Recommendation for tour company for a 7-9 day tour of London

Lots of options for you, but I'm thinking York. A beautiful historic centre (the Shambles), York Minster, one of the.most significant cathedrals in England, town walls and Roman ruins, and some great museums. And easy 2hr train trip from London.

Have no clue what the RS Tour of London entails.

However, been traveling to and enjoying London sojourns since Nixon was in office. For me a very walkable city. The Thames Path, Walthamstow Wetlands, Parkland Walk Nature Preserve.

You can easily see London without a tour. Public transport is great.

Parks and gardens abound. Hyde, Richmond, Holland Park, Regents to name a few.

For a number of trips stayed at 63 Bayswater. Breakfast used to be included in the price. After Covid not sure if that holds true.

Still, 63 is: a 15 minute stroll from Paddington, across the road from the Lancaster Gate entrance to Hyde Park, and a 1/2 block from the Underground station.

Tudkin a small Malaysian is nearby and 2 enjoyable pubs with good food, are also close; The Mitre Paddington and The Victoria.

As far as areas outside of London there’s Richmond,
Walthamstow, Camden, Brixton, Greenwich, Epping Forest, Rye, Whitsable, Margate, Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast, Dover, Durham, York, etc.

Lastly, Premier Inns are all around London and surrounding neighborhoods. Worth your research.
I’ve never been disappointed with a PI stay, even after I was stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes.

You might look at the areas east of London including Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Lots of lovely old villages, interesting cities such as Norwich and Colchester, the old port towns off Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Interesting history going back to pre-Roman times, fine cathedrals, medieval villages, this is where John Constable did some of his most famous works.

Thanks for the great recommendations.
@Claudia, one thing that we loved about the Rome tour is that RS office acquired all the necessary, often hard to acquire tickets like the coliseum, Wednesday day morning to see the Pope, Vatican museum, Borghese museum, etc. I've been hearing that London, like many other locations in Europe has become quite busy. Are there venues in London where tickets can be hard to get?

I was in London this past Oct and had no problem getting any needed tickets. It certainly wasn’t like getting up in the middle of the night to get tickets for the pope and the colosseum.

You might find my trip report helpful:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/10-days-in-london-our-first-time-a-trip-report

OP since I haven’t had the need or desire to
revisit the “ must see “ venues so can’t answer your question.

Last November spent 6 weeks there and only twice went into the city center. First time to view the prep for the Lord Mayors Parade. Second time for a night of dinner and theatre.

London has always been a busy city.

My trip report is titled Back in London if you wanted to peruse.

Great city. Never boring.

I also thought York. I think you would enjoy a day trip to Dover from London. The time of year that you plan to go will impact how easy it is to get tickets, but to me, London is the easiest city in Europe for Americans to see independently. I think that you could easily duplicate the RS London tour itinerary on your own. You do want to get advance tickets for the Churchill War Rooms.

It would be really difficult to find a tour of London that would be better than the Rick Steves London.
You could do that tour, then spend two weeks in London doing day trips out to other sights.
The other tour that might just be better than RS London would be RS England In 14 Days tour.

It starts in Bath, visits the Cotswolds, Oxford, Wales, Hadrian's Wall, York (as mentioned above by Cala and Simon);
ends in London. You have two days in London at the end of the tour, in which you see two of the same sights you would see on the London tour.......Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

This tour would give you London plus an overview of England, a sample.
Since you said you'd like to spend approximately 2-3 weeks on this vacation, this would leave you one week to stay in London at the end of your tour and do day trips.

During your last week, you could also cover many of the free sights around London, such as the British Museum, Tate Modern, V&A Museum (the Victoria and Albert), and don't miss the National Portrait Gallery (just off Trafalgar Square) for portraits of all the Tudors, Princess Diana, and more.

Tickets are easy to book for attractions (Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Churchill War Rooms) in case you decide to skip any tour and wing it yourself. Each one has a website; you just go to that and book it.

In case you'd like walks around London on your own, browse the daily walks here, given by the London Walks company.
They have themes, such as Victorian London, Royal London, Roman London, and so on.
They have guided day trips out of town to Oxford, Cambridge, and many other places.
https://www.walks.com/
https://www.walks.com/walks-by-day/tuesday/
https://www.walks.com/popular-walks/classic-london/
https://www.walks.com/popular-walks/village-london/
https://www.walks.com/day-trips-from-london/

Excellent article here from the London Walks blog; "30 Panoramic Views Of London":
https://www.walks.com/blog/panoramic-views-of-london/

Another tour company that may be useful if you plan your own trip is Rabbie's, specializing in day trips and multi-day tours:
https://www.rabbies.com/en/england-tours/from-london

These tours leave from London and are in a new, comfy minibus with AC and WiFi. You have a driver and a guide.

Rabbie's is highly regarded by members of this forum and has excellent reviews on Trip Advisor. We have taken several trips with them and have been completely satisfied.

You will find lots of information here, on this recent thread by Mardee, as she asks for suggestions for day trip ideas for her upcoming trip with her grandchildren. Excellent suggestions here. Maybe useful to you:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/please-give-me-your-thoughts-about-a-day-trip-or-2-from-london-that-two-older-kids-would-like

I have several times stayed in city or town other than London and taken multiple side trips. This works well for me because I'm pretty patient about 90-minute (or occasionally longer) bus or train trips. YMMV.

Cambridge: went to Saffron Walden, Ely and Kings Lynn.

Norwich: went to Bury St. Edmunds; the Cambridge destinations might also have worked.

Oxford: went to Cotswolds via a GoCotswolds van tour from Moreton-in-Marsh; Blenheim Palace is also very close.

Bristol: went to Bath, Wells and Cardiff.

Chester: took multiple trips into Northern Wales.

York: went to Whitby.

Brighton: went to Arundel and Lewes

I'm sure there are additional worthwhile day trips possible from each of the above bases and that there are many other practical bases.

There's not much in London that sells out way ahead of time, but the Churchill War Rooms are an example of a place where you'd be likely to run into a long ticket line if you just showed up. It was a more-than-half-day visit for me, so I recommend getting a ticket for entry no later than mid-morning and having no firm plans for the afternoon.

The Imperial War Museum is free/donation-requested, and I've never run into a delay at the entry point. It took me multiple visits (over 8 hours in total) to see the whole thing, but I didn't limit myself to the WWII material. My tip is to skip the audio guide, which basically just duplicates the posted explanatory material, unless you prefer to listen rather than read.

For someone with time and an interest in WWII, Bletchley Park is a top day trip. You can spend about the whole day there, so getting an early start is important.

If you happen to get as far north as Liverpool (not on a day trip!), the Western Approaches HQ is also worthwhile.

One thing to watch for in London is special exhibitions on topics of interest to you that might be very popular with the general public. Those things can sell out way in advance if they're related to popular-culture topics (the Royals, rock musicians, etc.) or something like impressionist art. One potentially tricky one is the Cartier jewelry exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It opens in mid-April and as of today all of April and most weekend days in May are sold out, despite the high price (27 GBP on weekdays, 27 GBP on weekends).

As an experienced traveler (which I know you are as well), I cannot imagine going on a packaged tour to London, which has so many really large museums and other sights where I'd want to spend a lot more time than the tour would allow. Honestly, I think you'd regret it. I'd spend my money on specialized experiences instead. Maybe there's a private tour to a place you'd be interested in that's not usually open to the public or is swamped during normal visiting hours; Westminster Abbey has a pricey early-access option, for example. And I learned today in another thread that there's a 90-GBP tour to the East Wing of Buckingham Palace.

For more casual sightseeing I'm a big fan of London Walks' walking tours. Running time is usually about 2 hours and--with very few exceptions--the tours cost just 20 GBP (less for seniors). The Blitz tour is good. I haven't yet taken Westminster at War but plan to do that this year. There are many other tours with an historical focus; others target specific neighborhoods (Hampstead, Little Venice, Marylebone, etc.), taking you down little streets a tourist wouldn't usually run into. The guides are all licensed and engaging. There are usually at least 10 tours offered per day, selected from among the many dozens on the company's roster.

Thanks for all the helpful advice, yes, I believe you all make a lot of sense. I guess I was thinking, based on comments I've heard from others, that London was busy and logistics difficult, like Rome, for a first time visit. As I think of it, these comments have come from friends who do not travel internationally much.

What gave me some pause about the tour is there were places missing (Bletchly) that we are really interested in, and also, maybe this is true with other tours as well, looking at the RS tour itinerary, its really more of a 5+ day tour.

We just came back from 5 weeks of independent travel in Italy which included Puglia, Naples, and Rome which did have a few tricky points that we managed quite well. And they do speak English in London! (I've spent 3 years working with Duolingo on Italian without much progress).

We want to travel this fall. Probably 2 weeks, which is a very short trip for us. I anticipate 2-3 hotel switches, at most. With family schedules this fall, its a short trip or nothing. I think I'm looking at October, because I'm seeing much lower airfare, though I think we prefer mid/late September. I should be able to find a few hotel options for this time period, or is it rather late? I think I have a really great start with the information provided here. Right now, I'm thinking London, 6-7 nights and then 3/4 nights in one or two other places. We want to do all public transportation, and we don't like more than 1.5 hours of train/bus in a day, unless moving locations.

@Rebecca, I will keep Rabbies, thank you. And thank you for reminding me of London Walks, we did Paris Walks tour in Montmarte and it was excellent. I believe they are affiliated with London Walks.