Polonia Wax Museum

What to expect

Three floors of a Floriańska townhouse, a few dozen themed rooms, and more than a hundred wax figures: popes, Elizabeth II, Marilyn Monroe, Donald Trump, Harry Potter, Shrek, Mr Bean. A mirror maze closes the route, and it is the part children talk about afterwards. Opened in 2016, privately run, and a museum only in the sense that you buy a ticket and walk past things - there is no curator, no argument, nothing you are expected to read.

Then there is the thing the museum’s own site does not mention. In March 2023 the New York Post called this the worst wax museum in the world, after a TikTok clip of the halls went viral. The reporter thought Prince William looked like a drunk Hugh Grant and Jack Sparrow looked jaundiced; Polish media picked the story up the same week. The complaint has not gone away. TripAdvisor reviewers still say the figures barely resemble the people they are meant to be; the current average is 3.2 out of 5 from 424 reviews (read 13 September 2026).

That history tells you exactly how to use the place. If you want Madame Tussauds craftsmanship, you will leave feeling that 59 PLN bought you nothing. If you come for photographs and a laugh - with children of roughly 5 to 12, or with adults who find bad likenesses funny - you get precisely what you paid for. The failures photograph better than the successes. One reviewer’s summary is hard to improve on: the figures are terrible, and that is the whole entertainment.

The language question answers itself. There is almost nothing to read; plaques name each figure, and that is the extent of the text, so not reading Polish costs you nothing here. Half an hour covers all three floors comfortably. The only visitors who stay longer are the ones photographing every room.

Tips

• Do not book, just turn up. Tickets are sold online and at the door and no source reports queues. Adult 59 PLN, reduced 49 PLN, groups over 9 people 33 PLN each.
• Allow 30-45 minutes. Three floors, roughly ten minutes each. Fast visitors are out in twenty.
• Come after dinner. Closing is 22:00, and 23:00 on Friday and Saturday - the only Old Town attraction open that late, and the simplest way to have the building to yourself.
• Phone ahead if you want a Sunday. The museum’s contact page gives Monday to Thursday 10:00-22:00 and Friday and Saturday 10:00-23:00 and names no Sunday hours, while travel portals list Sunday opening. Call +48 502 799 445.
• Ignore the old prices online. Third-party pages still quote 30 PLN - out of date since 2022. The gate price is 59 PLN, and the weekend promotions the museum mentions come with no published dates, so ask at the desk.
• Photograph everything and save the mirror maze for last. This is a photo-op venue, and the maze is what parents report their children enjoying most.
• Skip it if you are counting złoty. 59 PLN for half an hour matches the Museum of Illusions, and the Museum of Torture 200 m down the same street charges 35 PLN.
• Do not pay twice on one trip. The same owners run a second Polonia Wax Museum at Krupówki 60 in Zakopane, with around 60 figures. If the Tatras are on your itinerary, pick one branch.

Getting there

On foot: five minutes from the Main Square (Rynek Główny) up Floriańska toward the Floriańska Gate, number 32 on the right. Two minutes from the Barbican coming the other way.

Tram: Teatr Słowackiego and Basztowa LOT stops sit on the outer ring road around the Planty park, both about four minutes from the door.

Train: about fifteen minutes on foot from Kraków Główny station through the Galeria Krakowska shopping centre and the Planty.

Car: the street is pedestrianised, so there is no drop-off at the entrance. The nearest multi-storey car parks are by the railway station.

Nearby

Two hundred metres toward the square, at Floriańska 10, the Museum of Torture sells the same thing - an hour of Old Town novelty - for 35 PLN, which is 24 PLN less.

The Museum of Illusions on Straszewskiego 15 costs exactly the same 59 PLN and serves the same purpose, photographs, with one real difference: there you do something, here you look at something.

If you would rather pay for an activity than a picture, the Krakow Pinball Museum on Stradomska 15 gives you unlimited play on dozens of machines for 50 PLN. With a teenager in tow, that is not a close call.