Buckingham Palace tour check-in window

You probably won't make it for 5:15 at that time of day.

I'd choose one or the other. You'd need to time it to the minute by the time you walk to Wapping and then walk from Green Park or Victoria. It's right on peak rush hour (assuming it's a weekday) with packed trains and stations. Cambourne may be right in theory, but in practice I doubt very much it would happen. Taking an Uber across town at that time of day to make such a tight schedule isn't something I'd consider. Not the sort of stress I'd be wanting to deal with on vacation personally.

I think I mentioned this on your other thread but I've never had a London Walks walk end before the projected time but I have often had them go a little bit longer. Sometimes this is because they got started a little late, sometimes the sidewalks have been crowded and it might have taken longer to get from place to place, sometimes people have questions as you go which the guide will answer.

You do have the option of dropping back and leaving the walk early but to me, I agree that I'd choose one or the other.

I know you have a lot of things you want to see (as I recall from other posts in just a few days), but this would be one day you'll have to pick one or the other. Especially if you need to book and pay for the Buckingham Palace tour tickets ahead of time. I'm a huge London Walks fan, but you can easily do a DIY walk based on RS books or audio tours - there are two audio walks for London: https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/audio-tours/london

Thanks, everyone. It is a walk about pirates (only held once a month) and on a Saturday, if that makes a difference with the answers about traffic. Sigh…. It’s so hard to cut things out!

Being a Saturday does improve your odds slightly, but it's a big risk to take if you've dropped a lot of money on tickets beforehand. The chances of not making it for 5:15 are quite high.

I wouldn’t risk missing the window. Yours is the last tour of the day - people will have checked in. No possibility of sneaking in with a later group.

It’s been several years since I did this tour in 2019 and things change. So, take with a grain of salt, but I was on a work call that ran long and I had to race to get to my check-in time. I arrived at the outside limit of the time specified. I was the last person in my allotted time block to be admitted.

I would not miss the Palace tour. We did it once and it was wonderful, ..more than I had thought it would be. We also did a couple of London Walks and although they were really good is it possible to start at the beginning and leave the tour at 3:30? That would give you enough time to get to the Palace. Not ideal but would give you a little idea of the pirate tour. As said above the two tours we took ran about a quarter to a half hour overtime as the guide would stop to answer numerous questions. We appreciated that but we were not in a rush. Maybe on your own you can go to the Whitby Pub. Good luck!

Thanks everyone for your replies. It is really helpful!

Buckingham Palace for the win! For me there’s no coin toss.