3 day London Itinerary
 

I have read lots & finally devised an itinerary for our short stay but will it be rushed & boring or interesting & enjoyable for all? As we are trying to keep costs down I’d also appreciate some recommendations about inexpensive eating options & advance purchase tickets/passes; both transport & sightseeing (15 days total in UK),
A bit of background: We are a family of 4 (D’s 13 & 15). D’s would like to do some shopping, (not too out there), but budget is quite limited. Our priority is see & do, so accommodation is budget, & food will be 80% self catering (shop at markets/ supermarkets), 20% fish & chips by the river/sea, Pub lunch in the country, inexpensive eatery (like Thai, Chinese) etc. Where practical (distance b/n sights is about a mile, or lots to see en route) we prefer to walk b/n A& B; recommendations for self guided walks (can you buy these?) would be great.
As Australia is 9 hours ahead of Britain I expect that for our time in London we’ll be up early & struggling by mid afternoon so may need to adjust the pace. By family vote, Tower of London, Changing of the Guard & Harrods are ‘must see’, but order is open to suggestions.

Day 1. Arrive at LHR, 5.45am. Tube to Earl’s Court (not much luggage- small backpack each), & short walk to apartment near the Marriott. We can leave luggage, but room not available until 2pm. Tube to Tower of London (most of morning- how do you do the yeoman warder tour &would a guided tour of ‘all’ be the best option here, to jump queues & provide added insight?). Tower Bridge (walk past), buy Lunch, walk to Museum of London (if still awake).Possible (feasible?) return trip to Apartment –Thames boat trip from TOL to Chelsea past Parliament/ Big Ben, St Pauls. Walk Chelsea area, bus or tube to Earl’s Crt.

Day 2. Trafalgar square, Covent Gardens, Buckingham Palace for Changing of the Guard (10am queue for 11am ceremony?). Visit Leicester Sq for ½ price tickets, Westminster Abbey (with Original London walks at 2pm), & possibly the London Eye or possible visit to Theatre in West End in evening- take a black cab

Day 3., Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, V&A Museum, Harrods, Dinner out. London Eye/ Theatre whichever not done yesterday.

Comments on the above would be appreciated, and I also have some particular questions.
1. How weather dependent are the views from the London Eye? How far in advance is it necessary to book the LE in late June? What time is sunset?
2. Has anyone visited Sir John Soane’s Museum, sounds rather quirky-might appeal to teens but they don’t like gore, so no torture, terror or blood.
3. Is a GB heritage card (15days) warranted? We intend also visiting (Lacock Abbey?),the Roman Baths (&costume museum?), Bodiam Castle, Warwick Castle, Brighton Pavilion, Oxford, Conwy, York Minster & Castle museum, Edinburgh Castle (&Holyrood Palace?), Hadrians Wall & Alnwick Castle, Goathland Station. (D’s would like to see some H.Potter film sites)
4. London Transport offer a Zone 1&2 pass for ₤15 and ₤7.5 (5-15yrs) for the 3 days (includes peak times). Gives 30%discount on some boat trips, so could be good value??
5. Is the hop on hop off bus really ₤20 each for 24hrs?
6. Self guided walks b/n sights we hope to visit?
7. Suggestions re likely places to shop for D’s, preferably on route (not a major focus).

I know this is an epic- just not enough time & too much to see. Thanks for your help

Just a few really quick comments - you'll get more and I'll add more later.

- Great British Heritage Pass. You might want to get the 7-day version instead of the 15-day one. It is not very useable in London but you'll get a lot of use from it in the other areas you are traveling. But a 15-day version might be overkill. You'd end up only paying for a few sites after the pass runs out.

- your first day will be a total KILLER after that looooong flight. You might manage the Tower and the Museum of London - but have a plan B in case.

- if you are truly on a budget I wouldn't take a tour of Westminster Abbey. You'd each have to pay Original London Walks plus the price of admission. Just go to the Abbey on your own.

- Sir John Soanes museum is wonderful - but you are on such a short timeframe it might not be the best use of your time.

- The changing of the Guard is a huge time waster - but if it is a "must" for your family I suppose you have to do it.

- don't pay for any tours of the Tower. Just get there early and there won't be any queues. Go to teh Crown Jewels right at opening time and then take one of the free beefeater tours.

janis is one of our best experts on London and I agree with most of her points, especially about the Changing of the Guard. Major snoozer, and it's hard to see anything through the crowd.

I recently did the Original London Walks tour of Westminster Abbey. Going with the walking tour has one major advantage, and that is you will skip the queue to get in. I was there a couple of weeks ago which is not the high season and the queue was quite long, so I can only imagine how bad it will be in June.

A few comments:

Getting in as early as you will, you could probably catch a nice breakfast somewhere, and be early in the queue for the Tower. The Beefeater/Yeoman Warder tours are free and form up just inside the entry. The groups can be quite large, but the guides are well trained and can be heard by all. We went in early March, so no lines, but I have heard that you should go do the Crown Jewels first and then come back for the tour.

On your day 2, you might want to go to Westminster first thing with the hopes of a shorter queue (if you skip changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, and you don't do the London Walks). Then you could head to Leicester Square (I don't know how early it is advisable to get there, as we booked our theatre tickets before we got to London).

We did the London Eye at sunset and really enjoyed it. It is pretty expensive, so with a budget, I might consider skipping that. You can get great views from walking up St. Pauls (also costs, but not as much as the Eye) or going to the top of the OXO Tower on the South Bank (so I've heard, but haven't done it). Find the time of sunset for your dates at:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...omy.html?n=136

Sir John Soane's has some evening hours, which might be fun. http://www.soane.org/

The best shopping for your daughters ages and your price range will be at the H&M. Very stylish clothing and accessories at very reasonable prices. The main store on Oxford Street is too huge and a madhouse, as well as not being on your itinerary. There is a branch H&M in the Covent Garden area: 27-29 Long Acre, Tel: 020 7395 1250 http://www.hm.com. Other stores they might enjoy are Monsoon and Accessorize; both have locations in Covent Garden also.

Here are some links:

My trip report from our London trip at spring break:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34771547

Here is another family trip report from London:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34730329

Here is a thread with TONS of info about London with young teens:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34774808

Here is a link to the "London Superthread", which is a bit older, but has lots of information about London
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34548473

Thank you so much for all this info. Janis, I'd taken your note about do the jewels first & the only reason I'd even consider going to the Museum of London afterwards is that we otherwise won't really be in the area again, and this was 'my' choice. I'm the only one who's been to London before,& having read Edward Rutherford's London, I thought I'd like some visuals to go with it. I suspect at least some of our family (those who won't sleep during 20+hrs of flight) will be just about comatose by this time so the boat trip was something to keep us awake. I've read that one should attempt to stay awake to optimise adjusting to the arrival country, but I don't think I'll make it to 9pm.
Your tip about the 7 day pass I'll look into. It would help if I could find a comprehensive list of what the GB Heritage pass actually covers- the website is somewhat short on that info.
P_M, skipping the queues was a significant consideration as standing in queue when you are really tired isn't a great thing to do (another negative for Changing the guard).
I too would skip the Guard change experience but each of us nominated something we really want to do & my youngest's choice was "to try on one of those hats that the guards wear". Of course I can't dish that up, so her second choice is to watch the changing of the guard. I suspect she will be disappointed but I think it's a bit unfair for me to 'persuade' her out of it, because I think it will be boring (& she's the one to love something I find yawn material). However,one of the reasons I chose Tower of London for day 1 is that maybe there will be something there that will change her mind. Perhaps the horseguards could even be an option, though they don't wear that "awesome" headgear. Actually I wonder whether it's the watching of the ceremony,or would just seeing the guards be enough. I presume they have to March from somewhere to the Palace and perhaps enroute would be less crowded and offer a closer view?
Neo847, thanks for all those tips & I'll be reading about your trip. I could book theatre tickets on some of the last minute sites before I depart Australia but the whole jetlag, sleep deprivation thing leaves me a bit uncertain, maybe I should just do it for the 3 rd night & hope the worst is over.
Because of the poor performance of the Australian dollar (imagine everything to cost double+ what you might expect to pay)I need to watch the pennies so that the 5 weeks away doesn't lead to a 2nd motgage. Where I've chosen to reduce costs is on food & accomodation. The budget was never going to stretch to gourmet meals x4 and the Ritz. It's not so tough that it's bread & cheese but we're used to packing a daily lunch, and accomodation is budget not deluxe. The point of that is to prevent the "we won't do that because it's too expensive" mentality. However expenditure has to be justified. In the selection process for London we chose 6-8 things we'd like to do regardless of cost. We then added in a number of things that appealed & were no/low cost & came up with a must do, like to do, ok if we can list. Anything that was in this last group got axed if there was a cost associated with it (London Eye was in this group for a while).
With respect to the guided tours I think the Tower looks fine with the Beefeater tour, but I might still consider the Westminster tour depending on feedback I get. Apart from the queue jumping I have the perception that a good quality tour (kids go free on the London walks) might give us something we just can't get otherwise. I've read a bit about the Abbey but an interesting, anecdotal guided tour might allow us to appreciate what a whole lot of "new" and soon forgotten facts will not allow us to do. Of course if the tour simply tells us what I could just read in my guidebook there's not much point.
Thank you once again Janis, P_M & neo847- I have lots of useful info to check into.

Forgot to add. I've read somewhere that you can buy tickets to the Tower of London at any Tube station. Could we do this at LHR? It would save having to queue.

Like art? National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tates, etc. are all free.

You can save a bundle on transport. See http://tinyurl.com/ny32d

Get the Tower tickets at LHR when you buy your Oysters. Go the Jewel House first and pick up the Yeoman Warder's Tour afterwards.

The hop on/off bus is pricey for what you get. You can get to all the sights for £3 a day using this map: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/tourist.pdf

Here is the full bus story: http://tinyurl.com/pxywg

JoMark, you have obviously thought through and planned your trip with the whole family's input. It sounds to me that you are balancing things quite well and will get lots out of the trip.

The London Eye was a lot of fun for us. Some of what we enjoyed the most was the park on the South Bank near the Eye. There were lots of performers and musicians, and we had some wonderful ice cream at a cafe next to the Dali museum.

Your original question was about the weather and the Eye. We got lucky to have a sunny day forecast for our first day in London. I saw that before we boarded the plane and booked our tickets then. I would consider booking ahead regardless of the weather because it saves standing in the queue to buy tickets. Even on a cloudy/rainy day, you'd still see a lot from the Eye, and the mists and rain themselves would probably look pretty cool. The view I liked most was of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and they are right across the river. If you board at sunset you should see some lights on in the buildings by the time you finish.

You can get tickets to a good variety of shows in the tkts booth. From what I've read, you probably won't find 'Mary Poppins' or 'Billy Elliott', but there are a lot of other shows available. I was determined to see 'A Man for All Seasons' because of its history (and we followed it with a visit to the Tower the next day) so I ordered the tickets in advance. I wasn't comfortable leaving it to chance. Our friends went to the same show the next night and bought their tickets at the tkts booth, saving a good deal of money. Oh, well, at least I liked the play twice as much as they did!

The way you explain the tour through Westminster Abbey, it might make the place come 'alive' for the family. A good guide is worth his/her weight in gold. I had some written materials with fairly extensive descriptions, but I was reading and trying to summarize to my family - not very entertaining.

I did a bit of research on the changing of the guards. The 'tired' guards march from St. James Palace to Buckingham Palace and the 'fresh' guards gather at Wellington Barracks (on Birdcage Walk) for review and then march to Buckingham. Both these marches are at around 11:15-11:30.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, two to four guards stand at those sentry boxes outside the Palace. You could go at a non-changing time and get quite close to a guard. In fact, your daughter should be able to go stand next to a guard and get her picture taken. Then she could go to the guard shop and buy any number of related items.

We did not do this with the guards that wear the 'bearskin' hats, but my 17yo daughter did go up to the horse guard that was standing in the middle of the drive and we took a picture. The horse guards wear a cool helmet.

When we were in Prague three Christmases ago with both daughters, they derived enless amusement at posing for pictures with the sentries posted at various parts of the Prague Castle. The young men are trained not to smile or break their stance. We did see one crack a smile when a particularly enthusiastic young woman slipped and fell on the ice (not hurt!) after posing with him.

You might include Covent Garden as a low-cost entertainment. They have lots of buskers to watch for free. Also, if you can do a lunch in the park, rent a deck chair at St. James Park (or several other London parks). The last time I was there, it cost a pound for four hours. You can hear Big Ben chime, and sometimes see the horses going by.

This website http://www.gbheritagepass.com/ has a downloadable pdf file that lists ALL the properties on the Heritage Pass.

Your daughter's will also enjoy shopping at TopShop and Zara near Oxford and Regent's St.

I would definitely get the 3 day travelcard for the tube. It is the most efficient form of transportation and my kids loved riding the tube and finding their way through the underground.

Day 1 will ruin the rest of your holiday

Find something reasonably gentle like a late breakfast, a bus tour, walk in St James Park & a general mooch then have an early night to SLEEP

The 3-day Travelcard is not sole in the off-peak flavor, and does not save you any money on a day that you use only buses. Therefore you are paying £15.40 for transport that should cost at most £13.20, or as little as £9 for the three days. 3-day Travelcards cannot be loaded on an Oyster, so you lose the benefit of Oyster fares for any extensions (such as to Heathrow).

Travel by bus is easier than Tube (no climbing up and down, no walking between lines), often faster (buses run hundreds of more routes than the Underground), more scenic (there's not much to see in a tunnel), and amenable to more spontaneous sightseeing (you can jump off any time you see something intriguing). The fact that it's cheaper (the Oyster cap is £3 and the kids fly free) is pure gravy.

If you're lucky, there could be some type of royal ceremony while you're in London. We were fortunate to be there last June when there was a Royal Salute to the Crown. So we were able to see lots of rehearsals going on behind the palace, and the royal horseguards all 'suiting up' at Hyde Park with cannons in tow, etc. the day of the Salute.
And when we went to Abbey Road, we also saw some horseguards going by, I suppose in a practice routine. Pure luck. Do a Google or two and see if anything like that is happening, just in case you could be as lucky as we were.

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You can get great views from walking up St. Pauls (also costs, but not as much as the Eye) or going to the top of the OXO Tower on the South Bank (so I've heard, but haven't done it)
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there are two overpriced restaurants at the top of the OXO tower and no public viewing area. you can go up there and try to sneak a peak but it is a small reception area for the restaurants and the hosts will be all over you...not recommended.

There <u>is</u> a free viewing deck at the OXO Tower.

janis...where? it's probably been 9 months since i was up there...the lift only went to the restaurant level (residents' key required for other floors). the level with the restaurants (top floor) does not have a public platform as far as i could see.

While it lacks a bit of the pomp of Buckingham Palace there is a changing of the guard ceremony at the Tower of London. And there are plenty of guards in the bearskin hats. That might be enough to satisfy your youngest daughter.

For your first day, you might have less time than you think. We (me, hubby and 10-year-old son) arrived at Heathrow last year at about 7:30, stood in line at customs for a very long time, and it was late morning by the time we arrived at our hotel. We left the bags, had a late-morning snack, then the guys just had to have a 1/2-hour nap. We walked around a bit, rode on the on-off bus (more on that later) a bit, and then had a pub lunch in the Southward area. Then to the Tower of London - a perfect first-day activity, as it's active and mostly outdoors. After that, more riding on the on-off bus, and that was pretty much our first day. Other than that short nap, we felt pretty good (coming from the middle of the U.S.), and made it to about 9:30 (later for us adults).

On the on-off bus, yes, it's very expensive. It was very convenient, and we enjoyed where we rode, but I didn't think the commentary was stellar. (My son and I had fun listening to the commentary in other languages, though!) In hindsight, I would probably just use a regular bus plus my guidebook. The good side, however, was that the ticket is 24 hours, so we rode the on-off bus the first day afternoon AND the second day morning.

We did get tube passes; it probably wasn't a huge savings, but it allowed us to hop on and off the regular bus routes, and just take a bus a short distance if we met up with one going our way. We do a lot of hiking at home, though in our normal suburban life we use a car most of the time, so while we still did a lot of walking on our vacation, we saved our son some whining time by taking the bus/Tube here and there. One of our favorite memories is sitting at the top front of a double-decker bus, at night, from the National Theatre (south side of the Thames) to our hotel in Bloomsbury. The city lights were marvelous!