London Stay - London Pass/Oyster Card?

Do you actually want to see the attractions listed on the London Pass? Usual advice is buy an Oyster card for £5, top it up with say £30, and travel around as you feel like.

Get any unused funds back when you return the card.

Opinions on the London Pass:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g186338-i17-k7690019-o10-The_London_Pass_Not_a_good_idea-London_England.html

Saturday get an early start before 8am and visit Portobello road. While the market sets up have some excellent coffee and pastry at Gail's Artisan Bakery. Its a lovely 10-15 stroll from the Notting Hill Gate tube station to it. At around 8-8:15 start a leisurely exploration of the market. Take a good 2 hours. Have lunch there.

Then hop on the tube at Ladbroke Grove and take a 25 tube ride to St Pancras/kings Cross station. Be sure to stop to see the Lovers Statue ( cant miss it really) as well as the statute and tribute to the man who responsible for saving the station from demolition in the 60's, Sir John Betjeman.

From here walk to the nearly adjacent British Library, enjoy the issac Newton statue then visit the Treasure Room, a.k.a. The Sir Lohn C Ritblatt gallery. Check the library website to see if they'll be serving afternoon tea as well as what lecture, event, etc might be occurring that day.

If the the above generates no interest I suggest a walk along the Thames starting at Parliament Square. Stroll across Westminster Bridge and head toward the London Eye. Follow the foot path all the way up to the Shakespeare Globe theatre. . If you like modern art enter the Tate Modern. If not walk across the Milenieum bridge. From there either walk along the river back towards Blackfriar tube station or walk along Queen Victoria street to the Blackfriar Pub and have lunch. From here walk back to St Pauls and then on up to the Museum of London.

Lastly, another interesting option is Brick Lane and Spittafields Market. I'd tube to Aldgate East, exit, walk up to Brick Lane and walk to Suzzle for some excellent early A.M. Coffee. Proceed from there to Brick Lane and explore. Then off to Spittafields and have lunch.

Leaving what to do Saturday evening up to you.

On Tuesday visit the Royal Academy of the Arts or the Photographer's Gallery off of Oxford Street. If you chose the gallery its a 5 minute walk to Liberty which is a very unique department store.

Enjoy your quick return visit.

I'm doing the research on the London Pass/ Travel Card now. Like everything else you have to sit down and do the math. Pick the sites you want to see and look at the admission costs sans card. Should be easy to determine if you will break even or not.
You can have the pass/Oyster card shipped to your home and use the Oyster Card for transportation in from Heathrow. Plus you can skip the lines at about 10 of the sites.
Based on what you want to do on those two days, I think you are the only one that can determine if it's a deal or not.

I concur with Elaine. We used a 3-day London Pass in March and packed sites into that period. we ended up saving 32.00 GBP per person but were fortunate to buy the passes at a 20% discount they periodically offer. I crunched the numbers in a spreadsheet to make certain it was worthwhile. I liked having them in hand on arrival so no wasted time going to an office or kiosk to buy them.

The Oyster Card is the greatest transportation idea in all of Europe, IMO. What a great and easy system!

I personally found the London Pass onerous. I felt like I didn't get my money's worth and now have to return to sites (like the Tower) because I didn't have enough time to do it justice. But if you prefer a whirlwind of activity, the Pass might be beneficial for you. Another option instead of the London Pass is to get a paper travel card from a train station (Paddington, for example). You can get a pass for just the zones you'll be in, more than likely 1 and 2, which is often cheaper than the daily limit on the Oyster card if you're going to ride the tube more than 3-4 times in a day. It offers 2-for-1 deals for a ton of places (outside of London as well). You need to have a method of travel anyway, so why not get some deals in the process? It might help at your other destinations within England as well.

Notice "Downton Abby" on Sunday, Sept 11..We are arriving approx same time and hoped to visit Downton, how were informed that it is closed through September..How did you book it? Thanks for any info.........Carl, Kansas city, usa

2nd Laurel - returned from London yesterday. Used Oyster Card. Would use it again and recommend it.

I also recommend the Oyster Card. It's SO easy to get around London with it and 30 pounds should do for the entire trip.

Chader8116 - I know this is hijacking Sandy's question but since you are new to the site I will try for a partial answer.

Last April we booked a tour of Downtown Abbey for what we believe maybe the only day (14th) that Downtown is open in Sept. The public tickets for Downtown Abbey are nearly impossible to come by. We used britmovietours.com. We have adjusted our entire trip to meet that date. With the pound being down, it would be cheaper today.

You probably hit the two most expensive sights covered by the london pass, so unless you have some specific plans that are covered, opt for the Oyster Pass. I would go even further and say skip an extended day pass and do "pay as you go", fares automatically max out each day, making it competitive with a multiday pass, especially if you might travel outside zone 1 or 2.

You could easily do many museums that are free...British Museum, British Library, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert, Natural History, Science Museum, and the Imperial War Museum.

Thanks everyone for the advise and opinions! All have been appreciated. I ordered the Oyster Cards with $30 on each. I did this before the Brexit, as with most of my advance purchases. Luck of the draw I guess. In regards to the Downton Abbey tickets. I was very afraid that I had missed out. I ended up making the purchase with internationalfriends.co.uk and don't even want to say what I paid. I tried with Viator and even thought about the tickets available for the Vintage Garden Party on the Highclere Castle Website. By the time I tried to figure out travel since I wasn't renting a car.......I threw up my hands. I also work my whole itinerary around this date. I hope everything goes well and this is truly the wonderful last trip across the pond that my husband and I get to make together. He has moderate alzheimer's - we are living each day to the fullest and are still making memories for both of us.

Sandy