Critique my preliminary itinerary, please!!

Thur, Apr 2 - visit catacombs early, for Mom (daughter will be dragged along, but I think she'll enjoy it); plan on pre-purchasing a so-called "fast pass" tix for this, since not a lot of time in Paris; after tour, more wandering for pix or loafing in a cafe for an hour or two; take later train back to London

Fri, Apr 3 - (last day for travelcard 241); St. Paul's Cathedral in am, Victoria and Albert in pm

Sat, Apr 4 - late breakfast somewhere; Warner Bros. Harry Potter tour, probably early afternoon; will start looking for tix mid-December onward, as it seems only available about 3 months out; pack

Sun, Apr 5 - see what we can squeeze in before heading to airport around 13:00 (flight leaves 17:15); maybe our alternate things if we didn't get to see them;

We also would like to see one or two theater shows, with emphasis on the Globe Theater one night, but can't plan those out this far yet. Any advice on those would be welcome as well.

TIA!!

I highly recommend that you visit the Churchill War Rooms. We will return there on our next trip to London. They are exactly the way they were during the bleakest days of WWII, planning
D Day.

Suki,

Thanks for the recommendation! I agree that the Rooms are wonderful - we visited them two years ago on a 3-day family trip. For this trip, dd and I are re-visiting the British Museum, only because there is no way that is a one-visit attraction, and also we only did an evensong service in Westminster, so we want to see the whole of it this time, but everything else is new to us.

Looks good to me, well paced and you already know your way around London. Just a few small thoughts:

March 26, arrival day, the Shard, Gherkin, Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus are in different parts of the city (the last two are close together), you don't have to take those pictures all the same day, other chances may come or can be worked in.

March 27, not sure why Paddington would make sense for your travelcard purchase, it's not really on your way to the British Museum. Instead, you could take the Piccadilly line from Earl's Court up to King's Cross-St. Pancras and get the cards there, walking back to the museum or doubling back on the tube to save your feet.

April 2, if daughter isn't a Catacombs fan, don't drag her along, let her do her own thing while you're communing with the medieval bones.

Dick,

Thanks for the suggestions! Traveling to all those areas the first day was more my way of humoring the kiddo and staying awake without having to commit to doing something and not giving it our full attention. We may just pick one or two and Borough Market (kind of on my bucket list), with a plan to see the others as you suggested, along the way.

As for getting the travel cards, I just picked a place I knew had the rail line come in. Another traveller has also since suggested the London Bridge station if we were going to be near Borough Market, which would work well as long as we can specify when we want the 7-day card to start. Of course, we do love the King's Cross station . . . .

And dd has admitted to just being squeamish at the thought of the the catacombs and what they represent. I showed her the website and she seems to have changed her mind, saying it doesn't seem quite so "gross" (I believe was her word) as she thought. :)

If you have an Oyster Card there is no need for a seven day travel card. You can check the balance of your Oyster card at any station, if need just add more to it.

Robin,

That's what I was going with first, but then someone told us about the RAIL Travelcard. From what I've heard and read about, if you get it at a rail station, you can use it like an Oyster card (tube, busses AND rail), it has a smaller 7-day overall cap than the Oyster (a rail Travelcard is about £36 for 7 days in zones 1-2 vs. 7 days x £7/day cap for the Oyster card) and it gets you 2-for-1 deals in lots of the major tourist sites, some of what we will be visiting while there, which will save us around £129, assuming we visit all that we plan. We didn't get it last time we were in London, since we were only there for 3 days.

Until we begin using it, we plan on replenishing our Oyster cards for things like travel to/from Heathrow to our hotel and travel to a rail station to get the cards, etc.

I’d allocate more time for both Tate Britain and the National Gallery, I’m an art lover and they’re both worth the better part of a day. I wouldn’t do them both on the same day if you can only allocate half a day to each.

The Wallace collection is also highly recommended.

The National Gallery has an excellent set of free lectures on YouTube, they will give you a taste of many of the artworks on display.

You also might consider a walking tour from London Walks, they do have some that cover the tourist attractions but also some that cover neighborhoods, history, music, just about anything.

Dale,

While I agree both art museums deserve more time, the simple fact is that we have quite a lot we want to see, and (even with 10 1/2 days) a limited amount of time. I have no doubt we could easily spend a day at each (probably a week at the British Museum), but dd knows this going in and is happy just being able to get a taste of all the places on our list. She knows we will most likely return to London in the future.

If we have time on other days, we will certainly re-visit our favorites, and I did have the Wallace Collection on our list as a maybe. And thank you for letting us know about the National Gallery on Youtube. We will certainly take a look before we go.

And again with the London Walks. So much to do, so little time! If an opportunity to take part in one or several presents itself, I think those are something we would enjoy as well. I already have a list of a couple that we might enjoy and will add to it over the coming months, I'm sure.

Thanks so much for your suggestions!!

Have you been to the Design Museum? I liked it, and it's a break from the traditional art museums. Then again, I guess it might be too simplified for yout daughter.

acraven,

While it's hard to tell from the website just what we might find at the Design Museum, dd seems to be interested in visiting if we can squeeze it in. London has so many uniques museums, it is getting increasingly hard to pick and choose! And this is nine months out!! Imagine if we keep getting more suggestions. We're going need a month just do them all justice! Thanks for the suggestion!!

With only 1 day in Paris, I would skip going to Paris. You are trying to do too much in Paris anyway.

I spent a total of 22 days in London in 2017 and 2018. It took me till mid-way through the second trip to finish the Imperial War Museum, the two Tates and the National Gallery. There's a lot of the V&A and National Portrait Gallery I haven'y seen, and I've barely set foot in the British Museum. It's a good thing I don't like palaces and have little interest in most historic sites.

Geovagriffith,

Do you think one attraction a day is too much in Paris? We will ONLY visit the Louvre in the afternoon of the first day, since it is open late that night (and we have no illusions we would ever get through all of it, even if we had a week!), and then we would visit JUST the catacombs the next day. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. The rest of the time, we will merely walk around taking pix of other things (Eiffel Tower, etc.) but not actually go inside. I am intrigued why you think one per day would be too much?

jon,
Sorry, I didn't perceive from your itinerary that you were staying more than one day in Paris. You can likely pull off your plans with two days. Still, I would go back to Paris when you can spend 5-7 days, which Paris deserves. There is plenty to see in Britain and near London.

You are buying 7-day travelcards, but in the middle of them going to Paris and losing 2 days worth of use of them. This is in effect a £42 loss of value.

If you really have to visit London and Paris why not try to fly into one and out of the other to save half a day of travelling.

The former tourist abuse of the 2-4-1 by buying the cheapest National Rail ticket in London each day (usually no where near the attraction) has been closed down and is now against the terms and conditions of the offer. You can bookend your trip by buying tickets in and out of London if you wish (not thinking of using them), but since you are intending to be there so long this actually would be more expensive, especially with an intensive travel itinerary.

Geovagriffith,

Not a problem! As I said, I should have made it clearer. We will try and catch the earliest train to Paris, around 7a, getting into Paris by 10:17 (if the schedules are still the same in April). I figure we will be off to the Metro by 11 (I like to build in extra time) and wandering, taking pix and eating for the next few hours. Then we could go to the Louvre around 16:00/16:30 (or earlier if we wanted to) and stay until near closing (which as of now would be 21:30, again if the hours stay the same.) This would give us a good 5+ hours to focus on one or two areas dd is especially interested in. Hotel right across from the Louvre.

The next morning, we would be at the catacombs as soon as they opened (10a) and bite the bullet, pay the extra cost and buy so-called "quick-access" tickets. A few hours through here, then off to lunch. We would then wander around more, just seeing the sites and taking pix, maybe with a stop in a cafe for an hour or two, and catch one of the later trains back to London, either 19:43 or 20:43.

Please let me know if this seems too rushed. I thought we were using our time well, but maybe Paris is too large to do much of this in the time we have?

You'll want to move your visit to Westminster Abbey to a day other than Sunday as they have services thru the day and no verger tours.

https://www.westminster-abbey.org/visit-us/guided-tours

If you do go to King's Cross to buy your 2 for 1 then you could work the British Library in then. The permanent collection that you can view is pretty small so it doesn't take very long.

Tower Bridge is easily viewed from the Tower of London. I've not gone up in it but most people say it's not much. You could walk from Tower of London to St Pauls via Leadenhall Market which was used in the Harry Potter films. Rick's got a City of London walk on his audio tour section and you can pick that up near the end from Leadenhall and walk toward St Pauls.

https://d3dqioy2sca31t.cloudfront.net/Projects/cms/production/000/004/442/original/5e29abd64f1e7093bf4f2e959b5e97a2/city_london_map.pdf

editing to add: Just saw your last post regarding Paris. Have you been before? I'll be in Paris for 2 weeks in the fall and then had a change of heart and decided I wanted to see an exhibition in London at the Queen's Gallery. I looked at the timing for just a day trip and decided it was not worth it to me. You do need to get to the Eurostar station on either end at least an hour ahead plus travel time there. You ~could~ see what you've got listed in 2 days but yes, it will be rushed. I've been to both cities multiple times and know how to get around. YMMV though and at least you've got an overnight in Paris. Have you bought your air tickets yet? If not, consider flying home from Paris?

Marco,

I have two reasons to think RAIL Travelcards are a good deal for us, even if we do a side trip to Paris. We plan on using all public transportation very heavily, plus the RAIL Travelcards offer the 2-4-1 deals on most if not all of the paid attractions we are interested in.

The way I look at it financially is thus: (I did not count our arrival day or departure day, since they will be the same regardless of Oyster or Travelcard.) Please read to the end first before commenting:

If we used the Oyster card it would come out to £305.4, assuming we hit the daily cap rate for zones 1-2 each day (9 days x £7 cap each day x 2 people =£126) plus (London Eye/Tower of London/Westminster/St. Paul's bought online ahead = £89.7 x 2 people=£179.40) TOTAL: £305.40
If we used the Travelcard it would total £197.70; (7 day RAIL Travelcard £36x 2 people = £72) plus (2 days of Oyster cards £7x2x2 people = £28) plus (all attractions bought the day of - £97.70, because one person is "free") TOTAL: £197.70

Even if we take out the two days we would be in Paris, we would only subtract £28 (2 days x £7/cap x 2 people) from the first amount. Thus it would cost us £277.40 for strictly Oyster card usage vs. £197.70 for the RAIL Travelcard. I think an £80 difference is worth it.

Please check my math and let me know if I calculated these correctly!! I'm always ready to be corrected, especially if it saves me money.

And regardless of "legal" or not anymore, I wouldn't consider doing the "decoy tickets," I believe they were called, since it seems too fraught with failure, if we were called upon to show evidence of actually taking a train ride, etc. And, yes, plus it was gaming the system, which I dislike doing anywhere.

Also, I looked into doing open jaw re: Paris and London, and since the airline I want to use (I have points that will save me money), using multi-city booking, will not allow me to specify my class on the return trip (it would have to be the same both ways) this almost doubles the cost of airfare, even this far out.

Pam,

Thanks! Glad you pointed out about Westminster Abbey. I did so much re-arranging of our schedule on paper, that when I finally got it to where I liked it, I completely missed the fact that the Abbey was planned for a Sunday. And I greatly appreciate the other suggestions. Dd really wants to visit the top of the Tower Bridge, but I will keep what you said in mind. Plus, I will look for that audio tour!

As for Paris, it plays to our trip as a family of four, that we made to London two years ago. At the time, we were joking with the kids about how we can easily take the train to Paris "for the day," much like we would take our trains here from Philly into NYC "for the day." Of course, we got sticker shock when we look at buying tickets for four people. The idea was shelved.

Fast forward to this trip's planning stages. Trust me to joke around with dd about trying it again. Not much response until I mentioned the Louvre. All of a sudden, it was very high on dd's "really want to do" list, and I felt myself getting just as excited. As the cost for two is so much much better than four, all of a sudden we were seriously considering it - if for nothing else than the excitement of a high speed train ride, to yet another foreign country (one neither one of us has visited yet), with the added bonus of being able to visit a few sites we are interested in. We definitely realize this won't be an all-encompassing visit, but it will give us a good basis for considering what we might like to spend time on, should we visit in the future.

Sorry this was so long-winded, but I figured that if I give my reason for a brief side trip to Paris now, it might serve to quell any more questions about my sanity in doing this in future posts!

Oh, well most of us are travel-crazed, hahahah! And yes, I have planned trips and move things around so much on paper I forgot something major regarding dates so that is what we are here for!

If you go forward with the Paris visit be sure to buy your tickets well ahead - they usually are up for sale around the 6 month mark. Buy only from www.eurostar.com and that far out you can probably get the lowest fares which will be around 50E each way/per person.

And it looks like you have your Paris visit on a Wednesday which is good - you want to avoid Tuesday as the Louvre is closed then.

Pam,

Yes!!!!! Travel crazed indeed! That's us!

Ironically, when I was first pricing Eurostar tickets, I just put in any day to start (this time it was for the next day,) and the cost between that and a few months out (December/January seems to be the furthest I can go right now) was only about £7 higher. Of course, nervous planner that I am, I will have them in hand as soon as they open up April!

And talk about re-arranging things on paper as we considered visiting Paris! It finally became clear that our choice was the optimal time because, yes, as you said the Louvre is listed as closed on Tues. and open late on Wednesdays. Gotta get the maximum enjoyment for our limited time. One of the ironies of travel, I guess. So much to see and so little time to do it.

Oh, and I got a jolt and then a laugh over this!! Just re: something Geo inadvertently mentioned earlier (of "my" name "jon.") Very easy to think this from my screen name, but I'm actually the "cat" part of my current name here. I've seen other posts about not knowing if a poster is male or female online, and gotten quite a kick out of it, but I never thought I would be part of it. Especially, since I just realized I tend to use my other moniker on most other sites, where it is easier to tell that I am female.

Still chuckling over it all now . . . .

My point was that you are throwing away two days validity of the Travelcards by the way you have structured your trip itinerary (or looking at it another way, are using Oyster PAYG for 2 days that you need not do). Of course you may have other reasons for doing it this way, ie not having a straight 7 day run in London.

Marco,

Now I understand what you are saying. And I would love to find a better way of doing it. But, I think the problem for me when I was trying to make our itinerary was that the Travelcards had to be used a continuous 7 days from the day we started them.

We certainly could have gone to Paris first thing in our trip (Friday), since the Louvre is open late that day also, and started the Travelcards when we returned. We would have 7 days in a row to use them. But I just keep remembering how my dh, who takes this same flight often for work, had his cancelled a fair number of times in the last several years. Plus, it's still a bit tricky weather-wise that time of year. That's why I scheduled our arrival day (thursday) to be light and just mostly walking around. If we were delayed a day in arriving, I could easily work those activities in somewhere else. If we scheduled Paris for Friday and Saturday (27/28), and we were arriving Friday because of a cancelled earlier flight, it would be almost impossible to make the early train. Too many ifs for my liking.

Conversely, I could schedule our Travelcard to start on Friday (27) and that would leave our last two days free for Paris, but then after arriving home late Saturday night (4th), we would have to pack and fly out the next day. A train ride one night followed by a 7+ hour flight the next day just didn't appeal to me.

So that was my rationale in planning as I did. If you can think of a better way of arranging things, I would love to hear it!! At this point, nothing is set in stone, as I said when I started this thread, so I can afford to still be flexible.