Santa Sundays at Museum of Illusions Manchester: 6, 13 and 20 December
Santa roams the Museum of Illusions on Market Street, Manchester, from 11am to 3pm on Sundays 6, 13 and 20 December 2026. No grotto queue; he joins your photos in the mirror rooms. Included with standard entry, from £17.50, under-5s free.
Santa Sunday
Family-friendlyOther dates
A different sort of Santa visit. Rather than a grotto with a forty minute queue and a thirty second audience, the Museum of Illusions on Market Street lets Father Christmas loose in the museum on three Sundays in December, 6, 13 and 20 December, 11am to 3pm, and he wanders the rooms joining in your photos.
What that means in practice
The museum is a set of optical illusion rooms: the Ames room where one child becomes a giant and the other a mouse, the infinity mirror room, the vortex tunnel, the tilted room, the room where you appear to sit on the ceiling. On Santa Sundays he turns up in them. So you get Santa upside down, Santa multiplied into forty Santas in the mirrors, Santa holding your tiny child in the palm of his hand. Better photos than any grotto and nobody is sitting on anyone's knee.
It is included with standard admission, no extra charge and no separate booking. Tickets from £17.50; under-5s are free, which with a two year old in tow is the number we look at first.
Practical
- Market Street, right in the middle of town, two minutes from the Arndale and Piccadilly Gardens.
- Allow about an hour. The museum is small and that is fine.
- Book a timed slot online for the Sunday you want; the 11am to 1pm slots will be busiest.
We're going on Sunday 13 December and will post the pictures. Make sure your photo-taker is not the one in the illusion, or you get nothing.
Image: Museum of Illusions Manchester.