The Museum of Science & Industry is a great place to go if you want to keep the kids amused, but without paying ludicrous prices. It's open from 10.00am - 5.00pm every day, except 24 - 26 December and 1 January.

I don't know whether they previously charged for admission (as I've read on other reviews), but entry into MOSI is now free. Car parking on site costs £5.00 ( £3.00 after 3pm) and there are several other pay and display car parks outside.

Charges apply for the special exhibitions however, which at present is "Body Worlds 4 - The original exhibition of real human bodies". I haven't seen this exhibition so can't comment specifically, but ticket prices seem a bit steep.

Adults £10.00 - £11.50
Concessions £7.00 - £9.50
Under 5s, Free
Family £29.00 - £34.00

There are loads of things to do without the need to see the special exhibitions to be honest, with four separate buildings to go at and much of the activities being more than capable of keeping you occupied for the best part of the day.

There are scheduled events, such as story telling, arts and crafts, demonstrations of original machinery in full working order and interactive activities with historical costume characters.

The Power Hall is full of working steam engines, has a large water wheel and some enormous trains. This building can be noisy when all the machines are up and running at once, which can be a bit much for some little kiddies who might find this a bit frightening.

The Air & Space Hall is great. There is a Planetarium, which has night sky shows for kids aged 6+ and also has a great display of aeroplanes, helicopters, cars, motorbikes and a flight simulator. When we visited last month, the kids took part in some activities were making and testing their own aeroplanes.

There is also a Victorian underground sewer which you can walk through. Again - if your kids are pre-school age or easily spooked, this might freak them out a bit. My three year old niece was petrified and I had to quickly leg it through to the end to stop her bawling!

It's a good idea to pack up a picnic as well, particularly if you want to keep it cheap. Picnic tables and chairs / benches are freely available around the site. There are some cafes, but they charge extortionate prices for food and drink. The Loft Restaurant on the top floor is particularly expensive.

The gift shop sells some really unusual and quirky gifts, but again - these tend to be a bit steep in price, with a MOSI pencil setting you back £1.50.

Toilets, lockers and baby changing facilities are available and are clean and very well maintained. With access ramps and lifts in place, pretty much everywhere is accessible for those with prams and/or wheelchair users.

The MOSI website is excellent and gives an excellent overview of what is on offer, especially if you haven't visited before. msim.org.uk/

I love this place. We can be there from 10.00am and still be wandering round and looking at things ten minutes before the place is due to close.

There are currently five buildings here: Aircraft, Main, The Warehouse, Power Hall and the Victorian Station.
So I'll divide my review into sections on these buildings.

1. AIRCRAFT BUILDING
Housed in an old market building this is the second largest building. It looks tatty from the outside but inside its awesome.

The ground floor is mainly about aircraft with an amazing range of aircraft either hanging from the ceiling or on the floor. There all very interesting and as well as them there are a good amount of other transport items like cars and motorbikes. upstairs is an exhibit on space with lots of interesting facts-oh and a monster case with 1980's cybermen-yay! Great building-takes about an hour to get around.

2.MAIN BUILDING
I think this is the largest building (Power Hall is large too) but it certainly has the most exhibits. there is currently three floors of exhibits. The ground floor has the shop and cafe (more on them) , the special exhibition (must pay extra currently one about out bodies- I went to the Doctor Who one-it was brill) as well as a cotton mill exhibit. This is sort of two florrs with one raised. The bottom floor is really boring but the top floor is excellent with some superb machines which look great.
On the second floor is an exhibition on scientists from Manchester and all about their inventions-the man who built radar was from Manchester -really good with some interactive exhibits. On the third floor is the interactive ehibit(can't remember name) which i didn't get in because there was a huge queue. Underground is a very museum like exhibit-the items that don't go on display are down here in lots of draws-there's lots of cameras.

3. THEWAREHOUSE
Only got in one bit of this-the electritty bit which was huge,very interactive and informative and included some generators(which I was fascinated by for some reason!). The rest looked like exhibits about warehouses-but I think it closes early.

4. POWER HALL
My favourite bit-mainly because I love trains but the machines are fantastic too. Its massive and you go through susch a riny door! The first area is a mass of beam engines and waterwheels (in water) as well as other steam engines in operation-they are great-very well put in they belend in with it. There is also some exhibits on how we get power. Then in a siding are five or six trains-they are great you can climb up and look in there 'cabins'-there's also a huge South African locomotive. There's also a lovely little and amazingly detailed model railway-with Thomas the Tank Engine of course!

5. VICTORIAN STATION
A wonderfully re-created station on top-and no its isn't where the train starts. On the top floor ia an exhibt about culture-zzz...
Downstairs is a re-created station scene as well as a nice little room on the railway. There are now two exhibits one on 'water and sewers' the other on the 'Making on Manchester'. The first is larger -at the beginning are exhibits on the water source, how it is cleaned as well as an absolutely stunning recreation of a bath house as well as a dolly tub! The exhibit is a little dull but there's some very interesting things to do! Next is the famous/infamous sewer recreation-its quite good with some nasty smells but its really short and th rats look rubbish. After that its on about flooding and diseases in water-you can even use a water pumup! Making of Manchester is a good exhibt on the history of Manchester as well as a Gas gallery-which I can't remember.

FACILITIES/OTHER ATTRACTIONS

The train ride which only runs in season starts from a slab in the middle behind a Victorian engine. It goes past the station alongside the mianline then goes on a 'ledge' on the side of the main building-you can see where Sooty is filmed! it costs a pound and is about a quarter of a mile long.

Cafe's- The cafe is by the main entrance which is annyoign because when the door opens it gets cold. Reasonably priced, okay quality. There are comfy sofa's to sit on and televisions to watch the News on.

Shop-Opposite the cafe is a well sized shop with lots of scientific games. reasonable price.

Parking- There is a car park but it costs '£4 -however I suppose this fair as there is FREE entry). Do not park on the multi-storey car park nearby as its a rip-off at '£5.50 for up to 3 hrs and is really badly designed.

Overall, the Manchester Science and Industry museum is well-interesting and err...AWESOME!

Manchester Museum of Science & Industry - We took our 3 year old and 8 year old with some trepidation - it's hard to find something to suit both. Especially something that is FREE. The museum is split into 5 areas. Our youngest loved the hanger full of aircraft/helicopters, etc. The power hall was full of locomotives, steam mcahinery, many of which you could "do" something with, plus experiments. The main building houses textiles and the all important "Xperiment" area - a mini-eureka where children can perform experiments. Ours also saw a demonstration of lying on a bed of nails which was tailored to all age groups and explained why it didn't hurt the visitor who ended up on the nails. There is also a working train (mainly weekends) and an 1830 warehouse which was of much less interest to the children.

A great day out - especially if it's raining !!!!