Hello,
Is there a best time to do the actually touring of the Tower if we have tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys? I'm imagining it is closed right before the Ceremony.... Do we just tour the Tower at any other time, or aim for late in the day on the day we have the Keys tickets so we're in the vicinity??? Thanks!
We have tickets for Ceremony of the Keys for our visit to London. Since the Tower closes at 5:30 pm and the Ceremony isn’t until 9:30 pm, we will return to see the exhibits/tour the Tower on a different day. 4 hours seemed like a lot of time to fill in between. Public transit between our hotel and the Tower seems easy enough to accomplish twice.
It’s been 11 years since we went to the Ceremony of the Keys. We went to the tower in the day and returned for the Ceremony. We were with our son and his family. Getting a bus back to our apartment was a bit of an issue so we got back really late. Our granddaughters were 8 and 10 and though they were able to stay awake we all slept in the next day :).
I recently did both of these and we went on two different days. The tickets are purchased separately, if I’m remembering correctly, so you’ll have to purchase tickets for the Tower of London. It’s worth it, so much to see!
There's a long time between the closing of the Tower and the Ceremony event - too long to use it all up for eating. For ease I would go different days.
Do note that the entry time for the Ceremony is strictly adhered to.
We went the next morning to visit the Tower.
Just an FYI, we arrived early for our ceremony tour, about one hour. There was a group already there at the gate waiting. We just figured they were early like us. Anyway, we decided to walk around a little cause standing still is harder for me. When we returned a half hour or so later, the group was gone. I panicked for a second thinking we missed it. There was another couple nearby so I asked them if they were here for the keys tour. Yes they were. They told us the group before was a private tour of the tower, family and friends of the Beefeaters. Whew. The other group meet up with us later on.
Thank you everyone! We will just do the tour at an unrelated time.
