Buckingham Palace State Rooms Ticket Times? and Changing of Guards

Hi Joe,

Good plan to get your ticket ahead of time. The state rooms are v popular and do sell out.

If you want to see the Changing of the Guard, you’ll want to get there really early to be able to see. Some people start gathering as early as 9/9:30. You could then go for a noon entry to the state rooms. Whatever you do, don’t try to do the state rooms first then plan to pop out for COTG. You’ll short change both.

The Mews are good and you can see the Harry and Megan wedding carriage on display now. The last entry to the Mews is at 16:15, so make sure you’re through the Palace and Gardens in time to make the walk back around to the Mews entry.

The Queens Gallery is the third part of the Royal Day Out ticket. It’s an art gallery and the current exhibition is Splendours of the Subcontinent. Have a look at the QG website to see if you’d be interested in seeing the exhibits in real life.

Also know before you go that there are no toilets at the Palace until you are through the rooms and into the garden. Go before you go! There are loos in Victoria station, and the various restaurants in Cardinal Place nearby.

Does the basic admission include the Gardens?

Is the time just an entrance time and then free-flow, or does everyone at a particular time have stick together and move out of the Palace at the same time, and leave the gardens at the same time?

Yes, the basic admission includes a walk along the garden path to the way out. There are optional ticketed guided timed garden tours, but these are v popular and do sell out well in advance.

The timed entry to the Palace is just that; once inside, you’re free to move at your own pace.

Also, please be aware that the crowds dispersing after the Changing of the Guard are very thick and make navigating to the entrance of the palace a challenge, so allow plenty of time. They take the timed-entry time seriously and you may be allowed in early, but not if you're late (I say this from personal experience). Another mistake we made was not to take some time and linger on the walk through the gardens after the tour. When we took the tour, once we were inside, timing was up to us, and we shouldn't have rushes the garden area. Not sure if policy has changed. We really enjoyed The Mews and the chance to chat with the fellows working there.

Thanks, Mincepie and Patty.

We purchased the State Rooms for 1:15 pm and added the Garden Tour. We were finished with the Palace quite a bit before our scheduled Garden Tour but they were able to put us on an earlier one. It was all a wonderful experience.
We did not try to coordinate with the Changing of the Guard due to the crowds we had experienced on earlier visits. The entrance for the Palace Tour is close to the Mews if I recall
correctly. Buy your tickets ASAP. I hope there are still some tickets available for your dates.

I agree with the other posters. I went last year to Buckingham Palace ( the state rooms), the Queen's Mews ( to see the carriages and where the horses are housed) and the Queen's gallery ( which had all the paintings of Venice). Timed tkt which again, be on time or early but not late. Alas the ticket was not good for the gardens, you have to make a choice on what to see when buying tkts. Once inside you move at your own pace to see the Mews and the Paintings but do not be late for the time to enter the palace.

Book the tkt asap as I book way in advance. The palace is massive and the rooms are huge and impressive! You wonder through the rooms at your own pace and the docents are excellent and very nice. I spent most of the day there seeing it all.

I would not see the Changing of the Guard the same day as the crowds are massive.

We did the Buckingham Palace tour last July and we are seniors. After we exited the Palace, we had a very long walk through the garden, past a lake to get to the exit gate. After you exit, if you want to go back to the front of the palace, it is a very long, hot walk around the outside of the walls to get back to the entrance. This info is for anyone with walking issues.

@ Gale, when I did this a couple of years ago the tour ended at the back of the garden, near the exit gate which opened onto busy Grosvenor Place. It would indeed be a long walk back to the entrance from there, around the outside walls. But the guide said we could also continue through the garden back toward the palace and the entrance we had used. It's a big garden with distances to walk, but it would have been faster and pleasanter to walk back through the garden than around the outside. (I went out the gate because I was headed for Apsley House near that exit.)

The palace is very worthwhile, and open only a couple of months a year. The mews is of interest only if you're into coaches and such. The Queen's Gallery has changing exhibits, whether to do depends on what they're showing. I skipped it but would have gone if the exhibit had been of more interest to me.

My only experience with changing of the guard was being stuck in a taxi while those guys with the big hats marched endlessly on the closed streets while I watched the meter run up and up. The driver took pity and charged me less when we got to our destination. Bad timing on our part, he was no happier than me.