Help with day trip to London…

[Bumblebeesandflowers]

Hi, we’re looking at taking a day trip to London this week and will be arriving at London Victoria coach station at around 8 or 9am. We will have two kids age 6 and 9 with us and we don’t know where to start with an itinerary for the day. We really don’t know our way around London!

We haven’t decided on our return home time as yet it all depends on what our itinerary is. Can anyone help please so we can get around and see sights such as Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Covent Garden, Tower of London and / or wherever will suit our family and enable us to plan the day and get around easily.

Do you literally want to ‘see’ the sights or ‘do’ the sights?

Buckingham Palace for instance isn’t interesting to a 6&9 year old - see it from the outside and move on! Tower of London is great on the other hand, but it’s east and you’re starting west, so unless it’s a ‘must do’ for you I’d skip it and go straight to the museums instead (Natural History & Science) and have a half day there.

Then you could go on an open top bus tour to ‘see’ the main sights, if that’s important to you.

Don’t try to cram in doing as many attractions as possible because you’ll all end up grumpy and hassled.

From Victoria you can walk to Buckingham Palace in under 10 minutes. From there straight down the road to Westminster Abbey and Parliament. Then you can walk up Whitehall past Downing Street to Trafalgar Square. Once there you can go into the NPG (could be a couple of hours in there) and it is 5 mins to Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. If you arrive at 9 reckon you can do that by noon.

After that two choices (neither are more than 15-20 mins on the Tube) - head east to the City and see St Pauls and the Tower of London (book tickets for the latter) or head west to Knightsbridge / South Ken and do Harrods and the V&A/ Natural History Museum.

The British Museum at Tottenham Court Road or Russell Sq tube is another alternative.

The places you have mentioned are very spread out over London. Harrods is just a shop and really not that interesting.

I agree with the previous poster and get a sight seeing bus. You can hop on and off.

I would also recommend getting the Thames Clipper. It's fun to see the city from the water.

www.thamesclippers.com

The best advice is to pick just a couple of things you really want to see and spend a good amount of time on them - London is so big it takes ages to go between places and it gets overwhelming if you do too much.

Starting where you are (Victoria coach station) I would try to walk past Westminster and over a bridge, then go to Covent Garden, then maybe Trafalgar Square and National Portrait Gallery. That would fill a whole day for us.

I tend to prefer to do a small patch at a time, personally.

Boat trips are an excellent option although pricey, but yes if affordable they are really worth it.

My DC are similar age and were exhausted after a couple of hours in the Science Museum, so I'd definitely not plan too much. I'd go to either Science Museum or Natural History Museum in the morning then Diana memorial playground in Kensington Gardens after lunch.

I'd also check what their school topics are for the coming year, as there might be a relevant museum or exhibition.

Last time I took someone out in London we went to the London Eye first as it gets so busy and then went into Sea Life for a while then ate by the river.

Once there you can go into the NPG (could be a couple of hours in there)

Isn't the NPG currently closed? Not sure it would appeal to a 6 and 9 yo anyway.

What about a ride on the Tube, if they've never done it before?

And if you're not bothered about being on an open top bus, the top of an ordinary No. 11 bus from Victoria or No. 15 from Traf Square is just as good for seeing the sights.

If you're going to the Tower, you can look up the Tower Bridge website to see if the bridge will be opening while you're there, so you can be on the spot to see it.

If you don't know London at all, getting an A-Z street map, wearing comfy shoes and just walking around and hopping on and off buses and learning your way about is a good way to start, rather than trying to cram in a lot of big attractions which you'll be too knackered to take in. See www.tfl.gov.uk for info on bus routes, fares etc.

You are right @Zosime - NPG is shut until 2023.

Get the Uber boat up the Thames and Emirates cable car

Madame Tussauds went down well with my kids. One child wanted to ‘do’ the monopoly board, so he and I spent the whole time doing that. Another really enjoyed Hamleys - I only bought one small item as a souvenir, so if you treat is like a museum it’s not an expensive option.

I went to London with my 11 year old grandson last week. We stayed two nights and did The London Eye, Madame Tussauds, The British Museum and a visit on the tube to the Emirates stadium. It was fab but exhausting.
We did what he wanted which was fine but we had to use the tube a lot and waked for miles. Currently nursing a sore heel now and having to wear flip flops.!

I think the question is, do you want to do a lot of attractions - Harrods, Sea Life, Diana Memorial etc etc - or do you want to see London, which is a fantastic city with so many different aspects and hidden corners that you can never get to the end of it. Get it right and you could inspire your two with a lifetime's interest in exploring and discovering it.

Tube to South Kensington for Natural History museum and Dippy, and/or Science Museum. Walk up to Hyde park to Kensington Palace and Diana playground. Bus towards Green Park/Hyde Park Corner (for Buckingham Palace) then on to Trafalgar Square . Tube or river boat Embankment to Tower. Back to Victoria via Westminster.

Or you could take in Covent Garden from Trafalgar Square , walk over bridge to South Bank and miss out Tower.

How about doing an open top bus tour. It will give you a trip around the major sites and you can hop off and on at the places that most interest you. It will also give you all a chance to rest your feet in between attractions. You will also have a commentary so will learn lots of facts and information about the city.

Get an all day boat pass, hop on and off .. tower pier for the tower of London, O2 for the excellent emirates cable cars to get a spectacular view of London. Lunch at the O2 or Greenwich. You can pretty much see every thing from one end of London to the other on a boat.

We went last year with a 4 & 5 year old, My advice is don't try to cram too much in. You can always go back next year.

For info, our day was:
Tube from Stanmore - youngest really wanted to go on the train but it cost loads and this was a good alternative.

First stop Hamleys, looked at the whole store, gave them a £30 budget for toys, this was more than adequate.

lunch was not planned - oversight on our part, we ended up at 5 guys, but I'd advised booking into the Rainforest cafe or Planet Hollywood type place. much more exciting for kids and better menus and probably similar money.

Shrek's adventure tour - this was brilliant, the kids loved it and the staff were great. It was also a great walk there as we passed Big Ben and the HOP.

Walk along Southbank, seeing the buskers, one had one of those giant bubble things and they loved it, there's a great park there to, ice cream stands etc.

Dinner at a restaurant nearby, I can't remember the name of it, but it was about a 7 min walk from the park at Southbank and was great for kids.

back on the tube to Stanmore, Pj's on in the car, around an hour's drive home where they both fell asleep having had a lovely day.

We walked and tubed everywhere, with the giant buildings, busses, statues and shops, there's plenty to keep them distracted from a longish walk, we did buy a bit of tat from street sellers as they distracted them, but only a few pounds and kept them occupied.

I would suggest that you have get a tube from Victoria to Westminster or walk there with a view to stop off and have breakfast along the way - the walking option will avoid the tube at its most busy time. After looking at Big Ben and London eye etc I would suggest either a tube ride or a boat to Tower Hill (boats go from Westminster pier) and as a previous poster suggested, check on the tower bridge website for the bridge lift times. Have a walk around the Tower of London from the outside to see the tower in bloom which I think is going to take place until Sept 18th. Stop off at st Katherine’s docks for walk around and you can usually see the royal barge there which is worth looking for/at. You can stop for a light meal there if you are hungry other wise.

walk to tower gateway station (a pretty boring walk but it’s not long) and get on the docklands light railway (dlr) to Canary Wharf. It’s fun as it goes through between the buildings and if you get seats at the front, ~you~ the children can pretend to drive the train. I have not been, but there is now a sky garden in Canary Wharf Link to website here. There is also open water swimming and paddle boarding at Canary Wharf that you may like to do or watch.

if you still have the time and energy, go by tube to emirates air line - it is a cable car over the Thames, or the DLR to the Thames barrier or the tube to green park and walk to Victoria coach station. Stopping off along the way for dinner or grab something to eat on the coach home.

Have a lovely time whatever you decide to do.

The duck boat tour is good. Takes you on the Thames as well as the roads to see sights. Tower of London is good but far from Victoria/Westminster etc and needs at least a full afternoon especially if you want to queue to see the Crown jewels

I'd suggest

• walking from Victoria to Buckingham Palace & look through the gates
• down the Mall to Horseguards and see the two mounted guards on duty there then turn right and walk past Downing St and then down to see Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament & Big Ben.

Depending on walking speed & how long you stand & stare, that would take about 90 mins. I suggest you then walk along Victoria Embankment which gives you a good view of the London Eye and up to the skyscrapers in the City. Around Embankment station, grab a coffee & a snack and go and spend half an hour or so in Victoria Embankment Gardens simply because there's a play area and some gym equipment and just some space to run around and not be a tourist (my DC get quite grumpy quite quickly!) Then head up the Strand. You can either do a diversion into Somerset House where there are some fountains to play in or just go straight up to Covent Garden where there will always be some street performers. There are also a couple of amazing ice cream shops. If your DC haven't been to a market before, they might actually like to look at the art & craft stalls there. I was surprised that mine we fascinated by them. Then you can walk from there across to Leicester Sq for the Lego shop & M&Ms store. There are loads of places around there where you can grab lunch. Then you can walk from there up to Hamleys which isn't actually that big (compared to how I remembered it as a child) but is fun as they have so many toys being demonstrated. That's that of London done. You can then walk up to Oxford Circus, take the Central Line to St Paul's and the do a bit of a loop taking in St Paul's Cathedral, the Millenium Bridge (the wobbly bridge) along the South Bank to Tower Bridge (via fountains to play in by the GLA) and then you're at Tower Bridge. Cross that and you're at The Tower. If you've got any energy left and if your DC have done the Great Fire of London at school, you might want to fit The Monument in too. All of that can be done for free as you're just walking around London looking at things. You might want to go into some of those places. If your children are going to play in the fountains, take a towel and swim wear or spare clothes. They will get soaked! We always take something like Uno with us as there will be times when the children just get completely bored of looking at things and just want to sit, have a drink and a game or do something a bit different. I always have "emergency" Haribo too! You will do thousands of steps and there's something more draining about walking than there is about doing exercise.