Londoners pls help: city holiday for DC

[Liz79]

Hello
We would like to take the dc to London for a week or so next year, to do all of the major sights of their capital city. They will then be ages 9 and 11. Please help me plan where to stay and where to go. We would like a "budget" hotel or flat rental. My current to do list is
1 day Windsor
1 day Harry potter studios
1 day Greenwich inc river ferry
1 day science and natural history museum

Would like to also go to
Tower of London
Houses of parliament
Open top bus
Niiice afternoon tea
Buckingham palace
Madame tussards
Planetarium
Zoo
Hyde park
A show (cursed child?)
Covent garden
Borough market
East end market (this will be much more diverse and colourful/exotic than northern England 😀)
Hamleys
Oxford st

Please can you tell me how best to fit it in e.g. how long we should allow and what's near to each other. Should I get a book off Amazon? Do you know of any offers these places have or London pass type things. When is the best time to go? How much is this all going to cost us and how soon do we need to book stuff?
Thank you all in advance.

Cblue has given excellent advice.
Avoid Madame Tussaud's.
Not sure about value of London Eye.
Windsor a long way and as advised Hampton Court is probably a more interesting trip .
Clipper and 'normal'buses are cheap and can take you everywhere.
South Bank and if energetic a walk from Eye , past south Bank Centre towards Tower Bridge , taking in wobbly bridge , Globe etc.
My kids loved Imperial War Museum: walk down from Waterloo, back up afterwards to Borough Market for lunch.
Tower of London is expensive but good value, afterwards you can explore ins and outs of the City and consider walk up the monument for views rather than the eye , St Paul's and the museum at the Bank of England which is small but interesting
Are they interested in sport? Visiting a football ground?
National portrait gallery is free and depending on their interests/ heroes can be worth a stop off.
Covent Garden is good value and near theatres or a short walk up to British museum if that is their thing.
I am a huge fan of walking and buses, no need to be spending money everywhere; just seeing the sights is interesting eg walk along north Bank of river from Trafalgar Square and see Houses of Parliament ( usually lots of news crews around) Westminster Abbey , lovely little streets, Tate Britain if you want or up towards Buck House , Green Park or whatever.
I detest Hamleys but if they like shopping then they might enjoy it and near there is Carnaby Street and again you can walk back from there towards Covent Garden or carry on up Regents Street to Oxford Street ( if you must; I'm not a shopper) and then if you are feeling energetic you oils walk or take bus to catch glimpse of BBC and then carry on towards Regents Park...
So much to do and see , have fun

What about this one? www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/2822720

Near angel tube is fine. Good buses ftom there. You might want to go Olympic park

DD is nearly 11 and while we are SE London we often go and play tourist with friends from abroad.

Zoo - nice but if you have any decent one near you better take it off the list, nothing really special you can't find anywhere else.

There are children tours at the HoP, very good, 2-3 hours but very worth it. We went last year when DD just turned 10.

Buckingham Palace - they do the summer opening but I personally think if it is the first time London I would skip it.

HP World - do check if there are any tickets available, holidays and weekends book out months in advance.

Show - on Tuesday, 12th June, the Kids Week starts. If you go in August you can get a free kids ticket for each full price adult one. Google it and be flexible with shows and dates. It starts at 10am I think and lines will be VERY busy.

Museums - they are free but food is expensive. All have picnic areas and lockers so take food with you and save your cash for cakes.

Have a look at serviced appartments. I find an appartment easier and cheaper than a hotel if I go somewhere for more than 2 nights. You can get your own food, hotel breakfast is often expensive. You can treat yourself in lots of cafes for a nice one if you want.

There is an afternoon tea bus tour. You go on a refurbished routemaster and eat while having a drive. Not sure how much you can actually see but a bit more unique than a hotel one.

Greenwich - you can check the shows for the planetarium on their websites. The museum itself is free, the planetarium is up the hill, the Maritime Museum is near the river. You can easily spend a full day there, esp. if the weather is nice.

At 9 DD wasn't really interested in the playgrounds anymore. Princess Diana has a waiting queue if it is busy, we gave up after 30 minutes when nothing moved. I wouldn't count on getting in unless you go there first thing.

Windsor Castle or Hampton Court Palace are accessible by train but it is a long day. You can easily do ONE long day out but otherwise London means long time walking, queueing, it gets hot and people can get irritated by tourists.

There is absolutely nothing special at Hamleys apart from the fact that you can get everything cheaper elsewhere. Oxford Street is a mess, chain stores you get everywhere. If your children like Lego there is now a huge shop at Leicester Square where you also find a M&M store.

London is an amazing city but be prepared for not being able to see everything and be very tired at the end.

Thank you all, some very valuable tips. I have booked for next summer so after Christmas I'll start looking at tickets and booking stuff that needs done early. I've signed up for the cursed child alerts but don't think it'll happen. Dd wants to see Matilda, ds doesn't..

My DD can spend all day in the Science Museum but beware that some of the exhibits inside have additional fees and the food is hideously expensive

If you have Tesco clubcard vouchers, they can be used for a open top bus tour (that includes a river trip) and we've also used them for the Tower of London and the London Bridge exhibition.

The Lego store is fun, but there is often a queue to get in so you may have to wait, M&M store nearby is fun to look round. DD also enjoyed the Rainforest Cafe when younger, but it's not cheap.

What is the m&m store? Dh and I went to a wedding in London 2 years ago and did some sights, as we travelled by virgin rail we got 2 for 1 on some things inc tower & river cruise.

M&M sweets, there is a very large store with various costly merchandise and every variety of M&M available for purchase!

Ahhhhh

The M+M store is possibly the most bizarre shop you can go in. It's definitely a life experience!!

When you do the river cruise do Emirates Skyway on the same day!

If the weather is nice mine just like hanging about on the south bank/ Leicester Square watching the street entertainers. Also a rib ride on the Thames is very good fun

(Mine would pick the rib ride over a Thames cruise any day of the week!)

Yes to stuff on the river, swim in the Serpentine in Hyde park ( walkable from Marble Arch or. Buck palace- nice cafe too) £5 each. Or Olympic Park swimming. I’d def do the emirates cable car, also the Orbital & HMS Belfast too.

Megabus do cheap open top bus tours here the only catch is they're not hop on and off.

I agree with some of the PPs - avoid Madame Tussauds, London Eye and all such touristy traps.

You could spend a full day in Greenwich (not at all biased even though I live next door ) visiting the Observatory, Greenwich Park, the deers, Cutty Sark and have fresh lunch at the market. The park is much nicer and less crowded than Hyde Park. You could spend some time on the Heath and in Blackheath Village. You could also then take a short bus journey to the O2, and possibly do Up at the O2 climb and the cable car. It's guaranteed to be a nice, quiet, charming view of London life :)

Cursed child tip - on the day of the next tranche of tickets we had every device in the house set to go (3 x phones, 3 x laptops, 3 x iPads, 2 x old kindlefires). On the spur of the moment I decided to call the box office 2 minutes before the web site ticket release. Phone rang 3 times, a woman answered and said "hang on a moment the tickets will be open in a minute. Now, when do you want to come and where would you like to sit?" . Middle of row A on my birthday

No one could believe it (even I was a bit flustered) but sometimes the old ways are the best.

We went to Harry Potter, and to be honest it's not a whole day. Think we got that at about 10 and were done by 12.30. They do say on the website it should take 2.5 hours, so not a whole day by any stretch

Vixnixtrix - we went there at 9.30am and left at 3.30pm, that included lunch and a cup of coffee at the end. And we had an hour travel each both ways.

It totally depends how much you want to do and how intense your u look at things.

Most people I know who did it the first time took a their time as tickets are expensive and most won’t go again anytime soon.

Book now for Hamilton. You’ll all love it.

Stay in an air bnb so you can cook rather than wade money buying three meals a day. Then you can have market food for lunch but cheapo breakfasts and dinners.

You could theme a day parks and a day bridges.

Why on earth would someone stay in slough when they want to visit London? They're not visiting the setting of The Office.