Tower of London questions

Hi Joe!
When we were there a couple of years back, we got there when it opened - went directly in to see the jewels and then went to find a tour. We only had to wait only 5-10 minutes for a yeoman tour. There doesn't seem to be any limit on how many people can go with the tour, ours probably had 50-60 people with some dropping out along the way. The tour was the only way to enter the chapel and was very entertaining. The crown jewels are separate from the tour and we were glad we did that first thing as the lines become super long very quickly. It was so cool to see the actual suit of armor worn by King Henry VIII and all the other historical items and areas. Really great place to visit.
Happy Travels, Enjoy!!!

Hi Joe:

I visited the Tower of London in 2012 during the Olympic Games. My recollection of this visit is as follows:

1) I had to wait a wee bit to actually get into the Tower; this was based on the entry time of my ticket. Once inside I was able to join a tour - no long wait for this. My guess is that there were about 30 people on the tour.

2) The tour did not enter any of the major buildings such as the one where the crown jewels are kept. You are on your own to do this before or after the Yeoman tour. The only building we entered was a small chapel.

Have a good visit. I spent several hours at the Tower and did not enter most of the buildings due to a lack of time.

Geor(ge)

Confirming the above - was there a month ago.

Earlier you get there, the shorter the wait & YW tour is grounds and chapel only.

Crown Jewels are Disney-fied enough (meaning queue management, moving walk ways, and big signs and displays) to not require actual people to maintain the queue.

Enjoy!

I visited London about three weeks ago and went to the Tower of London. I believe the first Yeoman tour started at 10:00 AM, and I took that tour that lasted about 45-60 minutes. There were a lot of people on my tour, I would say around 50. I thought they would break up the group into different sections, but it worked out quite well with the amount of people on the tour.

They give an outside walking tour of the Tower grounds and stop 4-5 times to explain different towers or artifacts (for my tour they stopped outside the Bloody Tower, the White Tower and the Scaffold site. The last part of the tour, they take you into the Royal Chapel and let you sit for about 15 minutes while they give you the history. After that, you were on your own and I made a B-line for the Crown Jewels!

The Yeoman warder tours do NOT take place when it's raining (I know, that seems a bit odd since it's London and it tends to rain a lot), just so you're aware ahead of time. That said, if you buy your tickets online, you can use them up to seven days from the date you choose. So, if you have the option to switch this activity with another day, that might be a good plan. That's definitely what I intend to do next time, since my first visit, sadly, could not include the tour since it was raining. I hope that helps!

We quite enjoyed the YW tour. Our guide was quite cheeky. I can't say how large our group was, but it was a good 50 people or so I think.

Also, we spent a goodly amount of time looking around - we were there almost 5 hours! We had visited one previous trip, but got there an hour before closing so we only saw the jewels and part of the surrounding wall. Our wait for the jewels was maybe...oh, it always seems longer when you are standing in line...but about 20 min. There are things to look at along the way - other displays and whatnot to keep you occupied.