Advice on Rental & Location please

Our previous London trip we stayed in an apartment not walkable to most places (out by Kings Cross) and also in Southbank by the London Eye. Kids were 10 and 7. We loved Southbank and the ease of walking to a lot of places. While the further out neighborhood was quieter, we did start to not enjoy the 30-minute bus/tube commute most places and preferred the Southbank location for that reason. Our next trip next summer, we plan to stay in Southbank again. My kids also absolutely loved the park near the London Eye, and we spent every evening there.

Can you bring sound machines and set them up in the rooms in the Southbank location? I found London to be a "quiet" big city as in the traffic noise was not nearly as high as say Rome or NYC.

The walk to the Westbourne Park tube stop isn’t bad, but it may get old for the younger ones if you go back and forth a lot. Likewise, you would be spending more on tube and bus fares since Notting Hill isn’t near any of the popular destinations. Even Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park is about a mile away and the kiddos may not want to walk that far. Portobello Rd. is a half mile away, but you’d probably only visit it once. As a side note, for cheap snacks for the children there is a Poundland store on Portobello Rd. It’s like a Dollar Tree.

If the South Bank place has good windows the noise might not be as bad as you think.

For peace and quiet, Notting Hill wins. For getting to the places you want to visit, I think the Westminster Bridge Rd. location my be better with three children. Depending on where the rental is on Westminster Bridge Road, there may still be a decent walk to get anywhere, even a tube stop.

Ok thank you! The rental on Westminster Bridge Rd is on the same block as the Marlin Waterloo Hotel, if that helps narrow down location. About an 8 min walk to Waterloo Station (which looks like a huge station btw, will we feel or hear rumbles from the tubes?)

Hopefully someone who has traveled with young children will chime in. Waterloo is a large station and it’s possible you could hear brakes squealing on the overground trains, but I don’t know.

I stay a couple hundred meters from a tube stop and never hear the trains.

I would select the South Bank location. If the flat has double glazed windows (which legally it should- there are energy rating requirements when renting out flats) then you shouldn't hear anything. You certainly aren't close enough to the station to hear anything going on there but there will be trains going over the viaduct down the street. Modern windows should block that out.

Is it a modern flat or a Victorian conversion? More modern buildings tend to have better soundproofing. Do any of the reviews mention noise as being a problem?

You’ll have more a neighbourhood feel at the Notting Hill location. The tube is 0.3miles away so 8 minutes would be a slow walk. I don’t think it will be quicker to get from the South Bank flat to the tube platform given that Waterloo is a much bigger station with escalators and tunnels galore. However, you have more choice of lines which makes for greater convenience.

What floor are you on for the Waterloo flat? Will you need to open the windows (e.g., if you are there in summer, is there air con?) Are there any reviews that discuss noise? Are you on the side of the street by the train tracks? I’d consider these things.

I lived in a flat in an un-air conditioned building on the other side of Waterloo station. It overlooked a busy traffic roundabout where multiple roads converged so the location was noisier than the block you are on. There was muffled traffic noise 24/7 that echoed off all the concrete buildings. I got used to the noise with the windows closed and it faded into the background except when an emergency vehicle came by. On hot days when I needed to open the windows, the noise was unavoidable. That being said, I loved the location for its convenience.