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General Question about Advance Tickets

Posted by (Chicago, IL) on

Hi All,

My family and I are very excited about our upcoming trip to England, Scotland, and Paris, leaving in 9 days! In all the research I've been doing, I of course, have been reading about the importance of buying tickets to the most popular places in advance, to avoid the long lines.

My plan is to order tickets online the day before - once we know what we're doing for sure the next day. While we are pretty set on things we want to see, I do want to leave some flexibility in our plans, so don't necessarily want to buy all tickets ahead.

I'm not so concerned about Paris - we'll buy the Museum Pass and we do already have tickets to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I'm more curious about England and our 3 nights in Edinburgh. How long is the wait in lines for things like Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, etc without buying ahead - and when we do buy online ahead and pick-up at the ticket window, do we still need to wait in the same long ticket buying line?

Just wondering what to expect in terms of waiting in lines. This is our first trip to Great Britain and Paris.

Thanks so much for any input!

Courtney

Posted by
1336 posts

Usually, there's not much of a wait at the Tower of London to buy tickets, but buying in advance saves a couple of pounds. There is usually a long line for the crown jewels. The common advice is to get there first thing in the AM and head for the crown jewels. To be honest, I've seen them once and they were fine, but it certainly wasn't my highlight of the tour.

Westminster Abbey also usually doesn't have too long of lines, but again, you can save a few pounds buying online and it isn't a weather dependent attraction. If you're interested (and you should) sign up for the verger tour immediately upon entrance, it's about 5 pounds extra and well worth it.

The Churchill War Rooms, with the the recent WW II films being so popular, have become insanely busy. Absolutely reserve a time in advance if you're interested.

The Houses of Parliament are also best booked in advance, there's usually walk up tickets available, but you might not get your desired time and there's also a discount booking in advance.

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