London Pass

Go down the list of included attractions and see how well they sync up with what you want to do. If your interests and plans include some of the more high pound options (Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, Tower of London, etc.) it can be worth it to cluster those together over two days, get the London Pass, and then do the free (actually donation requested) other attractions like the Victoria & Albert on the other days.

We used it on our first two trips to London and were happy with it, but will probably skip on future trips since what we want to see next time probably won't line up so much with the pass attractions.

Do skip their transportation options. You can do better buying your own public transit passes and Oyster cards.

You need to work out what you want to see not what the Pass offers, then do the maths to see if it works for you. We can't work this out for you, as we don't know what your priorities are.

Most European cities offer something similar and I haven't found one yet that made sense for me to buy based on my list of must sees.

Yes. Nobody but YOU can decide if it's worthwhile for your trip, and the better your research the better will be your decision. As noted above you should make a very specific list of the things you really want to do and see in London and the schedule that makes sense for YOU (not someone else) for seeing them. Some people have a 90 minute limit for a museum tour, others want to linger for 3 or 4 hours. Some people are happiest with a very structured itinerary for their holidays; others are more comfortable with a looser itinerary that allows for spontaneity and plenty of relaxing rambles and soaking in the scene they're in.

Remember, many London attractions are free, and the lines to buy tickets for the ones that aren't, are rarely all that long, with a couple of exceptions which I'm sure you can figure out with a little research. Also, there will be security checks at entrances to most attractions, and you can't avoid them. Also, as far as I know you don't get a preferential place in the security checkpoint line with a London Pass.

I've read trip reports and the people who seemed to be happiest about having the London Pass really made and kept to an aggressive schedule of visiting planned attractions, so that they got their money's worth. I remember one such report, from a woman who was doing London on kind of a shoestring budget. She was pleased to have visited so many attractions on her few days in London, and I'm glad she was. But honestly, her trip report read like a military training exercise and not my idea of a holiday. And, of course - to each her own. As I said, I was glad she enjoyed her trip.

I second what Suz said. It really depends on your touring style, what you are wanting to get out of your trip, and what you want to get out of your pass. For people who want to hold to an aggressive schedule to see as many sites on the pass as possible to get their money's worth, or who want to not have to deal with paying for each attraction on entry, or to save some time by skipping a few lines, it might be worth it. Get the pass if you would possibly save money and the other benefits are worth it to you if you only manage to break even or don't save any money.

I hear you can save some money if you want to see at least three London Pass attractions per day. My own style is to hit a few highlights and then enjoy the culture at a more leisurely pace. I only schedule two attractions per day and then some type of non-attraction activity (shopping, attending a play, walking in a park, taking a walking tour... whatever). Given my touring style it seems like the London Pass would add more stress to my trip than value. Saving a few pounds isn't worth the stress of knowing that I have to see that many attractions on consecutive days to save money. It seems there are always either transport, weather, or health issues that come up on trips that might make that difficult to achieve.

For instance, on our trip I came down with a cold in the middle of the trip. Seeing 3 attractions on those days would not have been fun or feasible.

The flip side is that the Pass encourages you to see things you might not otherwise really justify, even though they might end up being interesting. We enjoyed touring the Cutty Sark and Handel/Hendrix house because they were near other things we were more interested in and the pass just let us drop in and out with a sense of 'hey, it's no risk'. They're the kind of places we probably wouldn't have visited if we'd had to buy a standalone ticket.

London's mix of high-cost and free sights makes the decision about the London Pass perhaps trickier than usual. London is a large city; time spent moving between sights is time you are not getting value out of the pass.

Also, you can spend a lot of time moving between pass sights that aren't close together during the period of validity, skipping over the free sights that might be quite close by. Then you'll need to retrace your steps after the pass expires to go to the British Museum, the V&A, etc. So I'd say: Print out a map of London and mark the places covered by the pass that you're really interested in, in one color. Mark the free attractions you'd like to see in a different color. Look at the way they're grouped together on the map. Will the pass mean real savings for you, or will it mean wasted time?

Tina, do a Search on "London Pass" using the Search function at the top of the page, and you'll find several recent threads on the subject.

I found the London Pass to be more of a convenience item than a true money saver. However, in our fast-paced 3 day London visit, we did manage to make it pay for its self.

1). It allowed me to pre-pay most of my sightseeing expenses which helped out with budgeting.

2) Because most of the sightseeing expenses were pre-paid, I didn't have to worry about ATM stops as often.

3) We were able to skip the ticket purchase queues at most of the venues which saved a lot of time.

Some the the attractions, such as the HOHO bus are of dubious value...

It can work, usually as part of a longer visit and if it is bought during a sale. With a short trip, too many people let the pass dictate what they are going to see and they skip over the major free attractions. The London pass can also work well for repeat visitors who might want to revisit some of the expensive attractions, but don't want to pay the expensive entry fees just to revisit an attraction for an hour or so. They can combine those shorter revisits with some of the paid second tier attractions that aren't really good value paying the walk up admission cost.