Asking help again in London
 

Hello, very quick specific question:

Hoping to fit in the Tower of London (arriving at opening time) AND make a 12:30 Globe Theater tour same day. Is this unrealistic?

If it is unrealistic, is the Tower of London towards the end of the day too busy?

We have the London Pass so this may complicate matters.

First time in London.

Thank you.

This will be September 22, a Thursday.

Partly depends on how early a start you want that day. To get to the Tower ticket office before 0900, you'll need to leave the hotel around 8AM (depending on where you are staying). You could do the Tower first, but if it was me -- I'd probably have a nice breakfast, do the Globe tour, have a quick lunch either at the globe or maybe in Borough Market (a 7 or 8 min. walk from the Globe) and visit the Tower in the afternoon (maybe a 15 min walk from Borough Mkt). Crowds at the Tower start to thin out a bit in mid afternoon.

Question - have you already bought the London Passes?

I agree with Janis, go later in the day. You do not want to be rushed. Except I would not eat at the Globe, Borough Market for sure!

Why does the London pass complicate things? I thought you could skip the line at the Tower with the pass.

The LP allows one to skip the general ticket purchase line. The advance purchase / pass queue is definitely shorter but is still a line.

Thanks for the input, we’ll try to do the Tower of London a bit later in the day.

we were planning to hit the Borough Market for lunch. Cheese Toasties maybe.

Rialtogirl, why not the Borough Market for lunch?

we have already purchased the London Pass and thought we would use it for a one day boat pass to get to the Globe and Tower of London.

sorry if my wording was not clear. I meant to not eat at the Globe, but to go to Borough Market for sure.

I see rialtogirl already clarified it -- she was saying to definitely lunch at Borough Mkt. My only caveat might be that it gets really crowded at lunch time (though Thurs would be better than Fri/Sat). It would be better to walk from the Globe to Borough Market -- the boat would take more than twice as long. The boat travels from Bankside Pier (near the Globe) to London Bridge pier. From London Bridge pier its close to a 10 minute walk to the Market. By the time you just got to London Bridge you could have easily walked the 8-ish minutes from the Globe.

Regular Oyster cards are accepted on the same uber boats the LP offers (the Pass isn't usually the great bargain it claims to be, but since you already bought them, make as much use as you can)

ps: after lunch at Borough Market - then you can take the boat from London Bridge > Tower Pier -- it is only one stop and total journey time from the Mkt to the Tower Welcome Centre taking the boat would probably save 5 or 6 minutes (not counting any wait time for the next boat)

Thanks Janis you are always a wealth of information.

I would suggest planning out your day to leave plenty of time. The earliest you can attend is 9am, but it would be nice to go in the afternoon, but then again that's the time it starts to get busy. If you go first thing in the morning you can avoid the rush, but if you want to have a bit of lunch first etc. then it will be the afternoon, just a lot more busier at that time

" but it would be nice to go in the afternoon, but then again that's the time it starts to get busy. "

Actually the Tower of London is busiest between about 0930 and around 2PM-ish. The strategy for arriving early is not necessarily to escape crowds but to go directly to the Jewel House -- getting there while everyone else is amassing at the entrance to catch a Beefeater tour. That way one can see the jewels in relative quiet -- by the time you exit the Jewel House the place is starting to heave . . .