Ideas for London with a 6/8 year old

[whatkatydid2013]

We have a 3 nights in London planed at start of January. First time the kids have been. So far have booked to go to the natural history museum to see the Dinos & found a bus route to see the Christmas lights after on first day, tickets for & Juliet second night and a morning at the science museum on third day likely followed by a look at Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament and a walk along the river if it’s not too cold and miserable.
On the last day thinking we might go to the transport museum in Covent Garden or the British museum so it’s easy to get to kings cross. Also considering booking the sky garden if we can get tickets.
People who have been recently what else would you recommend? Did you find anywhere good for letting kids run off a bit of steam and if you’ve been to the science museum did you pay to go into the wonderlab or just look round the free bits? They’ve been to Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh and Paris with us but that was all pre lockdown. They love the local science museum, railway museum in york, anything to do with animals are both massive fans of Lego and like arts/crafts.

jurassicworldexhibition.com/uk/

If you have done Nemo,forget wonderlab it's so bloody crap.
Poor kids spend hours queuing to go down three crap slides.
I would do v.and a, Wallis collection, national gallery, tate modern is fabulous for space and running around.
China's town

I took my rurally based 5 year old niece to Harrods, and we played count the zeros on the price tags. She loved it. It was so totally different from her own world.

British Museum especially the Egyptian mummy exhibit freaked her out a bit.

Covent Garden Street theatre, was a huge success

Loads of room on the South Bank for running around..

If it’s too cold and miserable to walk along the river, take a Thames boat cruise.
My dc prefer the transport museum to the British museum. Nearby, you can also watch the street performers in Covent Garden and visit the big Lego store in Leicester Square. There’s also M&M world just opposite.
One of the best places for letting off steam is the Jubilee Gardens playground near the London Eye.

We found the Tower of London was a big hit with our daughter at 8 - i honestly thought she would be bored but she loved it especially trying different weapons and seeing the Crown Jewels, we spent much longer here than expected.

If you're near kings cross then the postal museum is cute it has an underground train that you can do.

Would they like the zoo at Camden? The food markets there are brilliant to get something to eat after.

Post office museum is on my list as I’m fascinated by the underground train

Harrods counting the noughts sounds a good game. The food hall is very impressive.

Hamleys toy shop?

The Batural History Museum
The Science Museum
London Zoo
Hamleys with pocket money (set a strict budget!)
China Town for bubble tea

Have fun!

*Natural History Museum 🤦‍♀️😆

This looks fun but seems to be closed the day we have no plans - typical. Thanks though. Will add to list for next time

Good to know as it is fairly expensive for 4 of us. We have been to Nemo and also a fab local museum where the kids can do various experiments. We can maybe go to V&A straight after science museum then have a walk (or bus) to Tate modern. Thanks

I’d forgotten about the street theatre stuff. Sure they’d love that. Thanks for the reminder :)

Natural history next to science would be much better bet then science. I think after Nemo you would be dissapointed

The transport museum and surrounding things sound like a nice day out and would be really easy from where we are staying. Am sure they’d like the shops too

maybe we should skip as I wasn’t even all that impressed with Nemo compared to the Life Science Centre in Newcastle. It’s smaller but has so much great hands on stuff and always loads of staff to help plus it’s usually quiet.

😨 really??

Tower of London is unique, tower bridge beautiful... might be a nice contrast to all other musuems. Crown jewels in there'( in use soon) and interaction part on top of main part... indoors and out.plus Xmas stuff

The Tower bridge experience is really good and not expensive.

As a pp said I would get the clipper or Uber boat down the Thames as you can hop on and off. Saves walking and you get to see the sights.

Love the sound of the postal museum. The play area also sounds fun and they will soon be too old for things like that

We may well have just been unlucky but it was super busy and several things were broken, closed or just not accessible for teenies due to how many bigger kids were milling about. We are spoilt by our local one I think as it has a great range of interactive games, theatre with live shows, planetarium, large play area with crafts upstairs & a small experiment zone where you can do chromatography, test for acids and bases and similar in your borrowed lab coat. In fairness ours isn’t free and isn’t well known. I have fond memories of the London one as a child but thinking it’s gone downhill a bit based on reviews

Off to check if we can manage the tower as well as it probably would be cool for them to see the crown before the coronation.

Don't trek over to South Kensington to do the museums on two separate days. Combine Natural History / Science or V&A into one session. They're free so there's no obligation to linger and they are all next door to one another.

One morning or afternoon activity you've not mentioned is Greenwich. Worth a visit potentially on the Thames Clipper (Uber boat). You can visit the Cutty Sark and kids can climb the rigging if not too cold, then there's the free Maritime Museum which had two fantastic children's galleries, Ice Skating at the Queen's House, Greenwich Park with possibly the best view in London, the Observatory, the meridian line and then lunch in the village at one of the nice pubs or family friendly restaurants (Trafalgar Tavern / Old Brewery / Bills) or a pop round Greenwich Market.

All of the above are within the same half a mile area so it's a nice half day to fill up with lunch after. You can stop off at the Tower / Tower bridge on your way back west, via Thames Clipper, or take the DLR to Tower Gateway.

The crown has been moved this week OP, in preparation for the coronation.

It might be a bit costly but my 7 YO was very impressed with the trip to the top of the Shard (especially the loo with a view) . It was worth the money for us.
also loved the natural history museum but not so the science museum. There are far better science type museums in other parts of the country these days and it makes the London one feel outdated.

My ds8 loved the cable cars at Greenwich , not expensive either