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Buckingham Palace state rooms & Westminster Abbey Verger visit logistics

Posted by on

Hello all,

First post to this forum! I'm visiting London for the first time in July. I'd like to see the state rooms at the Palace, as well as a verger tour of Westminster Abbey.

I'm confused though because the Abbey site says call 24 hours ahead to see what times the tours will be, and to choose your entry time 30 mins before the verger tour. But I won't know what time the verger tour will be till 24 hrs prior.

I also want to pre book the state rooms as they seem to be booking quickly, but again I won't know what time the Abbey tour is.

Would you suggest booking the first or a morning tour at the palace and showing up to the Abbey when they and book an afternoon slot? I feel like the state rooms are something I'd like to do just because it's kind of a treat they will be open while I'm there.

Thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestions!

Posted by
983 posts

What Tammy said. Did this 2 weeks ago. Called the day before and there were two verger tours scheduled at 10:30 and 11:30. The first available reserved entry was at 12:30. So now what??
The person on the phone told me to book whatever time I could, then show up 30 min before the verger tour. Did that, and the person in the red cape was not pleased and was not letting me in. So I called the number again, and was assured that I could go in early. They apparently called the red cape lady, and she did, reluctantly, let us in. We had 6 people and we did get on the 11:30 tour. Good luck!

Posted by
2 posts

Hi Tammy and Ruth,

Right.. That's what I found confusing! You can pre book your entry but not the Verger part. So I booked the state rooms visit for 3:45 PM. I plan to arrive to the Abbey at opening to hopefully get times that match! I won't pre book the Abbey entry ahead of time. If it doesn't work out I'll do something else.

Thank you and Ruth I'm glad it ended up working out for you!

Posted by
983 posts

Since we had a wait til the ll:30 Verger tour, we went up to the Queen's Gallery first, and timing worked out perfectly. You buy those tickets once you are inside.

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