Ealing Broadway's grotto is £7.50 a child plus a £1.50 booking fee, 14 November to Christmas Eve. Gunnersbury's Victorian Father Christmas is 5 to 13 Dec.

The borough’s main Santa’s grotto is at Ealing Broadway shopping centre, W5 5JY, and bookings for 2026 are already open. There are 33 bookable days, starting Friday 13 November and running to Christmas Eve, Thursday 24 December. Every date is live on the booking system now, and none of them was showing as sold out on 6 September.

Updated 6 October: the shopping centre has now published its own grotto page with the 2026 price, £7.50 a child plus a £1.50 booking fee per family, and Gunnersbury has announced a Victorian Father Christmas from 5 to 13 December.

That is unusually early to be able to book. It is also the reverse of the normal trap: the shopping centre’s own website still has summer listings on its what’s on panel and no mention of Christmas, while the booking system underneath it is fully loaded with 2026 dates.

The dates

Two long weekends in November, then near enough every day from 2 December.

Month Open days
November Fri 13, Sat 14, Sun 15; Fri 20, Sat 21, Sun 22; Thu 26, Fri 27, Sat 28, Sun 29
December Wed 2 to Thu 24, every day

Nothing opens before 13 November. November is then two Friday-to-Sunday weekends, followed by a four-day run from Thursday 26 to Sunday 29. The grotto is shut for the whole of 16 to 19 November and 23 to 25 November. From 2 December it runs every day without a break to Christmas Eve.

Opening times, day by day

The booking system does not publish opening hours anywhere, but it sells arrival slots at ten-minute intervals, so the hours can be read straight off it. They follow four patterns.

Day First slot Last slot
Saturdays 10.00am 5.50pm
Sundays 11.00am 4.50pm
Weekdays in November, and 2 to 4 December 12noon 4.50pm
Mon 7 to Fri 11 December 11.00am 5.50pm
Mon 14 December onwards, except the Sunday 10.00am 5.50pm
Christmas Eve 10.00am 2.50pm

So the two things worth planning around: Sundays open late and close early, at 11am to 5pm, matching the centre’s own Sunday trading hours, and Christmas Eve shuts at 3pm. The busiest-looking days on the system, with 42 slots each, are every Saturday and every weekday from 14 December.

Prices

£7.50 per child plus a £1.50 booking fee per family, the same as last year. That is now in writing on the shopping centre’s own 2026 grotto page, last updated on 11 September, which also says booking in advance is essential and that limited walk-in visits may be possible at quieter times, best on weekdays (Ealing Broadway). Photo keepsakes (key rings, baubles, snow globes and prints) are extra, and you can choose them on the day or pre-order when you book.

One small mismatch: the centre’s page says the grotto runs from 14 November, but the booking system is still selling slots on Friday 13 November. If you book the 13th, it is worth checking with Great Grottos that it goes ahead.

What is confirmed for 2026, from the booking pages themselves:

  • Up to four children per booking. More than four needs a second booking, and the whole party can visit at either time booked.
  • No limit on adults, though the operator warns that more than four “may be a squeeze”.
  • No minimum age.
  • Tickets are non-refundable, but you can move your date, subject to availability, through the reschedule link in the booking email.
  • Gifts are unwrapped, which the operator puts down to its sustainability policy.
  • A photographer is there, and you can take your own photos too. Check any photo products before you leave, because they will not refund once you have gone.
  • Pushchairs are allowed.
  • The grotto is run by Great Grottos Ltd, not by the centre, and school bookings go through its head office on 01306 886 989.

Book at bookfatherchristmas.co.uk/EalingBroadway.

Quiet sessions

Last year the centre ran quiet sessions for children with autism or additional needs every Sunday morning between 11am and 11.30am, and the centre director Andrew Rollings described the grotto as “one of the highlights of the year at Ealing Broadway”. Sunday opening in 2026 again starts at 11am, and the 11.00, 11.10 and 11.20 slots are on sale on every Sunday date, so the pattern is intact, and the centre’s 2026 page now confirms that Quiet Grotto sessions are running again for children with autism or additional needs, designed to be calmer and less busy. It does not give their times, so if that matters for your visit, ask Great Grottos when you book. The booking FAQ also says to tell the staff about any special requirement when you arrive.

What was in it last year

Glowing candy canes, glittering stars, snowy mail sacks and friendly snowmen, with photo keepsakes running from prints to keyrings, baubles and snow globes. The 2025 grotto ran 14 November to 24 December, and the centre gives the same dates for 2026.

Getting there

Ealing Broadway shopping centre is on The Broadway, W5 5JY, directly beside Ealing Broadway station, which has the Elizabeth line, the Central and District lines and Great Western services. The centre is open 9am to 7pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday, and its car park runs 6am to midnight, seven days a week.

If you are driving in December, read the on-street rules first on our parking in Ealing page, and check roadworks and travel for anything on the Uxbridge Road approach.

Other places to see Santa

Gunnersbury Park & Museum, Popes Lane, W5 4NH, has a Victorian Father Christmas in traditional green robes, in his study at the mansion’s Historic Kitchens, from Saturday 5 to Sunday 13 December, 10.30am to 4.30pm. It is £19 a child, every child gets a traditional wooden toy, and the ticket includes a place on the museum’s “A Very Merry Make & Take” decoration workshop. Adults go free, but the museum asks you to limit how many come because the grotto is small. The first child’s ticket books the timeslot; further children, up to four in all, are paid for on the day at £19 each, card only. Refunds are available up to a week before (Gunnersbury).

Last December there was also a Santa’s grotto alongside the maker’s market on Churchfield Road, Acton, on Saturday 13 December, and Ealing’s Christmas Carols at Filmworks Walk has carried one in the past. Nothing is announced for either this year. We track those on the Christmas lights switch-on page, which also has the borough’s festive markets.

Sources

The Ealing Broadway dates and times were read off the live booking system on 6 September 2026 and the calendar was rechecked on 6 October; the price is from the centre’s own page.