First time in London
 

We are couple with 2 girls (teenagers) from Toronto, Canada and plan to visit London for the first time for 9 days (Aug 18 to Aug 27). We need your help for some basic informations :

1) What is the recommended itineraries in London for 9 days. We are not big fans of museum, so we only plan to visit 2-3 museums that must see. My girls want to visit Madame Tussauds for sure. Appreciate if you can give us a list of things that we should not miss. Don't mind to travel outside the city if the time permits.

2) Best area or accomodation to stay in reasonable budget . Is CAD$ 200 per night reasonable?

3) What is the best deal but not complicated option for the transportation?

Thanks,
Esther

What kind of accommodation are you looking for? 2 double rooms in a hotel? (Having 2 bathrooms is good with 2 teenage girls.) Or one quad room? Have you considered an apartment? Nice to have a kitchen plus there are lots of places in London selling ready-to-heat-and-eat food.

Look at Fodors Destinations (at the top of this page)for sights in London. And get a guidebook or two and get the girls involved in the planning. They'll be more invested in the trip. The Michelin Green Guides and Rick Steves rate sights. It helps but your priorities may be different.

With 9 days you should be able to get outside the city, at least for day trips. Cambridge by train would make a nice trip that time of year, walking the backs and maybe punting on the Cam.

And London Walks,www.walks.com, offers all sorts of themed walks in London and day trip excursions out of London. With them we did a trip to Hampton Court Palace, arriving by boat up the Thames from Richmond.

I highly recommend getting a good guide book (we love Michelin Green Guide) and seeing what they are interested in. Group the sites by location and then come up with a 9 day itinerary. Once you have got the wish list you can post it and we can help tweak it. What we are interested in may not be what they are!

Some ideas:

1 day - 1/2 day at the Tower and a walk along Southbank
1 day - Buckingham Palace, St James' Park, Parliament Sq and Westminster Abbey (Churchill War Rooms if you have time)
1 day - St Pauls and Museum of London
1/2 day - British Museum
1 day - SoHo, Trafalgar Sq and Covent Garden
1 day - Shopping (oxford st, regents st and carnaby st, or maybe Camden Markets)
1 day - Greenwich with a boat cruise down the river

Day trips ideas (you have time for maybe 2 of these)
- stonehenge and Salisbury
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Bath
- Hampton Court
- Windsor

Last on my list would be Madame Tussauds - expensive horrible wax museum always crowded with a long line of tourists - there are way better sites!

Also recommend www.walks.com for their Explorer days for day trips and their walks. A night pub walk might be a fun idea.

They may also be interested in seeing a show www.tkts.co.uk will give you some ideas, or doing the London Eye.

Happy planning!

Oh forgot to say - for transport as there are two of them, get a 7 day travel card at a train station so they can take advantage of 2for1 on alot of sites www.daysoutguide.co.uk there are tonnes of posts about this and the oyster card so do a search here and do some reading. If the other 2 days are travel days they may just need a single fare...

Just a quick note: "<i>Is CAD$ 200 per night reasonable? </i>"

Not for two rooms -- not for most quads either. That's a bit less than £130 at today's rates. You could get a nice 1-bdrm+sofa sleeper flat for less than that. Or a modest 2-bdrm place for around that budget.

To give you an idea, these apartments are not in the very center but are next door to the Tower of London and the river. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hamlet_uk/

But they are very popular due to the rates so they do book up. Worth a shot

Well, it's already the midle of July so a lot of hotel bargains will be gone by now. For 2 rooms your budget is very small. If you want one deluxe room that will fit 4 people in 2 double beds - it still is limited.

I would start looking at all of the discount websites now to see which places have the type of roome you need (most rooms are 1 double bed) for your dates and near your budget. Then you can start looking at locations.

As to what to do. You all need to get guidebooks and study them - and make your own must do lists. And be sure to schedule time to break into smaller groups so all can see what they really want. When we went with our teen daughters tey spent parts of several days - and aouple of evenings doing things we weren;t particularly interested in.

I was in London last summer with my teenage daughter. here's a few highlights. First, your room budget may be a bit, tight, but do check into Premier Inns. they have reasonable rates, several good locations, and are clean/friendly.

For the what to do question, here are a few thing that really stood out for my daughter. The Borough Market was a big hit, some amazing food there. Set aside a Saturday for the Camden Market. Cheap, fun and tons of fun. Madame Tussauds may be pretty cheesy, but I can see how a couple of teen girls would have a lot of fun there.

I would also recommend a trip to Leicester Square to pick up some theater tickets. This was another highlight for my daughter.

sheesh - I just read my post, too bad I can't edit it. That's what I get for typing a forum post while on a conference call.

I'll second jamikins' recommendation on the rail pass and 2 for 1 deals. That saved us quite a bit of money on our trip.

It all depends on what everyone in your family are interested in....

I was in London at the beginning of May this year with my grandmother, and I am a total literary/history geek ( in a nice way ). Some of my major highlights were:

Westminster Abbey ( even if your girls don't like old churches, there is the Wills and Kate appeal...)

Watching Hamlet performed at the Globe Theatre ( this is a bit more of an acquired taste )

A day in Greenwich ( seeing the Royal Observatory and Prime Meridian, National Maritime Museum ( including Lord Nelson's uniform from the battle of the Nile), and the Painted Hall and Christopher Wren Chapel at the Old Royal Naval Colleges) p.s. This is great for people who are really interested in naval history!

A day in the Cotswolds visiting relatives, who took us to a gorgeous old pub overlooking all seven valleys, a walk in proper English woods, and a driving tour around Gloucestershire, including a leisurely afternoon stroll through Painswick village:).

In London itself, I also enjoyed listening to an Evensong service at St. Paul's ( during which I couldn't stop staring at the ceiling ). Walking around Southwark, exploring Borough Market, visiting the Cathedral, and seeing the last remaining wall of the Marshelsea prison ( which features in Charles Dickens' novel, Little Dorrit ). Also spotting the street signs from the monopoly board game: Regent St. Piccadily etc. Is quite fun!

Thank you for all the responses. Much appreciated. We prefer one quad room if possible. Is apartment a good option? If yes, waht is the best way to find a reasonable apartment? Location is important for us since I have now a health issue (after treatment) and may be easy to feel tired.

We have no enough time to search; thinking to visit a must-see places only as recommended above. Plan to see a show, is there any specific show that is recommended? Considering my health condition, is it possible to do last minutes booking for the show? And is the tour (www.walks.com) better than doing our own for me?

Thanks again,
Esther

Try these sites for accommodation:

www.lastminute.com
www.laterooms.com
www.londontown.co.uk
www.trivago.co.uk

One more important question:
Do you recommend us to stay at the same hotel/apartment for all 9 days?

"<i>Do you recommend us to stay at the same hotel/apartment for all 9 days?</i>"

You are going in one month -- you probably won't have the luxury of choice. Get on it ASAP!!!

Few nice apartments will have availability of 9 straight nights and even hotels, and especially budget hotels, may not have 9 days open. And needing a quad only complicates things.

If you are afraid of being tired and not having enough energy taking tours is a terrible idea. For those everyone must keep up or drop out. They can't wait for people that are slower or need to take a break. (If it;s a bus tour you may find yourself just sitting on a bus while other go to look at something.)

Much better to organize on your own - your family will understand and you can go slower or take breaks or even go back to the apartment while others go on sightseeing (not really possible on a tour.)

And agree - you are very late to try to find a place for 4 - esp on a strict budget.

We booked St. Ermin's hotel in London. Hope we made the right decision based on the good reviews from trip advisory forum.

1) Could anyone tell us the best transportation from Gatwick airport to the hotel please?

2) If we are going to Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath on our own, do you think it's doable in one day? I see the tour by the London Toolkit going those routes :

https://www.premiumtours.co.uk/psite...bath.id178.php

Any comments about this tour? @nytraveler: isn't it easier for us just taking a tour, following them and no need to worry where to go?

Definitely not doable in a day by yourself. And not in a group tour if you actually want to see any of it.

Bath is worth a full day, so is Windsor/Eton by the time you actually get there and include lunch and get back.

Stonehenge is good to mix as a day trip with Salisbury as thats where the bus leaves from. Stonehenge itself only takes about an hour tops, but you take a bus from Salisbury so it takes a bit of time.

Many companies offer these crazy itinerary tours, but you pay for the all the logistics to be taken care of and spend ALOT of time on the bus rather than enjoying the destinations.

The only group tours I recommend from London are London Walks Explorer Days: http://www.walks.com/London_Walks_Ho...n/default.aspx

You pay for the discounted train tickets and group rate entry tickets, and then I think £12-14 for the two walks they give you on the trip. They arrange all the logistics, plus the guide. You do a walk in the morning, break for lunch/shopping etc and then do a walk in the evening and get back to London around 7pm.

You will see they dont try to cram ridiculous amounts of places into one tour - you actually spend the day in the location you are visiting.

So if you want a tour maybe some of their day trips will interest you.

You could also consider a B&B. There is a large selection in London, and prices can be cheaper than hotels.

A sample..
www.harlingfordhotel.com/

I've used the Bloomsbury area as my home base whne I go. Good access to Tube, Heathrow. Restaurants, shopping, not too busy, park, British Museum. Last trip I walked form there to St Paul's, and another time Covernt Garden/Trafalgar Sq.

Ditto on London Walks. They have some interesting walks with good guides. When I was last there I did one every day. They also go outside the city. I did their day time tour of Hampstead and their pub tour at night. It is a nice area of the city.

www.walks.com

My last trip I discovred the Oyster Card. Bought at card at Victoria Station (where train from Gatwick terminated), loaded it with "cash", and then just swipped whenever used Tube. There are also 'packages' you can load on to the card. More info from the experts here on what is best.

There is a half-price theatre ticket booth at Leicester Sq. that I have used for 'day-of' plays.

"<i>1) Could anyone tell us the best transportation from Gatwick airport to the hotel please? </i>"

The St Ermins is nice -- surprised you could get it w/i your budget.

It is quite close to Victoria Station, so you'd take either the Gatwick Express or the cheaper Southern Train from Gatwick to Victoria and then a less than 10 minute walk or a very short cab ride from there.

@griz_fan - why is saturday for camden market? can we go there on other day?