Toddler day out on the Elizabeth line?

[24HoursFromTulseHill]

My 3 year old DS is obsessed with London transport and wants to go on the Elizabeth line.
We live in south London so I don't know much about the places it goes to.

Does anyone have any recommendations for good places you can get to on the Elizabeth line? Even a good park within walking of a station? We'd probably be getting on at Bond Street so want to go at least 5/ stops to make it worthwhile.

It goes fairly close to Covent Garden where there’s usually plenty going on

The Lizzie line is nice, but when you're on it, it really does feel just like every other Tube line, only cleaner and faster.

I've been on it as far as Heathrow to the east and Woolwich to the west. It seems to speed up more once you're out of central London. So if I had a public-transport-obsessed 3yo, I'd take the Eliz line to Woolwich and then (after a snack break) get the DLR or the riverboat back into town. The DLR used to be fun when you could go to the front and "drive" the train - not sure if you can still do this?

@KnickerlessParsons we visit central London at least once a week, so Covent Garden is well and truly ticked off his list. We've done the Transport Museum & National Gallery at least 20 times in the last year.

He wants to go further afield into bits of London he hasn't visited yet so I need recommendations of nice parks or somewhere for a picnic in Acton, Ilford etc. so we don't just ride the Elizabeth line back and forth all day (which would suit him just fine).

The Olympic Park is on the Elizabeth line

@zaxxon tha is for the tip. Any recommendations for nice places for a a picnic near Woolwich?

Yeah, you can still sit at the front of the DLR and 'drive' it. We've done that many a time!

@Ted27 thanks for the tip.
where's good in the Olympic Park for toddlers? I've never been to Stratford before so not familiar with it.

There are play areas within Olympic Park and lots of space to run around. Aquatic centre may have public sessions.

@24HoursFromTulseHill
The park has its own website which has loads of info about what you can do, places to eat, have picnics etc

Your boy sounds fab.
My son used to be obsessed with the tube, he could draw the map from memory.

I would go to Canary Wharf. The Lizzie line station is at the bottom of Crossrail Place which has a free roof garden at the top. Small but curving paths and space to mooch. Then there's a footbridge to Canada Place/Canary Wharf called 'Camille Walala: Captivated By Colour - Canary Wharf https://canarywharf.com/artwork/camille-walala-captivated-by-colour/Camille Captivated by Colour'. I'd then get on the DLR from Canary Wharf to Mudchute or Island Gardens and visit the farm, you can feed the animals (small cost) 😁
Or stay in Canary Wharf area and walk round to Museum of London in Docklands - there's a tube carriage and DLR bits to play with.
Canary Wharf/Docklands can be a bit confusing on first visit but there are good maps and stewards in some of the main areas.

Olympic Park is a bit of a walk from Stratford Station, are you still using a pushchair? I'm probably doing it wrong but always get confronted by lots of stairs in Stratford.

Woolwich wouldn't be my 1st choice for a picnic with a toddler. From the Lizzie Line station you can go out through the Royal Arsenal and down to the riverside.

Romford is actually quite fun for a day out, we often take the line there and spend 2 hours at the big Kidspace soft play, and there's a decent play area in Cottons Park nearby. There's also a Namco with bowling, big Smyths toy store and an ice rink nearby. Quite suburban and not touristy at all but we quite like the novelty of it, coming from central London.

He'd probably like the London Transport Museum Depot at Acton Town, which would be a 25 min bus ride from Ealing Broadway or Acton Mainline on the Elizabeth line.

During 2020/21 when lots of indoor places were shut I'd often ride our nearest Overground line to random stations and just walk to the nearest park for a day out. You can find them quite easily by using the satellite images on Google Maps with the public transport layer turned on. If you click on the name of the park, you usually get reviews with photos which gives a decent idea of what's there.

Discovery story centre is right by Stratford station.

Took my 3 year old here recently, it was great. The garden play area is lovely too.

Any recommendations for nice places for a a picnic near Woolwich?

You can take the Woolwich free ferry to the other side. There's a park there. (Don't know whether it's nice, though.) Then the ferry back, or alternatively the foot tunnel under the river.

That's one of the things my mum used to do with us when we were young - over on the ferry, ice cream or picnic in the park at North Woolwich, and back again.

Best park near Woolwich is Greenwich, of course.

Thanks for all your recommendations.

We ended up doing the Elizabeth line from Farringdon (after getting the Thameslink train there) and went to Stratford. We found our way to the little playground on the peninsula in between the the Sadlers Wells building and the football stadium.

I really hate the big Westfield shopping centres as they're so featureless & monotonous but apparently you can't avoid walking through (or over) it. To be honest, the Olympic Park felt more like a theme park than a 'park' park to me.

I've seen on Google maps that there's a bigger Tumbling Bay playground a bit further to the north but DS has only just stopped using the buggy so our walking speed & stamina can't go that far at the moment.

We might go back to Statford again and check out the Discovery Story Centre.

Edit - posted twice

Canary wharf, Museum of London Docklands. Stop for coffee and ice cream either along the river or there's a few green spaces - one by the main jubilee line entrance, another by wood wharf and further afield.

We’ve always enjoyed transport days where we try to use as many kinds of transport as possible - taking the Elizabeth line down to the DLR then the cable car over to Greenwich then the boat back has always been fun!