I seem to have a bit of a curse at the moment where I’m writing about things no one will soon be able to go to. As soon as I reviewed Fox in a Box, they announced they were closing. I went to a Club de Fromage daytime party shortly before they revealed that they were stopping everything *except* the daytime parties. And now I’ve finally got round to going to Dopamine Land just a week before the doors shut forever. Still, if you’re at a loose end in the next week or so you know where to go!
Dopamine Land is just next door to Accidentally Wes Anderson so the nearest tube is South Kensington. We have a well-worn route to South Ken that unfortunately wasn’t viable today, due to both the Overground and the Piccadilly Line having closures. So instead it was a bus to Walthamstow, tube to Victoria and then an awkward change on an overcrowded Circle and District line platform. I stand by what I said about Victoria station being full of tourists who have no idea where they’re going.
Still, I’d accounted for at least some of these complications and left time for things to go wrong, especially in light of the patchy buses and lack of trains we’ve suffered for weeks now. So we got to South Ken with a clear hour to spare and decided to hang out in a Pret that’s considerably larger than the Petit one inside the station.
If you haven’t heard yet, the Pret subscription is changing in September so don’t worry – this non-stop advertising will soon cease. Pret and I have decided to see other people. A conscious uncoupling, if you will.
While having coffee, I started thinking about the logistics of being in a ball pool when neither Eva nor I had socks on and whether we’d be told off. So I nipped back across the road and managed to secure two pairs of socks from Cards Galore in the station arcade at a reasonable-ish price. Plus, they have Highland Cows on which is a bonus.
All of which preparation brings us to Dopamine Land itself. You’re greeted several times as you go through – once in reception then once in this room full of neon frames:
This is a bit of a holding area where you can put bags into the cloakroom and use the loo (through the bar area but you’re told not to get too distracted by it) and then sent through to the experience itself once the group in front has moved on. As a starting point, it can feel a bit too curated like you’re going to be monitored at every stage but everyone is friendly so it’s not a problem. The first room is a timed experience – one of only two – so that’s why the first part is carefully managed but there’s a lot more freedom to wander at your own pace after that first room.
The first room is quite special though, and it’s the one which appears on all the posters. You can see why:
You can also see why it’s timed once you’re in there as it’s a very small, enclosed space and could get claustrophobic once those doors are shut. The time went by very quickly but we got a few photos:
Next up was the musical squares room. We didn’t quite work out how the music was working but basically you jump on squares as they light up to create a tapestry of sound and light. It’s fun although quite dark so none of my photos really worked. This one does look kinda like a 90s music video though:
It is quite a full-on sensory experience so some people might find it overwhelming but Eva was fine, even with her noise sensitivity. The corridors in between are also quite dark and the neon, combined with the ambient noise, gives it a bit of an eerie Stranger Things vibe. That’s not a bad thing but it might be worth keeping younger kids close if they’re easily spooked.
From there, a couple more rooms that were a bit more low-key so a bit of breather after two quite intense ones. The writing room is getting really quite full up now so it was hard to find a blank space to add to and I must have leant on the wall at one point because I seem to have writing on my arm.
Nathan climbed on the stool and wrote on the ceiling – I’m not sure whether that was the intention but other people had clearly done it before him.
Reuben wrote “The Game” of course but you sadly can’t really make it out. Luckily, it’s been immortalised in lego and on a bracelet this week so we won’t forget those words too easily. Eva also wrote it on the sand in Margate but that might have been washed away by now.
The other room was the lucid dreaming room but that was a tad underwhelming – just some mirrors and video and I wasn’t quite sure how to interact with them. I might well have missed something.
We’d caught up with the group in front in the writing room and the group behind ours had caught up with us so there was a bit of a bottleneck going in to the ball pool area. The idea is that you go to the story cave first – which has fridge poetry and shadow puppets – and then the waiting area to take your shoes off. With a few groups going in different directions there was a bit of confusion and the possibility that the family coming up behind us might overtake. Credit to the guy in charge of that area though – he sorted us all out and everyone went to the ball pool and then the fire lantern room in order. We shared the ball pool with the group of two behind us but that was fine…there was plenty of room.
I didn’t get many pictures as I didn’t want to lose my phone in the balls but you get the idea. We lost Eva under the balls a few times but we recovered her in time to get back to the waiting room.
Then we chilled out for quite a long time in the fire lantern room. It’s spacious and calming and there are lots of mats to lie down on so we did just that. It’s the kind of play facility I longed for when the kids were little….”now children, here’s a room where we all lie down and do nothing. It says we have to on the wall”.
Again, my pictures are pretty ropey because it was so dark but it was a nice, relaxing experience. As was the next room – the forest:
We hung out there for a while until it got a bit crowded and we moved on to the final room before the bar area…the Pillow Fight room. This is quite a shocker after two nice calm rooms…the lights are flashing and there is “Set You Free” by N-Trance on repeat. I think this juxtaposition of quiet and loud is deliberate and meant to get you used to the transition back to the real world. Or maybe it’s just meant to put you in an aggressive mood for pillow fighting, which must have worked cause we ganged up on Nathan and beat him to the floor, Lord of the Flies-style.
And then we went for a lovely bubble tea in the bar area. You really do go through the full range of happiness-related emotions in this place. Happiness at sitting in a nice room and sipping on passionfruit and blackberry bubble tea (or Coke for the boys) just after the happiness of getting your aggression out by walloping each other with pillows.
There are a few more photo opportunities in the bar area as well, while you enjoy your drinks so of course we took them all.
The experience takes around an hour plus time at the bar, so it was about half past four by the time we were ready to leave. Ridiculously early – in my opinion – for dinner so I suggested a short walk to a different branch of Five Guys. This might be because the South Ken branch is always crowded but also just to spin the day out a bit longer before we had to tackle the homeward journey.
So we set off up Queen’s Gate and found the newly renovated Wildlife Garden at the Natural History Museum. At least, I think it’s newly reopened – it was closed off when we were there in January. I’d hoped we could wander along the path and it would take out a bit of the route but the north end doesn’t link back up to the street so we had to retrace our steps.
Still, it was a very pretty and soothing diversion and it’s amazing how wild it feels considering it’s right in the middle of London. There was also a dog statue on top of one of the buildings:
We took a similar diversion at the top of Queens Gate, to walk west through Kensington Gardens instead of along the road. We saw a dog fountain on the way, which Eva had to stop and pet:
And a rainbow of plants, including a very goth front row:
We also saw a trapeze training school which was impressive but terrifying looking. Eva was not overly keen to sign up and I can’t say I blame her but kudos to the students – we stopped to watch one trapeze trainee and she had mad skillz. I didn’t get a photo of her in action but you can trust me on this one.
Fearful of having to double back again, I cut back to the road way too early – just by the coffee kiosk – when we could have walked through right up to the end of the gardens. Eva had clocked by this point that the short walk was longer than I’d made it sound but luckily we were now in sight of Kensington High Street and I could assure her that Five Guys was within reach. I was a little distressed to find out that my old branch of Clarks was now an Itsu but I guess times change and sushi might be more popular than sandals now. If only someone had thought to combine them and open up a sushoeshop.
Luckily, I was not wrong about Five Guys. And they even had their very own rainbow to greet us with:
Despite some confusion at Kensington High Street tube (where *do* you get the District line towards Upminster from?) we had a smooth journey back, with Vic line spookily quiet for a Saturday afternoon and the bus turning up after a fashion at Walthamstow. A successful day out!
Dopamine Land is open until 11th August. For tickets and more info, click here
