I really think we would have been utterly mystified for even more of the time. Still you could say one plus point is that the 2 hours we allowed it was nowhere near enough. We got to see Earth, Air and Water but not Fire. The cafe and the shop looked very nice but we didn't have time to use them! Nor did we have time to try out the fantastic children's play area outside, this is huge and really good, one of the best I've ever seen. Maybe next time. Overall, we got the impression that Magna had been built as a Millennium project with a lot of money poured in at the time, but nobody had bothered much since. For instance, there was a contraption in AIR which had been removed ages ago (we were told) but nobody had bothered to change the signs so that was just one more thing to puzzle us. I do hope that whoever runs Magna-can get a bit more money to liven it up a bit. I know we were there on a winter afternoon but it really felt quite dead, and it's a shame because there's loads and loads of great stuff, With a bit more creative stuff for kids to actually do themselves (as opposed to pressing buttons) , and a bit better training for the peple in red sweatshirts, it could become the kind of place you keep wanting to return to and a credit to this part of the world. As it is, it's definitely worth a visit for a day out.

Learning about science and steel making was never this much fun when I was a kid!

Took our 7 year old twins last Saturday, arrived at 10 am as it opened and had to drag them out of the playground at 5pm to go back to the hotel.

Each of the "zones" were individually themed and we spent an hour or more in each, the "Big Melt" show illustrating the making of steel the kids insisted on seeing twice. An extra attraction that absorbed half an hour was watching the bungee jumping and zip wire thrills although none of us fancied a go!

Food is expensive bought there so take a picnic and eat in the packed lunch area. However as a charity you can donate an extra 10% on top of your admission to Magna and they give you a voucher worth 15% of the total to spend there. We used it for coffee and kids drinks.

They are right, even on a warm day it is a "coats on" attraction whilst inside but TAKE swimming gear or at least a change of clothes for the kids. They will insist on getting wet in the outside water playground.

Slightly disappointing were the number of exhibits that weren't working, at least two or three in each pavillion, including two of the three JCB's and the weighing system in the earth section. It made the whole point of the JCB's worthless.

An excellent day where we all learnt a lot.

We took our 9-year-old daughter to Magna because of the "science" label, and it didn't disappoint. it's a vast dark shed, bigger than a cathedral, containing huge lumps of equipment left over from its days as a steelworks. Into this they have fitted a history of steelworking, plus four interactive zones themed on Earth, Air, Fire and Water, full of hands-on kids' stuff which is above average (the fire tornado was particularly good). All zones are self-contained pods within this huge gloomy hangar, filled with industrial sounds, projections and so on, so there's a fair bit of hiking around to get from zone to zone, but there's loads to do and access is fine (lift access to all the different levels and it claims to be fully wheelchair accessible). We booked on a free "steel tour" for later when we arrived, and this was very well done. The guide was friendly and funny and had worked for years in steelworking - we had a brief history of the industry locally, complete with anecdotes, and then went to see "The Face Of Steel" which simulates the last remaining furnace being operated, complete with sparks, flames and HUGE noise - this was very impressive. Our daughter's a bit of a science geek so she loved it, but I'm sure boys would get lots out of Magna too, and that's not always the case with some of these places. A few of the hands-on things were broken, which we always find very frustrating, but the majority of them worked fine and we managed to get a turn on almost everything my daughter wanted to try. it's a big place and I think it will take a lot to make it busy.

We ate in the "Fuel" restaurant. Food was a little on the expensive side - the roast meals seemed better value than fish and chips or sandwiches - but there is a cafe doing lighter meals near the entrance which we didn't use. However, if we went back we'd take a picnic. There is a truly spectacular childrens' playground-cum-aqua park right outside (free entry if you've been into Magna) which has picnic tables, and the car parking is right nearby so you could leave your picnic in the car. They also seem to have pay lockers near the entrance for those arriving without a car. If it's at all warm when you visit TAKE SWIMMING COSTUMES OR SPARE SHORTS/T-SHIRT FOR THE CHILDREN - AND A TOWEL!! This is vital because they will be desperate to go in the aqua park and get soaked, and quite right too. You also do need to wear a fleece or coat. The shell of the building is so big it's not feasible to heat it, (although the self-contained areas like reception, gift shop, restaurants, interactive zones are heated) so walking around can be nippy. We went on a very hot day and a cardigan was definitely needed even then.

I can see that younger children might find the place scary - it's dark, huge, noisy and has sparks and lights flashing. If your kids are under six, I'd probably wait a couple of years. But overall it's a really good day out - we travelled 100 miles each way and felt it was well worth it.