Parliament Family Tour vs Guided Tour

While I loved the guided tour as an adult, if you're American, I'm not sure it would appeal to children 12 and under. It really helps to have a very basic understanding of British history and I know I didn't know any European history at 12 except for some World War II and some exploration/colonization of the new world.

Hoepefilly someone will chime in with their experience of the Family Tour.

This will give you many videos of theirs to see for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7LI3VGjhd4&list=PL7F1AFC4FF75A3725

They will be professional and also entertaining, my nieces who live in England did like it, no condescending guides, that would be rude :) But if you see a group of 7 yr olds going in one group, you can wait until another one. I used to be the Mensa Gifted Children's Officer for my chapter, smart kids are very often OK with something fun AND informative, without it needing to be real serious. But yeah, if you see a troop of Brownies, you may want to wait til the next tour, so they can cater to your 9 & 12 yr olds a bit more if there are no 7 yr olds around. You may find that the schools are still in session depending on when you're going, and it may not be much of an issue depending on your time of day. But the tour guides there CAN be real characters, and they mean no offense by it. Guess they've got to keep their own jobs interesting when there's a lot of repetition :)

You may watch all their videos with your kids and let them decide. It can be informative and fun at the same time. Or they could want it more serious, maybe faster, for the regular tour. I find that England's got such a depth of feeling to it, it can be much better to take it slower and get a real feel for the place.

This gives some links to probably some of the same videos, but more info's on there.
https://www.parliament.uk/visiting/visiting-and-tours/tours-of-parliament/family-guided-tours/

If you have any other time for stops with kids, my favorite would be the British Library's treasure room (big room, but comfy benches for resting and all low cases so you can see where your kids are, near King's Cross and platform 9 3/4, and a relief from wondering where my daughter was in crowds), very contained room, tho big and full of impossibly nifty educational things all over/all times. My friend from high school honors classes who lives in England there, he brought his kids to LegoLand Windsor and had a GREAT time, they added a LOT just this year, when I go to grad school this Sept (now that my daughter's married), I definitely want to get there too :)

My biggest challenges with traveling there to London with my daughter several times over the years was in the getting there and finding my mobile phone did not work in that country, no matter what the cell phone salesman had told me. I hear that my new Google Fi phones should work there with no extra charges, so I have high hopes for my next trip. Otherwise I'd recommend getting cheapest ones possible there at Heathrow, it was harder to find a mobile phone store (we were on the South Bank, arrived on Sat/Sun) than I ever thought it would be. She and I also lived and worked at the Girl Guides/ Scouts world centre / hostel Pax Lodge in Hampstead (when she was over 18). They do a good job with kid-specific tours of the city and evening programs to inform, and they also sell the tickets to various attractions at a discount.

(it's for the whole family, not only girls)
https://www.wagggs.org/en/our-world/world-centres/pax-lodge/

Have a great time!
-Alison

Alison - not to hijack this thread, but I can tell you that my (Google) Project Fi phone worked flawlessly in the UK when I was there last October. As I recall, I'd powered it off during the flight and when I powered it on after I landed, it booted up, hunted for a network and displayed a message along the lines of "Welcome to London." Sweet!