London help with kids please! Kingsington!

[Feelingthepinch22]

Hi, my dd has a dancing competition which will be held in kingsington so we'll need to base ourselves there. (travelling from Galway)
The hotels we're looking at are the Montana & Millennium Glouster (where the competition is being held).
We have never been to London so would love to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben etc. Advice on sightseeing from kingsington please! Very nervous about public transport as it looks very difficult to navigate!
Also please advise on the best way to get to kingsington from Heathrow. Thanks in advance!

Do you mean Kensington?
You might be best asking on the UK Travel forum. You can probably walk to Buckingham Palace from there. Big ben is the bell inside the tower and until recently it was covered in scaffolding, hopefully someone local can confirm if it's been removed. If you're not certain about using public transport then I'd do a hop on / off bus tour, they usually give you a good overview of the main sights.
The Transport for London website might help you: tfl.gov.uk/maps I'd also advise checking google maps for the location of stations above ground as it's sometimes easier to walk round the corner than go to the effort of changing tube lines to get to a slightly closer station.

Sorry yes Kensington! Thanks for all the advice, we're country bumpkins & this will be quite alot for us to take in!

Use citymapper app for public transport routes. TFL is very easy to navigate but people inside the stations wal very quickly and seemingly know it inside and out, just hang back and make sure you read the signs properly.

I wouldn’t bother with a tourist bus tour, waste of money really and take ages on convoluted routes, just use tfl red buses and sit on the top deck to get a nice view.

Kensington is quite central and very pretty, a stones throw from museum and kensington gardens/hyde park too.

Tube should be very easy and quickest to get there from heathrow but check citymapper.

Also use a contactless card for bus/tube fares, public transport is cashless and your card will automatically apply the daily fare cap for unlimited journeys.

This hotels are very short walk from Gloucester Road tube station, which is on the Piccadilly line, so its direct from Heathrow no changes

To go sightseeing round the Buckingham Palace area, I'd take the District or Circle line Tube to Westminster, station is next to the Houses of Parliament, so you can see Big Ben etc. Then walk up Whitehall, past the Downing Street gates and up to Horseguards (you might see horses in the sentry boxes there, and I think they do their changing on the guard at 11 on Horseguards Parade which is through the courtyard and arch)

Then you can stroll through St James Park and come out at Buckingham Palace, or go a bit further north (to top of Whitehall) and take in Trafalgar Square, then walk along the Mall to the palace.

The scaffolding has been removed from Big Ben.

There are loads of hotels around that area of Gloucester Road/Cromwell road.
You're well placed to go to the big museums, natural history, science and Victoria and Albert.
And you can walk up to Hyde park easily.

You can get the tube to green park and walk through st James park to Buckingham palace, then on down towards the river to see Big Ben and parliament.

You cannot use cash to pay for buses.

Best of luck in the competition.

Thanks so much, provisionally booked the Montana hotel, it's near the millenium glouster where the competition is being held!

By the way, if you hadn't spotted it, MN has a London topic. You might like a browse at there are lots of threads with tourist tips and ideas

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/london

I would check whether Picadilly trains are stopping at the Gloucester Road tube station at the time that you are going; they haven't been lately. There are other tube stations relatively near that you can walk to - maybe check exactly where your hotel is - and there are still other lines from Gloucester Road even if not Picadilly, but it might make a difference to your initial arrival plans with suitcases etc as it's less fun to walk longer distances with luggage.

tfl.gov.uk/tube/stop/940GZZLUGTR/gloucester-road-underground-station?lineId=piccadilly

Doesn't say there are any issues. Has it been part closed recently?

If it has got planned closures, the don't panic - go instead to South Kensington station - they're fairly close to each other anyhow, and only a bit longer walk to your hotel

Get the bus- much cheaper than the tube. The 11 is a great route, Westminster, Trafalgar square, Aldwych (covent garden), up to St Pauls- walk across wibbly wobbly bridge etc Hop on and off.

Tube in from Heathrow but then bus or walk- you will see so much more

If you do a search then the map apps tell you which buses/tubes and where they go from

no, I was wrong! My memory was confused :)

It was South Kensington that was/is closed, and Gloucester road where everyone had to go to instead!

So you'll be fine at Gloucester Road.