Kristi

Do you need to reserve the verger tour of Westminster Abbey ahead of time? I'd probably be doing an early morning tour (10 or 10:30) on a weekday in early August. Thanks!

KathrynT

I don't think you need to pre-arrange. At least, we didn't pre-arrange in August two years ago and were able to join the next tour. By the way, we really enjoyed our tour.

marty

Did you look on the Westminster Abbey website? I don't know if you can reserve, but you do need to get there early. Two years ago, when I had my niece and nephew and another child with me, there were only 3 openings left when we got there 30 minutes ahead of time, but we were there on the weekend. We gave the slots to the children who were 11, 13, and 15 years old, and it was the favorite part of their trip. The verger made a big deal over them and let them do so special things. I have taken the tour also, and it is very good.

Kristi

Thanks, I did have a look at the Westminster Abbey sight but it really didn't seem to encourage prebookings although it looked like you could email them for reservations. I was just curious whether people found that they needed reservations.

janis

The main problem is the tours are limlted in size. And right at opening time there is often a fairly long queue just to get into the Abbey. So by the time you enter it is quite likely the first tours are already filled up.

Last time I went to the Abbey was in June '04 (we weren't going to take the verger tour but I was noting the set up/situation because I give talks about travel to London). We got there about 5 mins pre-opening and after the doors opened it took a good 15+ minutes to get inside. I went straight to the vergers desk to ask a couple of questions and by then they were taking bookings for tours 90 minutes later.

This was in June which is not nearly as busy as August. So if you don't pre-book - I would get to the Abbey at least 30 minutes early so you can be near the front of the queue and can get to the vergers tour desk straight away.

Marie

Just got back from visiting London and Westminster Abbey in June. Guess I was lucky because the Abbey was not crowded AT ALL when we went - and we were the first to sign up for our verger tour. (In the end we only had 4 people on the tour.)

I think it REALLY helped that we went to Westminster Abbey in mid-week (Wednesday) and in the morning (arrived at 10:30AM). Our hotel was near the Abbey, so we passed it all the time, and noticed that as the day wore on and the weekend got closer, the lines of people waiting to get into the Abbey would "wrap around the block".

Kristi

Just wanted to report back, I was able to get on the 1st verger tour at 10 am on a Monday morning with no reservation. The tour is well worth the extra L4, our guide was informative, entertaining and the tour allows access to areas off limits to regular tours.

I got to the abbey around 9:30 and there was no wait to get into the abbey, maybe I just got lucky!