London - Last minute trip before Christmas. Would you?

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Definitely go! I'm 27 and live in London, you won't be more at risk than anywhere else.

Go ice skating at national history museum or Somerset House. Science museum is also great. If uou can get tickets the lights at Kew Gardens are beautiful. Oxford St and regent St are so pretty at the moment.

Avoid winter wonderland - overpriced and over crowded. Southbank sometimes have market stalls.

Matilda is a great theatre show If that's in budget. Have fun!

Don't drive once you're in London it's completely pointless.

Winter wonderland has more atmosphere once it's dark - you can't see the sparkles during the day.

Bond Street lights have been beautiful for the past few years. Carnaby street also a good shout and the food court at Kingly Court is handy. Also: Liberty < genuflects>

Get to as many things including shops and museums for the second they open where possible

Christmas trees in the city at The Royal Exchange// Mansion house are all lovely. Trafalgar Square this year is very sad looking ( sorry Norway, and thank you!)

Southwark cathedral and lots of churches have bookable Carol services between now and Christmas.

We're booked to go to London for a few nights just before Christmas. We've booked the Natural History Museum. Planning on going to Buckingham Palace and probably the Diana playground. Little one is desperate to see "Paddington's" house so will head to that and probably do Camden market at the same time. I want to do Covent Garden, Liberty's and Carnaby Street lights

Wow so many responses for you, I posted a similar thing last week and got about 10!!

I'd probably leave your car somewhere at the top of the Jubilee line and tube it down to Southwark.

I drove on our last visit and swore never never never again. No matter how bad the train is driving is worse.

If you do drive in remember you will need to pay ULEZ as well as the congestion charge now (depending on what car you have). London is fine at the moment

Fine apart from gridlocked much of the time. Between deliberate road closures, roadworks, tube strikes and people driving in because they mistakenly think it'll be quiet, some of the main road arteries in/out of London are horrendous. Where I live traffic is now stationary from 2pm in the afternoon. It's worse than before Covid.

I’m taking my DD5 on her birthday, through to Christmas Eve (2 nights) we are going to see the new frozen musical, do the light walk at Kew Gardens and have booked tickets for the natural history museum. Staying in cover my garden at the premier inn hub, £80 a night for a double so very reasonable!

Placemarking as this seems like a lovely idea! We have a 2yo and a 6mo so we probably won't book into anything for this year, but might go up after Christmas Day for a walk around and to see the lights. Is it likely to be busy on the bank holiday on the 28th? That's the only day I can see that we really have time for it, but unsure if it's going to be more or less busy than before Christmas

If you do drive in remember you will need to pay ULEZ as well as the congestion charge now (depending on what car you have). London is fine at the moment - I prefer it when it is busy as it feels more full of life. The quietness of lockdowns and just after was depressing. If you want to do the theatre The Play That Went Wrong is very funny and not expensive. Winter Wonderland is ok to have a wander around but it will get expensive if you want to go on rides etc. I liked the Bavarian Beer Hall which has slightly odd but fun live music throughout the day.

London is my favourite place in the world and I'm very lucky to live so close - I'll be up next Saturday for some shopping and light gazing! Make sure you go to more than just Oxford St and Regent St lights which are both pretty blah compared to lots of Mayfair plus places like Seven Dials etc. The best bits of London are where you step away from the hell that is Leicester Square and check out the side streets/smaller villagey areas like Chelsea and Marylebone.

Was in London last weekend with DS2 for a show. It was rammed, particularly in the Piccadilly area.
I didn't find it much fun but DS2 was happy - we did visit Hamleys - he's perfectly aware its very expensive in there so we weren't going to buy anything, but just having a look around was still enjoyable although it was packed and they were not restricting people going in. He's 12. The lego shop queue wasn't too bad - we didn't wait more than 10 minutes - although I find it disappointingly small when you get inside.
We also did Forbidden Planet which both mine love - its down Shaftesbury avenue so walkable to Lego shop.
I took him to see back to the future, which we both really enjoyed (but we had amazing seats, right near the front)

Welcome - thanks. I’ve tried googling but can’t find anything.

Sorry wrong thread, I'll ask for it to be removed

If you stay in the docklands and travel by DLR, try and get to the front of the first carriage - DS will enjoy the "driver's" view.

Check the TFL (Transport for London) website before you travel as there are tube strikes on selected lines on some days.

For a show, consider one of the 'goes wrong' shows, there are usually good deals on tickets and they're not massively long.
And your son is the right age for all the slapstick and silly humour.

Also go to the Lego shop as well as hamleys, although often a queue.

Is that a weekend? Docklands Travelodge is new, clean, with SuperRooms that are very comfortable. It’s very cheap most weekends because of lack of business customers. About 10/15 minutes into Westminster on the DLR.