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Wimbledon and London tour

For many years my wife and I have been dreaming of going to England to see Wimbledon and some of the high points of London. Can you help us plan such a dream tour?

Posted by
1016 posts

I went to Wimbledon a few years ago. Did not get tickets in advance. This requires getting up EARLY, going to the queue for around 7:00 am. I took tube to Southfields, bus one or two stops to Woodspring Road. The queue starts in Wimbledon Park; you'll see many signs and a pretty obvious queue.

Queuing only gets you a ground pass (unless you are in the very front of the queue), but that is still an awesome experience. You can choose any match other than Centre, No. 1 or No. 2. I saw Tsonga v. Fish; Navratilova/Novotna v. Austin/Rinaldi; and some junior matches. Then, Wimbledon has a scheme where fans leaving the show courts can drop off their tickets for resale. After Serena's match ended, Centre Court emptied like a sieve and I walked up to the resale booth and got Centre Court seats for the rest of the day: Kerber v. Lisicki, Azarenka v. Paszek, Radwanska v. Kirilenko.

It was a day of my life and required very little pre-planning. Google "Wimbledon queue" and you'll find lots of resources.

Posted by
32 posts

We are in the Wimbledon lottery... so far, our number has not been drawn. We are going to London anyway and will join the queue at least one day if we don't get tickets. We have been 3 times...had to queue two of those three trips.

Let me just add that we absolutely love Wimbledon, but we have also been to the US Open and the French Open. My husband has also been to the Australian. The tickets for those three are much easier to get. Last March we got up at 2:30 a.m. to get in the online queue for French Open tickets. We were number 17, 734 in the queue. When our number finally came up, we had to choose a date and a court. We chose May 31 on Susanne Lenglen court. Hit the jackpot! Finally saw Fed play. Had seen all the other biggies. It was an incredible experience (big Fed fan here!).

I don't know where you live, but if you are wanting to see some good tennis at reasonable prices, check out the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati. It is the last stop on the tour before the US Open. Last summer we saw Fed play there also. It is a very well run tourney, and your ticket allows you to visit any of the courts although you have a specific seat in Center Court. Cincinnati doesn't have quite the same ambiance as London(!), but if it is tennis you want, consider tennis in Cincy and a separate trip to London.

Posted by
5311 posts

As well as the queue and ballot a number of Wimbledon tickets are made available through Ticketmaster for Centre Court and Court 3. Any returns are sold 48 hours in advance and some specially reserved 24 hours in advance. You need to have a myWIMBLEDON account. They go in seconds. The only legitimate way to get tickets on a secondary market is to buy them from debenture holders or via hospitality which is costly.

Posted by
3985 posts

There are tennis tour companies like Steve Furgal that offer packages for tickets at Wimbledon. You could also camp outside the gates the night before you want to go to the matches to buy tickets first thing that morning. There is also the lottery but keep in mind if you are lucky enough to win an opportunity to buy tickets, both the court and the date will be chosen for you.

Posted by
272 posts

The tours @ Wimbledon, when "Wimbledon" is not going on are wonderful. Very interesting to see the green grass courts without lines, nets and hear stories about the various stadiums and outer courts. One gets to go into the interview room and sit behind the desk, go up on the deck where the winners wave and hold the trophy, and other locations including the museum. It was a dream come true just to be there and see the actual set-up to relate to when I watch on tv.