Going to London on a Bank Holiday Saturday?

[Jellyrollquiltmom]

We've got less than a day (Friday night to late Saturday afternoon) to spend in London and I'm thinking of taking my DC (16 & 9) to a museum, a walk in Hyde Park and maybe a bit of window shopping in Knightsbridge. We will have a rented car as we're flying out of Stansted that evening.

THEN I realised that it's a Bank Holiday Weekend (4th May) Will London be pure chaos and will we spend more time in a queue than actually seeing something of the city?
Helpful advice and tales of experience are more than welcome! Thanks in advance,

The museums will be busy, but the queues are not normally more than 40+ minutes for the Science & Natural History museums.

I'd probably go to the Natural History museum first, and see how your timings are after that.

You couldn't get the most out of the museum even if you had a week, but at least you'll see Dippy!

Have you got somewhere to stash the car, or are you banking on parking nearby?

My top tip would be not to try to take the car anywhere near any of the things you mentioned.

Otherwise it will be busy but shouldn't be a problem, unless you really don't like crowds.

I'm going to leave the car at the hotel car park (Premier Inn at Putney Bridge) also because it will have all our stuff in it after a week's holiday. We don't mind walking and a black cab isn't out of the question!

Central London is always busy (one of its major assets IMO) so don't worry about it being Easter. I would get to your museum of choice first thing though in an attempt to avoid the worst of it. Places like Oxford Street will seem busiest but once you get inside the shops, the crowds dissipate.

We're travelling down there on Saturday to see family and friends and I can't wait!

P.S. Have an amazing holiday and a lovely day in London.

Aargh, sorry, not Easter but in May! Think May will actually be quieter than Easter weekend.

From your comments, it looks "doable" and I would like to make the most of our time.
We could even go to a show on the Friday night. The Lion King looks amazing. Prices are very high, but for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I'll consider it. We'll have spent the previous week tramping around, so a bit of Cosmopolotan Life would do them good!

Thanks, Zampa, you too!

In the interests of openness -

May bank holiday is quieter than Easter, but it will be pretty busy.

I live in South London and I never go into the city on a bank holiday unless I can help it. shudder

However, if you plan ahead and try to get to the museum a bit earlier in the day, you should be fine and wont have to queue for ages - I would suggest you don't even bother if you're planning to get there after 11am. Knightsbridge is never particularly rammed, bank holiday or not, so you should be fine there.

Jelly Lion King is fantastic but our best family one by far has been Matilda if you can get tickets.

If you get to the museum a few minutes before they open you'll be fine. iirc the nhm opens at 10, we arrived at 9:45 and they had already opened the doors. result, empty museum for the dinosaurs and the first hour. It started to fill up around 11 am.

We'll be up and about very early, I'm sure...

I'd originally planned this sort of trip back in 2005, but 7.7 happened a few days before, I was expecting DD and we decided to avoid London. Ten years later and DS hasn't let me forget it!

London is usually a bit manic during holidays as everyone will want to have a bit of an explore. I would recommend getting to museums a little before they open. Central London is always a bit manic during the best of time.

Hope you have a great time!

Having been in London over Bank Holidays it can be crowded but no more so than at usual weekends.

if you want to save money rather than eat out then for lunch you could do Kensington Gardens and buy sandwiches from Tescos etc... or Pret. KG is short walk from Science/Natural History and you have the Italianate gardens and Peter Pan statue.

Its a BH weekend all over Europe so I think it will be very busy. But Londoners will exit so it will balance out. Worth booking as much as possible in advance

Hmm, I've just watched the advertising clip of "Matilda". I can feel a little family project coming on..... read the book, watch the film, go to the show.

check public transport so that you can plan how you get around in case engineering works are planned.

Move quickly on tickets - you might get some cheapish ones here:

www.seetickets.com/show/matilda-the-musical/cam/2/4385/calendar/3

Is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will on? It's awesome!

Also a South Londoner (but exiled) . I would recommend Dulwich Park and the Horniman Museum but it doesn't quite have the same appeal as Hyde Park and The NHM!

Great prices on those tickets Ancient, about 30% less than the ones I was looking at this morning.

Well, we're back!
Everything went smoothly and we did most of the things we wanted. The kids are still singing the songs from Matilda (thank you to Ancient and Provencal) and I got free parking above Whiteley's for the day by buying our sandwich fillings there! Couldn't have done it without you, MN!