Royal Navy Submarine Museum

The featured attraction of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum is the last surviving British submarine/​u-​boat from World War II, the splendid HMS Alliance. While the museum itself is rather small, if nice, the HMS Alliance is a spectacular attraction that alone is worth the trip to Portsmouth.
It is part of the tremendous «Portsmouth Historic Dockyard» experience (It also includes the HMS Victory, the HMS M.33 and the HMS Warrior 1860, plus several museums) which offers at least a couple of days worth of exciting sight-​seeing for adults as much as more the smaller fry.
First things first: If you want to do all of the Portsmouth Harbour attractions in one day (better make it the full day, i.e. 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. in the summer and to 5 p.m. in the winter), make sure to book the «all attractions» ticket *ONLINE*, which will save you money: E.g. the single adult ticket costs UKP 32.00 on the door, but just 25.60 online. The Royal Submarine Museum as an individual attraction alone costs UKP 14.00.
The museum is accessible either by car (dedicated parking lot) or via the free-​of-​charge waterbus from Portsmouth Harbour, which is included in the All Attractions ticket. It’s a short boat ride (approx. 5 minutes) which I do recommend as it offers a nice view on the various parts of the dockyard and yachting harbor, and of course the spire. The waterbus goes every half hour until noon and then once an hour until 5 p.m. As the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard gets very busy around noon I would recommend that if you spend the day there you should go to the HMS Alliance/​Submarine Museum first: The waterbus is small and holds just about 20 – 25 people.
As said before, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum itself is very small (looks large from outside), but it’s a nice collection of various items on the subject of submarines, including actual objects retrieved from old ones, but also paintings and documents. All very nicely presented. Visiting the museum shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.
The greater attraction is the HMS Alliance. It’s a spectacular, physically imposing submarine preserved in its original condition and fully fitted, including torpedo shells. Beautiful!
Here’s the thing: You can only enter the Alliance by guided tour, and each guided tour includes no more than 8 or so people. As huge as the Alliance may look from outside, on the inside it is a mousetrap. So they make sure that no more than 2 groups are inside the vessel at the same time. When you arrive at the museum you will be given a fixed time for your tour. If you are more than two people it can happen that you will be given a later tour time because the other spots have been filled already.
The HMS Alliance is a technical marvel even today — and when you think that the total crew included 70 people you can paint your own mental picture what life on this vessel must have been like.
The guides are very well informed — for a reason: They are mostly retired sailors who spent a part of their professional life as a member of a submarine crew. They’re also very friendly: Ask them anything!
Photography on board is allowed. See my photos to get an impression of the vessel and museum.

Das Royal Navy Submarine ist nicht nur etwas für Marinefans.
Man kann das erste U-​Boot sehen udn auch durch ein Atomunterseeboot gehen. Selbst erleben, wie eng es ist. Geführt wird man von einem Soldaten, der selbst auf dem Schiff gedient hat. Gibt einen wirklich interessanten Eindruck.

Glorious place.

Went to a Wedding Reception here recently, situated in the entrance, but when all done up you didn’t realise, it was lovely, view of the harbour, there was the added bonus of seeing Gunwharf’s fireworks. There was a small bar (not cheap), hog roast, chocolate fountain, popcorn machine, Bailey’s fountain, they even had a photo booth up stairs, after the Pimms at the beginning Disco with a big enough dance area. The great thing was that you were allowed upstairs, so you could use/​play with the interactive items. Unusual place for a Wedding Reception however great if there are kids with the interactive items. Only negative is you have to go to and along to the toilets, but same with HMS Victory.
Thinking about visiting in future, not been since the revamp.
HMS Alliance is worth a visit, you cannot imagine the submariners actually working & living on the submarine due to the lack of space.

Home of The Royal Navy’s oldest submarine HMS Alliance this is a great place to visit. Stuck for somewhere to take a relative on those awkward holidays give this place a try believe me you wont be dissappointed.
Lovely Naval atmosphere and friendly place to visit, guided tours inside a 2^nd World War submarine you cant go wrong.
I took a fair few hours walking the museam and enjoying myself in the friendly café.