Is it worth booking tickets in advance for the ferris wheel in London. Does it really save you time or is there still a long wait. I will be there the end of July with 2 teenage boys. Also is there a best time of day.

Michele, do a search on this forum for London Eye where you will find many, many responses to this question and lots of advice for actually procuring tickets.

Hi Michele, <BR> <BR>I was in London during the first weekend in June. Despite reading messages on the list about getting tickets ahead of time for a time early in the day, I decided to wait until I got there to get tickets. I thought I would stroll up on Saturday in the late afternoon on my way back from Windsor to purchase a ticket for Sunday. Wrong!! I couldn't believe the number of people waiting on line for the ride. After I crawled through the crowd, I saw a sign that the tickets for the entire weekend were already sold out! I later learned that some people waited almost an hour to board,even with the timed tickets. <BR> <BR>I ended up purchasing a ticket for 9am on Monday morning, which turned out to be a great time to go. The line was very short, as we were the first groups to board. The weather was overcast, pictures are foggy, but the ride was incredible. Our host mentioned that overcast weather is actually more comfortable as the capsules really heat up when the sun is out. Almost everyone else in the capsule had tried for a weekend ticket too. <BR> <BR>My advice would be to get advance tickets for the 9am boarding. <BR> <BR>You'll have a wonderful time. <BR> <BR>Regards, <BR> <BR>Heather

Just went on the eye. had tickets ahead and still had to wait half an hour. Was it worth it? Not to me. Ho hum. S-L-O-W and much the same sight as you can see from the top floor of the Tate modern. As the local playwright wrote: Much ado about nothing. That said, the best time of day is sunset, when lines are shorter and you get the sky colors and the twinking lights just turning on.

I have experience with both purchasing in advance (through Global Tickets) and on the day of. Prior to our June visit to London, I ordered tickets by phone. There was a premium of at least $5US on each ticket, and the child fare was not available for advance booking, so I had to order adult tickets for my whole family. There are no family tickets offered, like at many other London attractions. Price was $18US per person on what would cost approx. $12.75 <BR>US if you wait til you get there to purchase. At the time I pre-booked our flight, they were selling only the 10:30AM and the 3:30PM flights. Our 10:30 flight happened to be in the rain with low visability. This made us want to ride it again later in our stay. <BR> <BR>We went back at 9AM on a Tuesday morning and purchased for 9PM that night. We had a beautiful sunset flight and it was a wonderful way to end our London visit. Adult tickets cost 8.50BP each, child tickets were less. We never ran into any long lines during our two flights. I think if you stay away from the weekends and you purchase your tickets the morning of you will not have any problems. We stayed at a hotel near the Millennium Wheel and saw the lines grow longer during the afternoons. Enjoy your flight!

We went in April with advance tickets purchased via their horrible phone system (see postings earlier this spring about the London Eye .. there are lots of them). We had 10:00 a.m. reservations and were there about 9:15 - we had no wait what so ever and actually went at 9:30. By the time we came down the lines were very l o n g so I'd say purchase tickets in advance if at all possible. I did think it was worth it, the views were lovely and the technology is very interesting. We'll be in London next spring and I plan on getting tickets for a nighttime ride as we did not get around to doing that this year. As for best time of the day, I'd say early a.m.- right about 9 a.m.

If you can book ahead, I think you should. I waited for an hour to get tickets for the next day. We went at 9am. It was great for not having to wait, but the morning mist hadn't burned off yet. However, it is definitely worth going on - no matter what time!