Please sign in to post.

Firming up late June London Itinerary - Thoughts Appreciated!!

Posted by on

Hello all – I have been lurking on this board to plan our upcoming London trip. The information has been invaluable and I hope to be able to offer similar advice when we return. I welcome any and all comments/advice. It will be me, my husband, and our 15 year old son. This is our son’s first international trip, but pre-pandemic we travelled extensively in the US. Husband and I have vacationed in London before. We are an early rising family at home and on vacation, but understand the effect jet lag will have on us for the first couple of days. In general, not huge into art museums. There are still small and large gaps in our days and we purposefully have some open time near the end of our trip in case we learn about something earlier in the week that we would like to do. Some of our best vacation memories were not planned in advance, but things we found out about from locals/tour guides, etc. We like theater, but at this moment, don’t see any shows that are “must see” enough to buy in advance. Will keep an eye on TKTS while we are there. We have tickets in hand for WB Studio Harry Potter and the Ceremony of the Keys. I have been keeping an eye on all other ticket availability and plan to buy advance tickets for major sites within the next week.

Sat, June 24
Land at Heathrow at noon.
Buy tube tickets and head to Lincoln Suites aparthotel near Holborn Station. Drop bags or check-in.
Explore, grocery shopping, dinner.

Sun, June 25
We always do a Big Bus tour when we visit new cities and figured it might be a good idea on Sunday with less traffic, but even so, reviews of audio information and lack of buses to hop back on are concerning. Instead, we are leaning towards doing the 10 am London Walks, Hello London! tour (Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Guard), lunch, and then British Museum/Library near our hotel.

Mon, June 26
Tower of London at 10 am
Lunch at St Katharine’s Docks
Tower Bridge, will look at schedule to see when it opens that day, possibly the Tower Bridge tour?
Walk by the Monument to the Great Fire
Sky Garden

Tues, June 27
Churchill War Rooms at 9:30 am
Lunch
Westminster Abbey at 2:00 pm
We can switch the order of these, but have heard the Abbey may be less crowded in the afternoon?
Back to hotel at some point/Dinner
Ceremony of the Keys at 9:30 pm

Weds, June 28
Sleep in a little if needed
WB Harry Potter Studio Tour – noon entry
Theater that evening?

Thurs, June 29
St. Paul’s at 8:30 am
Millennium Bridge
Borough Market for Lunch
Walk by the Globe Theater
Afternoon free for ?

Fri, June 30
Morning free for ?
National Gallery in the afternoon. This is the only day the London Walks National Gallery Tour is given (at 2:15 pm). We thought this might be a good idea because we can learn way more from a guide than we would wandering about on our own.

Sat, Jul 1
Greenwich – will this be substantially more crowded on Saturday than Friday? We could switch with Friday and do the National Gallery on our own another day without the London Walks Tour.

Sun, July 2
Up early, check out of hotel and either take taxi or Tube to St. Pancras.
Arrive St. Pancras at 7:45 am for 9:24 am Eurostar departure to Paris. I will probably post separately about our few days in Paris. Fly home from Paris.

Thanks very much for thoughts, good and bad, on the above and any omissions that we could add in. We have gone back and forth about the London Eye and Abbey Road. Also, any recommendations for fun/interesting restaurants in Covent Garden or that dovetail with our itinerary? Dining is next on our list to research. We really appreciate it!

Posted by
1326 posts

I absolutely agree with the idea of Hello, London over a bus tour. London Walks is great.

Posted by
14061 posts

Just a couple of comments…

Sunday 25: I vote for the London Walks. You won’t cover as much ground but you’ll learn more and it will be more interesting. Did you realize the British Museum and British Library are in different places?

Monday 26: You don’t have to decide now, but you can also have lunch at the Tower in their self service type cafe. To me going in at 10 and then leaving by lunchtime is not enough time to see the Tower but I tend to do things in depth and that may not be your travel style. I would spend more time in the Tower than spending it on the bridge unless that is a must do for you. Since it sounds like you are HP fans, after the Tower you could walk by Leadenhall Market which was used for The Leaky Cauldron and I think some Diagon Alley scenes.

There are a bunch of food outlets at St Pancras before you go thru the Immigration formalities in the Eurostar section so you can get a takeaway breakfast then go thru and eat inside the Eurostar area. You do security but there are no liquids limits so you can take coffee thru.

Posted by
1075 posts

I was going to say the same thing, that you don’t look like you have enough time for the Tower of London. You could easily spend a full day there.

Posted by
27236 posts

The Churchill War Rooms can also be more than a half-day activity if you're interested in reading all the provided information about Churchill.

I know nothing about how Eurostar lines vary from day to day or hour to hour, but I've seen a number of suggestions since Brexit for arriving two hours before scheduled departure. You don't want to miss that train.

Posted by
4 posts

Thanks everyone for the comments! I really appreciate them. I booked our placeholder for the Sunday morning London Walk.

Pam, thanks for the insights! We were thinking 3 hours for Tower of London, but will plan for more. Yes, to Harry Potter, so we will add Leadenhall Market to our route. And while planning our itinerary is important, I think coffee can go through security at St Pancras might be my favorite tip ;)

acraven, thanks for thoughts on Churchill War Rooms – we will take that into consideration when booking our time slot for Westminster Abbey. Thanks also for the tip on Eurostar arrival time. No biggie for us to get up and out of the hotel a little earlier and we can catch a catnap on the train

Again, thanks for taking the time to post. Anything else that stands out, good or bad? Any off-the-beaten-path suggestions to fill holes in our days? We did look into soccer stadium tours for my son/husband but decided to wait until we get to Paris and check out the Parc des Princes.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.