London Eye and the aquarium on Saturday. Top Tips please.

[TheGashlycrumbTinies]

We are taking DD's (6 & 3) to London this weekend and are planning to go on the Eye and to the aquarium.

Have you any good recommendations for places to eat etc.

TIA.

Anyone?

Have you booked The Eye?

Go as early as you can and yes much better to book the Eye in advance. You can do it online.

There are loads of restaurants on the South Bank just along from the Eye (head East under the bridge). There's a Strada, Wagamama, Giraffe. Also - round the back, not by the river - is Canteen which is very good.

Giraffe gets absolutely mobbed so either get there early for lunch (by which I mean 11am) or be prepared to queue for up to an hour or go somewhere else

HTH.

The aquarium was hell on earth when I went a few weeks ago with ds1 (2.11). They're doing a lot of renovation (don't know if it has finished yet?) and it was chaos - very noisy (drilling etc), very dusty, and lots of the exhibits were out of action. Was also very crowded indeed - full of teenagers photographing every single fish (or so it seemed) with their phones. It was near impossible for little ones to get near or see anything. And we queued for an hour to get in (think you can book in advance to avoid that).

I regretted going, tbh.

Thanks for the replies, we haven't booked the Eye, but we have Merlin passes and were told that with those we can go straight on, although this does make me feel a bit bad for those who have been queuing.

I will phone the aquarium and see how much disruption to expect, any other things close by that you would recommend? Will speak to DH later when he gets home and try to get some alternatives, he did live in London for about 15 years so he should have a vague idea!

I think the work at the Aquarium's finished now.

If it's a nice day you can have a lovely walk along the South Bank - there's loads of buskers etc down by the Eye.

The weather looks okay for Saturday, fingers crossed.

Even when you've got your tickets for the Eye you still have to queue for ages on popular days! It is worth it though. I wasn't that impressed with the Aquarium.

Be prepared to queue for hours. You have been warned!

We went to the Aquarium on Sunday and enjoyed it though it was busy. If you book on line by the day before you walk straight to the front of the queue which was great-even though dh got told off by a man in the queue who thought we were pushing in !

We have an annual Merlin pass, and hopefully this will help with the queuing problems, did your DC's enjoy it?