Kensington is a very historic place where even XXI century royalty lived. However, the fashion exhibition took most of the palace and showed mostly recent American couture used is award shows. The Queen Victoria childhood exhibit seemed like an after thought where it should have been the central point.

Food in cafeteria was very expensive - guides were helpful and interesting (knowledgable and attentive) Queen Victoria’s suite of rooms, recreated as it was when she was a child, was excellent. The grounds are beautiful. There is a restaurant outside the palace for afternoon tea, but you need to book in advance. It was a lovely day out - Kensington High Street has restaurants that are good and more reasonably priced. You can get parking very close by at Just Park if you don’t fancy getting the train. Traffic round embankment and Trafalgar held us up though, so train may be better option.

The tour of the palace was very interesting and staff were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. We had a problem getting to venue for our stated ticket time but staff were happy to allow us to arrive later. (Not sure if this would apply in peak tourist times if the tours were fully booked, we went in February)