To think this is plenty of spending money?

[londontripspendingmoney]

Partner and I are going to London tomorrow for 3 nights with our toddler. We are driving there and mileage is around 270 miles each way. Hotel is paid for already so it's just fuel costs, food and activities / shopping etc that we need to factor in. We have a budget set aside for this and there's £600 in the pot currently. We have already booked and paid for one activity happening on Friday, so the cost of that isn't needed. The £600 is for fuel, food, travel in London (tube etc), and any other activities we might choose to do. Bearing in mind we are only there for two full days (Friday and Saturday), with tomorrow and Sunday being full days of travel (so only food and fuel costs needed on those days). Even if we chose to do a small amount of shopping on the Saturday, surely this is enough money? Partner thinks we will overspend and need more and end up using the credit card. I don't agree - I think £600 for this trip is do able for 2 adults and a 2 year old

Thoughts? Who is right?

Yep, I’d say that is enough. I took my older 3 DC to London a few years ago and I spent around £300 for 3 days. We did a lot of free stuff like the natural history museum, sightseeing, Tate gallery etc. They were also free on the tube.

Only big costs were meals which I tried to do cheaply and the Lego store.

lol at the people that can't get breakfast for under £40. I just had a bacon roll and coffee for under a fiver, and that was with an extra portion of bacon

The replies here are crazy! Just got back from a trip to London, spent no where near what everyone is saying. Covent Garden snow fall on the hour every hour free, spent £35 in the London Transport Museum cafe overlooking Covent Garden, 2 adults and one child. £5 for a child’s lunchbox with sandwiches, crisps, fruit, carrot sticks and drink. £7.50 for sausage bap and a pot of tea. We even had cake and an extra drink on top.

National portrait gallery, free, spent £12 in the cafe.

Meal for dinner later on was prezzo Trafalgar Square, £50 approx.

Christmas market free to look around, spent about £15 getting 3 hot chocolates and £6 on a cute bauble.

spent £25 in hamleys

We have literally just been to London for two nights with an 18 month old.

We travelled from Cumbria.
£75 trains there and back total;
£250 premier inn including breakfast for us all both mornings;
we did get coffees on the train down about £12;
we did the natural history museum the first day; had lunch there which was about £40;
got the tube / dlr; ate in the hotel which was £60 including wine, milk for the room and some snacks;
we did winter wonderland the next day, I got some complementary tickets for the circus there and we paid for the ice sculptures which was £24, we ate there and which was £25 for lunch and got some mulled wines too so that was another £40 ish; I bought a souvenir for £14 and we did some rides with the baby which was another £12 ish; we also went to the fourth floor of selfridges in the morning before winter wonderland to go on the piano like they have in the movie big - that was free but the coffee and cake there was £30; had a McDonald’s which was £22 for tea and we just wandered around the lights in London / Covent Garden / Leicester Square etc. took snacks back to accommodation for £15; tube and dlr back to accommodation; last day we went to bbc earth which was £35 for us all; tube travel etc there; coffees £8 - baby still ok snacks from the day before; we went back towards King’s Cross / St Pancras to look at the lovely Christmas trees there; went to the British museum and had a pizza express which was £70; bought snacks for the train home £8. We did some shopping for bits and pieces - clothes etc. baby was sick ok his sleeping bag £70 ish. Tube travel for three days was less than £10 a day each as in zones 1-2 mainly so around £60 as babies etc are free and we did some walking too.

so that comes in at around £900 for travel, accommodation, food, shopping and some great activities. If I hadn’t got the complementary circus tickets etc that would have added maybe another £40 ish.

hope this is helpful.

We went to London last week, we found the buses worked out cheap & capped at £5 per day so just off the top of my head, fare is £1.70ish, if you get back on any bus within the hr it is free. We ate at an Indian near King’s Cross which was ok price wise but cokes were a fiver! Watched guy pour it of a smart price bottle 😩drinks bump up price of meals. Spent £300 on meals over 3 days

We drove from Newcastle - full tank of diesel filled up before we left, cost £60 to fill. Used only a quarter of a tank getting down there. Plenty left in the tank to get us home. So fuel cost £60.

Good reasons for going by car and not train - too many bags to carry with a little one.

If anyone's interested we spent in the region of £560 all in in the end. So within budget. We had 3 nice meals out for that too, travel on the tube in London, a few Ubers, a few drinks on room service on the evening, and some bits from a Christmas garden shop ☺️

Oh also thank you to whoever recommended the science museum and the toddler section in the basement - DD loved it in there! We had to drag her out 😂

Parking was free at the hotel.

We stayed outside of the CG and got the tube / Ubers into central London.

Only had to pay ULEZ cost on the day of arrival and day we leave (today) as otherwise the car hasn't moved.

No stress with the parking / driving tbh - that part was the easiest! The most stressful part was navigating an extremely busy Oxford Road on foot with insane crowds of people and a toddler refusing to go in the buggy or be carried 🙈😂

Glad you all had a lovely time OP and stayed in budget.
Oxford street is a challenge the best of times, can't imagine with a toddler 😅.

What travelcards are these? You can pay with the tube with your card and it is ie zone 1-3 about £8 a day