London Pass vs. timed entries?

What is a London Pass?

Been going to London for decades. Never heard of it.

Are you referring to the National Rail 2 for 1 deals?

The timed entry is a result of Covid restrictions and controlling how many people are in the building and also controlling entry. Some places have done away with this and there is no need to prebook and you just turn up.

Some of the more popular places are still encouraging people to prebook and have limits on numbers entering at any time.

I'm assuming you are referring to this pass?

I can't find any comment about whether you 'queue jump' with the pass, although it does say
"For many attractions on the pass, there's no need to pre-book. However, some may have limited slots or capacity, so you'll need to book in advance. "

hat does suggest if a site is very busy you won't get in unless you have a booking.

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We used the London Pass last May. There were maybe 5 places out of all the covered locations that required timed entry and there were clear directions on how to make reservations for those locations using the Pass. None of the places we went required timed entry.

I like the convenience and flexibility of the pass, however, you will want to price out the entrance fees for the locations you are going to make sure that it does indeed save you money before buying. It saved us significantly because of our choices, but it doesn’t save money for everyone.

London has many wonderful museums that are free to enter (though donations are requested). The London Pass is of no benefit at those locations, and time spent in places such as the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum is time you will not be able to spend at sights covered by the card. When evaluating the utility of the card, it's important to be realistic about how many covered sights you will actually have time to see.

The value of the pass will vary depending on your tastes. I'd look at what locations the pass covers and compare that to the list of places you'd want to visit. Then figure out what you are going to do and when (at least roughly). The longer the duration of the pass, the more attractions on it you need to visit to get value out of it. If I had a targeted itinerary, I might consider it if I knew it would save money. But I tend to be quite flexible in what I do and would rather not worry about getting value out of the pass and just enjoying my time.

London is a fabulous town with so much to do that is free - I dont know that I would find the value others would in the pass.

I am planning a trip to London and am going to use the London Pass. I added up the price of the individual tickets and subtracted the cost of the pass. It is going to save me 43.70 pounds! That is for a 7 site pass.

We got a gocity pass for 7 attractions that is good for 1 month so you don't have to cram everything in days but we will be in London for 2 weeks. It is the same principle as the London Pass but goes by amount of attractions, not amount of days.

Nature is healing because we are getting London Pass questions again!

In general, the pass works best bought at a discount and for a longer trip so the cost per day goes down. It also depends what the U.K. decides to do with the national rail 2 for 1 discount, some of the main sights can get expensive. But, you also have many free world class sights in London that can help lower your day to day costs.

As an aside, I’d recommend the London Walks tours of Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, you’ll get the group admission discount which will help ease the cost of the London Walks guide and you’ll get an excellent two hour tour. They used to have St Paul’s Cathedral as well, but don’t see it listed now.

We were in London July 3-6 and went to both the British Museum and the National Gallery, (both free by donation). Both said that timed entries were required so we booked a time and planned our day around it. Nobody checked times or entry of anyone so looked like not needed after all. The National Gallery doesn't have an audio guide due to Covid, but you can download an App (check their website). We didn't do this and were a bit lost as many things have been moved around, and didn't fit our RS guidebook description.

Was doing a comparison several months ago (see my thread from 2/16/22) for my trip next year and found that for many places, if you were using the London Pass you couldn't get a timed entry nor did you bypass the line, so you would have to wait in the line until they could let you in ... I believe it was a result of Covid and now that things seem to be getting back to normal, I'm hoping they do away with the timed entries, but I think they are here to stay since it gives the site better control over how many they let in so it isn't as much of a zoo during popular times ... the London Pass was going to save me around 40% (based on my preliminary calculations) so I am very interested to see how this all shakes out but I still have around 8-9 months until I need to decide ...