to be really angry no access to Olympic park has not been well publicised?

[ChocChipCookieMuncher]

DH and I booked time off work today to take our 2 DD's to Olympic park as they have both got so into the games over last week or so. We didn't apply for tickets originally and know they are like gold dust now so no chance! We thought (wrongly!) we'd look around public areas outside the venues and just see the park and soak up the atmosphere. We've watched and listened to hours and hours of coverage and at no point have we heard it mentioned that the areas which look 'public' on TV (people milling around, watching on screens etc) are ticket only access. We also saw nothing on website flagging that up when we went on to get directions to Olympic Park. Feel completely stupid and gutted we wasted holiday, lots of money on train tickets to London (we live in Leeds) and our kids (and us!) were gutted . Are we the only people to have somehow not picked up on this crucial info in all the Olympic excitement?

YABU I live on Sydney and knew it wasn't accessible without a ticket. Sorry for your disappointment though.

Yes you always need a ground pass for Henman Hill/Aorangi - you see people queueing every year. never has been free. Yes I think you probably are the only people to have missed this key fact about Olympic Park OP but do feel sad for your wasted day nonetheless :(

You have a point OP that it isn't clear on the home page of the olympic website that you need a ticket for the olympic park - I guess they anticipate that most people planning to go there will go further than the home page in looking for info - but they should highlight it more on home page.

That said, it does seem somewhat misguided to book two days of work, train tickets and haul ass from Leeds to London without researching what was going on.

YABU that you could go to see hyde park any time though - you could but not for an olympic event and the atmosphere there is apparently fantastic. Its a shame too that you didn't get info on what was local to the olympic park as it seems stratford park and victoria park had ticketless entry to big screens etc.
Also, you say that kids were excited by trains and tubes so presumably they don't get to london that often so may have enjoyed hyde park anyway?

hope you managed to find somewhere to go (where did you go?) so that the kids weren't too disappointed.

NB: If you're planning to go to Rio in 2016 - you'll need tickets!