Bath, Windsor Castle and Stonhenge

kathryn, just an FYI, Bath is not a site. It's a city. So obviously there are sites and places there that would be more economical, and some that would be less economical.

Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here. If you're looking for the most economical place to visit, I would add up all the members of your party, check the admission prices for Windsor Castle and Stonehenge, and any sites in Bath that you want to see, and just do the math. It's pretty easy, and that way you'll know what it will cost.

Or if you're looking for a tour, then again, you can do the same thing. Check the cost of the tour and see what you can afford to pay. If you want to find out if they are any good, you could certainly post a thread here asking questions about specific tour companies, and people here would be happy to help you out.

But if you're just looking for some tour ideas, it would be helpful to have more information. For example, when are you going there? How long of a tour do you want? Day tour, multiple day tour? How many members are in your party? We're not sure exactly what you're looking for.

Just something to keep in mind: sometimes it's more economical to buy a membership. For example, when I was in Scotland a few years ago, I purchased a Historic Scotland membership, and that got me into a number of sites for free, including some very expensive ones like Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle. I did the same thing in London when I bought a membership to Historic Royal Palaces. I had two of my grandchildren with me and bought a family membership, and it wound up saving me almost £40 as opposed to the single admission fees. You might check into that as well.

Windsor Castle is a very easy day trip via train from London. The ticket to the castle comes with an audiotour which we thought was excellent. You wouldn't need to pay for a tour. The 3 year old would be free and the five year old is at a reduced rate.

I have not been to Bath or Stonehenge. But just as a general comment, I think many are led to think they need to hire a tour guide to take them somewhere and guide them through an attraction. I would first check the official websites. Often the ticket will include an audioguide or even an official tour by a person. Many places are easily accessible via public transportation. Forum people can help with transportation, too. Further, train personnel are typically quite helpful, and in England, they speak English!

I am assuming you have a stroller or some kind of carrier for the infant/toddler.

Those 12 hour marathon sprint tours (to mix my running metaphors) that try to combine those three destinations are really pushing the limits for adults, let alone small children. And definitely check the fine print to make sure they accept children that young on the tour. I really like Rabbie’s for day tours in the UK, and I see they do Bath and Stonehenge day tours out of London, but they don’t try to cram them both into one tour, let alone adding Windsor too. And their FAQs say their minimum age for any tour is five.

If what you’re planning is doing all these three in one day then I can’t emphasise how much this would be a bad idea. There are tours you can buy that go to all three in a day but the main takeaway you will get from that is an appreciation of the UK motorway system, as you will be mostly sat on a coach.

It would be a bad plan for adults but with small children as well it’s a terrible idea.

I’m with Johnew52. Trying to see, enjoy, savor, and make sense of all three of these locations in one day is… ummmmm….

Well, I won’t add a judgmental adjective, but suffice that I don’t think it’s a great idea.

If you want to spend the day in Windsor, for example, that seems like it could be an entire eight hours. Especially with kids. There is the Castle to tour, there is the Long Mile to walk, there is the lovely little village to wander, there are restaurants and pubs, you can walk down to Eton and cross the Thames and see the swans and Eton College and have a lovely time there… in short, that’s a nice day. (Also might want to think about Legoland, since you have kids.)

Bath is also a nice day, although with perhaps a tad less obvious stuff to entertain kiddos. The Baths and the Abbey and the Pump Room don’t scream “toddlers will love me!” IMHO.

Stonehenge is crazy amazing, and you can “accomplish” seeing it in half a day, but if you were to choose Stonehenge then I’d suggest Salisbury Cathedral in the same day, or Old Sarum, and then you aren’t adding Bath or Windsor.

Maybe do a tad more research on each of these places to see what, exactly, appeals to you particularly - especially in light of the fact that you have very young kids.

You are not wrong in selecting these places as wonderful and worthy of visits. But I don’t think you have enough time to do even two of them in one day, particularly with little tads to bring along.

I take it that you plan on staying in London and that being so, doing all three places as a day tour is just pushing it. All 3 places should be done as separate day trips.

For Windsor - train from Paddington to Slough and then a shuttle down a short branch line.

For Stonehenge - train from Waterloo to Salisbury then shuttle bus to the stones - back to Salisbury to see the wonderful medieval cathedral and then back to London. (This trip can also be done from Bath if staying).

For day trip from London to Bath by train see:>https://www.seat61.com/london-to-bath-by-train.htm

Doing these trips individually by train is the most sensible way to do this. You will have more flexibility, easier access to a loo etc and it’s possible to walk along the carriages to stretch legs and keep everyone entertained.

Doing these three sights in one trip with 3 under 3 sounds hellish to me, if that is what you are planning? Basically 12 hours mostly stuck on a coach. My guess is you would be required to have an adult for each child, I could be wrong? Will you have car seats, booster seats for them to use whilst travelling?There is no legal requirement on a coach, it just depends how comfortable you might be travelling that way.

Sometimes there are posts from prospective first time travelers with small children who are naive about what that entails. Looking at this OP’s posting history, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. They have experience with very ambitious trips in large family groups including very young kids, and considered (if perhaps not ultimately taken) long day trips (such as Paris to London) that most of us wouldn’t want to do even with no children. So presumably they know what they’re getting into about the logistics of this. This looks like part of a trip this summer for 9 adults and 3 children that also includes seeing motorcycle races on the Isle of Man, as discussed in other posts last year. If that same large group is the one wanting to go to these sites near London, that seems to change the equation, from considering organized day tours with other travelers, or taking the train, to looking into chartering your own coach with driver, of suitable size for your group, for the day to take you wherever you want outside of London for as long as you want, with flexibility to adjust if one of the kids has a meltdown, and so on.

To be honest, with a group of this size (thanks, 'slate' for making the connection) you could ask Rabbies if they could do a private charter for you.
Then it could be bespoked.

That's true what isn31c says. Rabbie's is a highly respected tour company that has gotten a lot of really great recommendations here on the forum. You can take a look at their tours, but they also will create a private tour to your specification, which might be exactly what you need. You can find out what the price is and get all the logistical information from them, but it would certainly be worth checking into.

Here's a link to their website about their private tour: https://www.rabbies.com/en-us/private-tours

In 2022, 3 weeks after Queen Elizabeth had passed away, we did the tour of Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths with Evans Evans tour company. I would not recommend doing this tour with any tour company as there is a lot of time spent on the tour bus. Also, you aren't given enough time at each site. We went to Windsor Castle first and a lot of the allotted time was wasted in a security line. We then had 1 hour left. Our guide suggested that we go to St. George's Chapel first as this was where the gravesites of Queen Elizabeth and her family are. Other guides were telling their groups to go do the same thing so we wasted 45 minutes waiting there.. That left us 15 minutes for the whole Castle. We literally ran through the Castle to get outside of the gate for the changing of the guard and then back on the bus. To access the Stonehenge site you have to get on a shuttle bus once you're admitted and we only had less than an hour there. We did not have enough time to go through the visitor center as we wasted time in the shuttle bus lines.
We were given 3 hours to sightsee the Roman Baths and I needed every minute of it. Therefore, I had no time to visit the city and the church.
In 2024 on another trip to Scotland and London my daughter and I returned to Windsor Castle only but with a different tour group and spent almost 3 hours there. I am aware that one could go on the train but you have to change at some point and I didn't want to be bothered.

darkmist1 (above) - Whilst it is preferable to have direct trains, switching trains is no big deal.

The change at Slough for Windsor is very easy, when you're coming from London it's just on the adjacent platform. The main station for Windsor is on a branch line. You can also go to the other station, Windsor and Eton Riverside, without changing from London, but it takes longer.