Two day in London for first timer! Help!
 

We are stopping here for our honeymoon, but can only do two days due to the cost. We will be arriving by rail from Paris early in the a.m. on the first day so I expect to get there around 11:00a.m on a Sunday. It looks like we'll be coming in to Waterloo(sp?).
Question 1: Where should we stay? Hotel or B&B and in what section to be most central?
We are not looking to spend more than 150-200 USD a night. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it is our honeymoon so nothing falling apart. I have heard Thistle Victoria may be a good bet.
Question 2: What must see sites can we fit in? On my list: Buckinham Palace, Kensington Palace, Tower of London, WestMinster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, British Museum.
Is this feasible, and if not, which are most important - I love history and architecture if that helps. I could care less about shopping, but would love some suggestions on in-expensive restaurants and great pubs! Thanks!!

Hi,
One area that I have stayed in is Bloomsbury. Many B&Bs within your price range (I stayed at a couple on Cartwright Gardens) , walking distance to British Museum, Oxford Street, longer walk to to Covent Garden. Tube is right there, direct line to Heathrow if necessary as well as airport bus. You might want to consider arriving, checking in, then doing an Open Air bus tour. My theory is you do a bus tour, you see the city and the major sites, then you go back (or do a hop on hop off) to see what interests you. I would reconsider Buckingham Palace (I assume you mean Changing of the Guards). Unless you get there early and stand at the right spot, you may not see much. Since you have little time....You could do a nice walk from Buck, through St james Park, have a look at St James Palace, down to Trafalgar Square, chekc out Nationsla Gallery, lunch in crypt of St Martin-in-the -Field, perhaps a concert there, then walk down to Parliament Square, maybe seeing changing of Horses Guard, checking out 10 Downing, Banqueting House, Cabinet War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Building, Big Ben,etc...Afterwards walk back and go to Covent Garden, maybe Leicester Square to buy 1/2 price tickets to a play. Another good idea would be a walking tour such as London Walks

http://www.s-h-systems.co.uk/hotels/crescenthotel.html
http://www.mentonehotel.com/rates.html
http://www.smoothhound.co.uk/hotels/...ousehotel.html

http://www.bigbus.co.uk/uk/html/uk_home.html

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/
http://uk.multimap.com/
http://london.walks.com/
http://victorianresearch.org/haineswalks.html


Hope this helps,
Mike

Thanks so much! That's a lot of info - some of those places I've never even heard of. I'm actually not interested in seeing the changing of the guard, I was more interested in seeing the inside of the palace. Apparently there is a tour - would this not be worth our time? I just like the decor/antiquity of those kinds of things...I'll have to check out your suggestions - thanks again!

Have you considered Priceline for a hotel. For $200 you should be able to win something pleasant.

Take a look at Travel Inn County Hall. It's close to The Eye and Waterloo station and a short walk across the Thames from Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Churchill's War Rooms, and the Horse Guards. If the weather is pleasant, it's a nice walk through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. The hotel is also a short walk from the boats to the Tower of London.
That's plenty to do in a couple of days. If your budget can be stretched a bit, consider the Mariott County Hall, which even offers views of Big Ben.

www.londontown.com can get you a good central hotel, and it may be within your budget or close. priceline may also work, Monica here at fodors got the Thistle Charing Cross in May for 100 bucks a night (dollars).

Buckingham P may or may not be open when you go. when is your honeymoon?

Michel has a lot of good tips. I'd add www.walks.com to it. I love their walking tours. (he put in london.walks and I thought they were only walks.com but I could be wrong)

I have to suggest a cafe I haven't seen mentioned here before. It's called Sausage and Mash Cafe and is on Portobello rd. (ladbrook tube station). My husband and I had a TON of food, beer, coke, and tip for less than $40. It was our favorite meal of the trip, great service, adorable decor etc. They specialize in sausages and mash (12 different sausages, 4 different kinds of mash, and 3 different gravys) but also have cottage pie, irish stew, etc. The desserts looked good too, but I was stuffed!

If you love history, I would make Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London your priorities. Since you time is so short, maybe on the first day you could take one of the hop on/off bus tours to see the highlights, hop off to take a few photos and take the tour of Westminster Abbey. Then on the second day see the Tower of London in the morning and maybe see a few things at the British Museum in the afternoon.

For $150-$200/night you can get a 5* hotel in the heart of London if you are willing to bid on a hotel on Priceline.com. You can get some excellent deals and you'll get the most for your money. Before bidding, do some research on www.biddingfortravel.com (read the Hotel FAQs, the London Hotel list and the message boards for bidding strategies and deals others have gotten.)

If you bid on a 4* you could maybe even stay an extra day on your savings. :) (But don't bid on anything less than 4*.)

If Priceline isn't for you, we've stayed at the Bonnington of Bloomsbury a couple of times and its a nice tourist class hotel that would probably be in your budget range. It's a decent hotel and about a 3 minute walk from the British Museum.

A beautiful after-dark walk: start at Charring Cross tube, cross the Hungerford Foot Bridge, stroll along the south bank of the Thames, past the London Eye. Cross Westminster Bridge to see (and hear) Big Ben and Parliament all lit up. Then stroll around Parliament Square past Westminster Abbey and back to the Westminster tube. Prettiest walk in London. :)

kmchick, you discovered my place!! I have mentioned it here before, but it's been quite a while back. What you didn't mention was that it is actually called the S&M Cafe!!

I believe Buckingham Palace is only open at certain times of the year. I would skip Kensington Palace since you have such a limited time (and it is a bit pricey.) I think you would really enjoy the British Museum, Tower of London and Westminister Abbey since you are interested in history and architecture. Could you possibly squeeze in one more day? What time do you have to leave on Tuesday?

You've gotten some terrific advice. I particularly agree with the idea of using Priceline for a hotel. Here's the link to the London page of Biddingfortravel

http://p070.ezboard.com/fpricelinean...abiddingfrm215

You can see what people are paying for rooms--as little as $85/night for 4* hotels (up to about $160-still great value) That same page has a link to the list of hotels by area and star level Priceline uses. They will also help you construct a bid.

FYI, the Thistle Victoria is not getting great reviews on tripadvisor. Read here
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...n_England.html

I think Michel Paris (Mike) has given you great advice for a walk and sightseeing. I must say I too have stayed on Cartwright Gardens and while I agree it's a convenient location, I would hope you could manage a better level of accomodation for a honeymoon ;) Those places are cheap and cheerful at best.

I agree on the bus tour, whether hop on/off or not. It's a great way to see a lot in a short time. If you'll be there when Buck. palace is actually open for visitors (Aug/Sept--here are the details)

http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page570.asp

it's certainly would be worthwhile.

Since you'll be arriving on a Sunday morning, if you're interested in palace decor and can't get into Buck., Spencer House, the family home of Princess Diana's family, is only open on Sundays (but not in August or Jan). Here's info

http://www.spencerhouse.co.uk/tourist.htm

Thanks everyone for all of your great advice! We will be there the Sept 11-14, having a 9:30am flight out to Ireland. Would love to squeeze in an extra day, but just can't take the time away from Paris or Ireland and the tickets are bought and paid for. Will definitly take your advice to do the bus tour the first day and will check into the walks. I'll look into the priceline thing and see if it's for me. Keep the advice coming if you have it - and thanks again!

I was thinking that no matter what the accomodations, when you are on a honeymoon, every room is like a room at the Ritz ;)

Yes, Mike, but when the bed sags, the walls are paper thin and the toilet's down the hall...it ain't so romantic ;)

mclaurie, I bow to your logic :)

Neat church:

http://www.greatstbarts.com/

If you are going to go to the Tower of London (and you should) plan on being there for opening time. It can get busy, tour buses etc...And plan on doing the Warders tour, good stuff

http://www.camelotintl.com/tower_site/index.html
http://www.hrp.org.uk/webcode/home.asp


http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/

London hotels can be expensive, so using service such as Priceline is not a bad idea. If you know an area you would like to stay in, there are interactive maps that give you the hotels/B&Bs in that neighbourhood.

If you do a search for london pubs here, you will get good information. If you click on the user name "ben_haines_london" in those posts (or search for his name) you will gain access to one of our best London resources. He has some hotel reviews worth reading.

Cheers
Mike

shannon, You will be there at the right time to go inside Buckingham Palace, and I highly recommend it. You need to order your tickets ahead of time and will have a timed entrance. This was my mother's favorite thing on a 12-day vacation.

We also went to Kensington Palace, mainly to see the display of the Queen's hats. We really enjoyed this, but other than that I don't think it's worth a trip, and it's out of the way of the other places you want to go, so with such little time I would skip this.

So, do Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey (absolutely don't miss that) on the first day. Then the second day start with the Tower of London, catch the bus up to St. Paul's, and if you still have time left over you could go to the British Museum. You probably wouldn't have enough time to see it all, of course, but you could probably fit some of it in.

If you stay near Trafalgar Square, you will also get to see that and be near theatres and lots of restaurants in Covent Garden. Have a great trip!

Here is the site to buy your tickets for Buckingham Palace:
https://www.the-royal-collection.com...71800062330468

Well, the good news is I got a great deal on Priceline for a 4 star hotel in London. We got the Millenium Gloucester for $115 which is in the Kensington area. The bad news is I got over-excited and decided to try my hand in Paris and got screwed! I guess I wasn't reading between the lines and now I'm stuck at a four star that's practically outside of Paris. Thought I was bidding on the 6th arr. but ended up in the 15th which is a 20 minute metro ride to any touristy thing to do. Anyone ever successfully cancelled through Priceline?

You can cancel (if you got the insurance $5/day) IF "for unforeseen illness and injury."

Monica ((F))

Shame on you ;) You didn't tell us you were going to try bidding for Paris (not what I would have recommeded but oh well...) So let's make lemonade out of lemon.

If you put 15th arr in the text search you'll come up with some previous posts and find that it's a middle class residential area. Some report having felt more Parisian having stayed there. Frequent poster, Christina rented an apt there and seems to know the area. In one post, she suggested to someone staying there to put <i>Zola</i> in the text search box here and then choose France from the box next to it to find a number of posts on the area. (The main street of the arr. is Emile Zola). What hotel did you get?

I got the Sofitel Paris Porte De Sevres. Almost all of the reviews that I've read about it are awful. I am kicking myself so hard for not paying better attention. I really didn't want to stay anywhere other than the 5th or 6th. I wanted to be able to pop in and out of our hotel within moments. I will take your advice however and start researching the area. If I'm stuck, then I'm stuck, and lemonade it will be! Thanks for your help!

I went to tripadvisor to read reviews

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...de_France.html

and what do I see? &quot;Great gym and pool at this hotel, good hotel, great deal, great hotel.....&quot; There's a water park next door. This sounds like FUN! Now what you must do immediately is register for free as a frequent guest with Sofitel.

http://www.sofitel.com/gb/fidelisati..._adh_acc.shtml

Then you must write or phone the hotel and tell them it's your honeymoon and you would appreciate if they could make sure you get a renovated rooms (evidently some are, some not)

It wouldn't hurt to do the same thing with the Millenium group. That's a way to improve the average Priceline room. You should also make them aware it's your honeymoon (and wherever you're staying in Ireland.

And don't forget to think about all the money you've saved on rooms and what that will buy in splash out meals or shopping ;)

Several things that we really enjoyed while in London this past summer were the British Museum, Westminster Abby (try to get reservations for a verger's tour...informative and you get to go places others don't get to go.) Also try to get tickets for the Key Ceremony at the Tower, again, you have to send in for the tickets, but what a neat experience. If you type in Key Ceremony or Westminster Verger's tour here at Fodor's or go to the websites for both places, the information you need will be there. St. Pauls has been under renovation for a long time, hasn't it? We didn't get there this past summer. If it still is, then it will be covered with scaffolding, but the interior...wow!!! St Martin's on the Field..we loved this wonderful place, from the food and the rubbings in the crypt to the musical celebrations, it was a place where you felt very welcome. Also, if you go on one of the bus tours, you get a free boat trip that takes you from the Tower up the river to I think it was parliment. We stayed at the Hilton Edgeware and loved it there, we became Hilton Honor's members and were upgraded due to it being our 20th anniversary after having gone through priceline. We bought our travel cards, British Heritage Pass and paid for all of our theater before coming over, if you look at Last Minute.com they have good prices, also Porter's Restaurant has a good tie in to discounted theater tickets and we got dead center for one for half price including dinner there. I wish you many years of happiness and a great trip!

Julie

Mclaurie: Thanks so much for research - you are very sweet! We'll make the most of it I promise. :)
Thanks to everyone else for the great advice!

For whatever its worth, I would avoid the hop on and hop off buses because they are quite expensive and they get stuck in traffic. Narrow down your itinerary and take the tube. It's quicker and much cheaper. Have a great time!

The cheapest double at the Bonnington of Bloomsbury is $270 (May). What a shock when I realized that their prices were in pounds, not Euros!

This seems to be about as cheap as a decent London hotel seems to be. To bad, but London has pretty well priced itself off the radar as far as I'm concerned.

That's why Priceline is such a great bargain in London. Just got a room at the Copthorne Tara in Kensington for $82/night - US dollars! :)

&quot;Author: Kayb95 ([email protected])
Date: 01/27/2005, 01:48 pm
Message: That's why Priceline is such a great bargain in London. Just got a room at the Copthorne Tara in Kensington for $82/night - US dollars!&quot;

I'd like to believe that all this Priceline talk is true. I've only tried them once and the results were not so great.

If you do a lot of research on www.biddingfortravel.com ahead of time, it greatly reduces the risk of getting a stinker. I think it's the best way to go in London. Besides the Copthorne Tara, I've gotten the Dolphin Square Hotel in Westminster for $97/night and the Heathrow Marriott for $67/night.

Honeymooners - congrats on your Priceline London hotel. I've used Priceline at least a dozen times, mostly in London, always with satisfaction. Never paid more than $115, often less, for a 4* place, usually in Bloomsbury but sometimes in Kensington and Mayfair.

Agree with poster who emphasizes studying Biddingfortravel. I re-read it every time I bid on Priceline.

Re: Paris - how many nights are you staying? If just one or two, you could just write it off and start over. Or if more than one night, spend some time at the Sofitel and some time elsewhere.

I actually love the Sofitel in Los Angeles which may be irrelevant.

Are you a piano player?

Well Priceline absolutely refuses to budge, even to transfer to a different Sofitel, and my credit card company practically laughed at me as soon as I mentioned it was Priceline. My last resort is to call the hotel directly and ask if they can transfer my reservation to another Sofitel closer to the heart of Paris. I just have to figure out how to dial over there - should it be this hard? We are staying for five nights, so I really don't want to waste the money and will make the best of things if we can't transfer. The money saved will actually pay for a night at Dromoland Castle when we get to Ireland so it's not too bad.
Making lemonade - :)

&quot;If you do a lot of research on www.biddingfortravel.com ahead of time, it greatly reduces the risk of getting a stinker&quot;

I don't understand this. Isn't the whole point of Priceline that you don't know what you are going to get ahead of time? The one time that I used Priceline, I did look at biddingfor travel. I ended up with a place that no one haf ever mentioned.

Shannon,
For what it is worth, Dromoland Castle is beautiful. It would be a perfect place to stay while on your honeymoon. When you arrive at the hotel, they open your car door and say &quot;Welcome home.&quot; It only gets better from there. If your Paris hotel isn't too far out of the way and inconvenient, it would be worth it for a night at Dromoland. JMHO

Suse

Shannon, you'll have to let us know how the lemonade turns out. :)

Metullus, what hotel did you get in London that you were dissatisfied with? What star level was it? They state on the BFT site that the hotels on the list are the hotels Priceline has historically used. That's the kicker with Priceline - you don't know the hotel until you win the bid. So there is always an element of risk. But if you feel you got a hotel that didn't represent the star level you bid on, letting Priceline know about it may help them evaluate using that hotel in the future.