Harrods open a brand new Toy Kingdom

Harrods has opened the doors to the new Toy Kingdom – in the words of Harrods

'a 26,000-square-foot multi-sensory department with an enchanted forest, intergalactic science lab, curious sweet emporium and toy ‘grand canyon’. A dream destination for wild imaginations, it will become London’s latest hotspot for children’s toys and books. Featuring not only a spectacular collection of must-haves and product exclusives.'

The Toy Kingdom is partitioned into six 'worlds'

• The Big Top: where magicians and jugglers are on centre stage surrounded by fancy dress costumes, doll houses, rocking horses and soft toys.     
• The Candy Store: a chocolate counter, alongside Papa Bubble who makes flavoursome candy concoctions to order.     
• The Enchanted Forest: Fanciful, decorated tree trunks and wigwams that house the latest collections from Sylvanian Families and Flutter Fairies, alongside arts and crafts. -    
• Wonderland: filled with Hornby train sets, remote-controlled helicopters and Scalextric. 
• The Odyssey: a gigantic space rocket crashes through the floor and a huge sun bursts through the wall in front of an Area 51-inspired space and gadget zone, complete with alien space pods and limited-edition pieces.    
• The Reading Room: with climb in cubby holes to hear reading extracts.

In the words of my 3 year old

'Wow! it's so special and fun'

Until of course I wouldn't buy him everything he wanted.

As toy stores go this is definitely one of the best I've been to, smaller that Hamleys it was a less stressful experience to the overly packed world famous toy store.  The areas are designed in a truly Willy Wonka fashion and I was enchanted, more than my son who actually didn't appreciate the set up as all he saw were the toys, they could have just been strewn around the floor for all he cared, however, my 9 year old would have definitely revelled in the opportunity to role play and loose himself to the imagination; but today he missed the experience for a pre-olympic athletic games, which I am sure he is thoroughly enjoying.

Very much like most other toy departments, there were the demonstration staff who were easily identifiable by a cool polo with an embroidered H on the front and staff on the backs, in varying colours of red, baby blue and pink, according to their departments.  I want one!!!

Overall, we had a great time the only downsides were that it took a little longer to find than I would have imagined, the toilets were not close by and I walked through the lighting area tentatively to get to it, with a three year old in tow that was scary!  I feel it should have been close to the children's clothing department rather than of 3rd floor with furniture, but that's just me.  The reading area is quite central so quiet reading and listening in the cubby holes on a busy Saturday afternoon are impossible;

However I recommend every one go, even if it's just to take obligatory pictures of a day out in the world famous Harrods!


Click on Harrods for a link to the Harrods store visiting page.