London must dos with kids?

[Teaspoons]

Hello lovely English people,

Can I please get some advice from those in the know about our trip to England and Disneyland Paris in September/October?

We are coming over for 3 and a bit weeks, starting with 2 weeks visiting family in Southampton and Somerset, including 2 nights at Legoland Windsor and one night in Dover; then we arrive in London for 5 nights before catching the Eurostar direct to Disneyland.

I thought we were doing ok with 3.5 weeks total but now I wish we we had longer - our 5 nights in London will actually only leave us with 4 days and there's so much to see!

Going on the trip are myself and my Husband, DD6 and DS2, we prefer early starts and early nights and want to see the main big sights of London in our 4 days. I have a rough itinerary but would love some input on what you think are the best sights to see!

Thanks in advance

 

[finchy3]

The aquarium next to the London eye is a good call for the kids

 

[Dimplenose]

Normally I'd say just visit things that are unique to your destination but with such small children it may be difficult to keep them interested in history and culture the whole time.

When our children were small we'd take them to museums and galleries but limit our time to an hour. Now most are free that is easy to do. A lot of the larger galleries and museums have great cafes and toilets.

I'd think about a boat tour to Greenwich or a bus tour as you will get to see a lot of the sights without little legs getting too tired.

Things my kids enjoyed are:-

Just along Whitehall mounted soldiers guard the entrance to Horse Guards (there is a museum here too but it is not free and I'm not sure it would interest such young children.)

In St James Park is a children's playground (not too far from Buckingham Palace) there are pelicans on the lake in this park. http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/st-jamess-park/map-of-st-jamess-park

In Kensington Gardens is a statue of Peter Pan and also a great play park for children. http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/diana_playground.cfm

The Science and Natural History Museums are probably the most interesting for children, but a lot of the others have trails or activities for them. The National Gallery has computer terminals where you can plan your own route to see themed paintings and print it out to follow.

 

[Jellifer]

Madame Tussaud's is amazing though the dungeon with the scarier models might not be suitable for your youngest.

 

[lolainkent]

- The London Eye is amazing. I've done it twice and I love it. It's worth pre-booking if it would be a weekend but probably not if it's a weekday in Sept/Oct.

- The Aquarium, while awesome, is super expensive! I was not happy paying over £50 but then I also went during school holidays and it was packed. Again, if you'll be there on a weekday then it's worth it.

- Your DD might like a proper British Afternoon Tea. The Sanderson Hotel (just off Oxford Street) does a Mad Hatter themed tea. I went with my step-mom and sister (11 at the time) and we all loved it. Not cheap but very creative.

- Harrods is fun for all ages. A bit cliche, and Selfridges is a better department store (IMO) but the Harrods kids sections are amazing and they do have Disney themed London/Harrods items you find anywhere else.

- The Winston Churchill War Cabinet museum is incredible. A bit more for the adults, though my boys (5 and 7 at the time) really enjoyed their visit. It's in Westminster, not far from the Eye, the Abbey and the Buckingham Palace.

What are your plans for Dover? I live just up the road from Dover so I certainly know the highlights in South East Kent! Let me know if you want to know anything about the area.

 

[tigger17]

The Disney store in Oxford street is really nice and sometimes if you are there before opening you might get to open the store.

Have a look at afternoon teas in the summer we did a Charlie and the chesterfield tea at the chesterfield hotel it was Charlie and the chocolate factory themed.

Hamley's would be a good place to go to. A massive toy shop with different levels for age and boys and girls (there's also a build a bear)

Covent garden is nice for a look around lots of little shops and sometimes street performers.

Also a double decker bus is a really good way to see London and always fun to be on.

Look for parks there are lots of 'hidden' parks around London.

The science museum has a hands on bit which is great for young children and is free entry.

Hope you have an amazing time what ever you decide to do xx

 

[tinkerbells mum]

I'm sure your family in Southampton will know about Sprinkles ice cream parlour and will hopefully have a trip planned there. Ice cream parlours are still a bit of a novelty here at the moment so it's very popular!

If you go to Harrods go to the pet kingdom on the top floor. There is a pet parlour where you can watch dogs getting pampered and there's quite often puppies for sale that they will bring out at certain times for people to stroke. The Disney cafe there is really nice and quite themed although it's quite expensive.

The changing of the guards at Buckingham palace is good to watch but it does get really busy.

Sounds like you've got a great trip planned xx

 

[Danauk]

If you go to Harrods go to the pet kingdom on the top floor. There is a pet parlour where you can watch dogs getting pampered and there's quite often puppies for sale that they will bring out at certain times for people to stroke.

There is no longer a pet kingdom in Harrods. Every time I go to the store I would always go there to have a look. I went 2 weeks ago and that area is now a babies clothes section. I asked where the pet department was and the assistant said that it had been removed.

I agree about the science museum. The launch pad area is a hands on experimentation area. We have taken 7 year olds from school there and they had a great time.

If your children like animals London Zoo might be a good option. Buy your tickets on line beforehand though to avoid the line to get in.

 

[tinkerbells mum]

Oh can't believe the pet kingdom has gone, that's really sad

 

[Teaspoons]

Thanks for the great ideas everyone, I especially love the idea of heading to the Disney store on Oxford Street early one morning..

Here's my rough draft of our 4 days:
Monday
We need to drop our hire car back to Paddington Station by 9am so we will drive there and after all the paperwork we will catch the tube into the city.
Have a look around Trafalgar Square etc
Hop on Hop off bus tour, the original tour company looks ok and has a couple of routes available on its 24 hour ticket. The yellow route apparently takes 2 hours 15, but I guess maybe a bit longer traffic dependent.
Lunch
Stroll over to Harrods maybe via Whitehall, St James Park, Buckingham Palace etc.
Have a good explore through Harrods, buy some Christmas decorations (I try to get a dated on every time I'm there), look out for the unique Disney things as recommended by lolainkent
Pick up some dinner at the Harrods food hall and mosey on home.

Tuesday
Catch tube to Marble Arch and meet up with the HOHO bus again - catch the red route to the Shard (this is dependent on our tickets still being valid within 24 hours but we do prefer to hit the road earlier than later)
Go up the Shard (mid morning)
Walk over to the Tower of London
Have lunch and take a tour through (we have seen those hilarious videos of the Beefeaters giving tours and would love to follow along!)
Catch the no 15 bus back to near Leicester Square, apparently this route often has the heritage buses running on it
Pop into M&Ms world, I know this is essentially just a shop but we love M&Ms and can't get all the fancy colours over here, I want a bag of lime green and purple ones!
Visit Hamleys toy shop. I'm sure there must be a cafe here for dinner if time is getting on.
Catch the tube home.

Wednesday
This is going to be a bit of a rest day
Walk to Notting Hill, explore the shops and get some morning tea from the Hummingbird Bakery.
Go to the Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, maybe walk by Kensington Palace and the Peter Pan statue dependent on how we are feeling. I also want to have a look at the facade and back of some "fake houses" on Leinster Gardens just north of Kensington Gardens. They were built to disguise an opening over the tube line where the trains used to vent steam or something. A strange thing to want to see but I keep seeing things pop up about them and find it interesting!
Catch a bus home for a lazy afternoon and opportunity to catch up on washing etc

Thursday
Has anyone been to Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station? I gather its a small shop and you can get your picture taken pushing Harry Potter's trolley "through" the wall. DD is just getting into Harry Potter and I think this experience would encourage her enthusiasm even more. My only reservation is that Kings Cross is a bit out of the way just to do this, we are leaving on the Eurostar from St Pancras the next morning but I don't think we'd have time to squash it in then, plus we'd have all our luggage with us.

If we did go, the plan would be to catch the tube to Kings Cross, then back to Oxford Circus. Then we could explore Oxford Street, I want to go to Selfridges particularly as I enjoyed the Mr Selfridge TV series. We could also visit the Disney store and whatever else takes our fancy.
From there we'd go home, meet my parents who I'll get to come up from Southampton so we can say goodbye before heading off to Disneyland.
We'll then go for afternoon tea mid afternoon at Fortnum and Mason. I know there's a few places you can do afternoon tea but Fortnum and Mason is the one I've always wanted to go to
I thought of then doing the London Eye in the evening, it's a hard one knowing whether to book it or not, I think we'd still go even if the weather was a bit dicey, particularly in the evening with all the city lights it'd still be an experience.

The two other things I'l like to fit in but can't find the space for are covent garden and the Natural History Museum. The museum isn't far from Harrods so depending on how much time we have on Monday afternoon we could pop in for an hour or so. DS loves dinosaurs so seeing the big skeleton would be fabulous, and just the architecture of the building is beautiful inside from the pictures I've seen.
It's hard to strike a balance between not packing in too much to our plans, but still seeing enough of the unique London sights to make our trip worthwhile! Any suggestions?

 

[Teaspoons]

What are your plans for Dover? I live just up the road from Dover so I certainly know the highlights in South East Kent! Let me know if you want to know anything about the area.

We're going to head to Dover after Windsor, with one little stop off in Surrey to show the family where I lived when I was a kid. We'll do Dover castle in the afternoon and on the way to London on Sunday we'll have a wee tickey tour through Deal and Walmer. My Dad and grandparents used to live in Deal and I was christened at St Mary's Walmer. So not doing anything in particular just a nostalgic trip through areas from my childhood!

 

[A Small World]

I did the Original Bus Tour last summer with DD (13). We had been to London several times but we decided there was loads of things we had never seen so this would be a good way to get a look at lots of things.
Im sure it was the yellow route we did and we stayed on for the whole trip and really enjoyed it however by the end we were ready to get off so it might be worth doing some hop offs along the way rather than just staying on.

We had bought our tickets online but its worth noting that you still have to take the printed off vouchers into the centre to get proper tickets and there was quite a queue - I wasn't expecting that

Its also worth knowing that if you want to see Buckingham Palace from the front you have to get off the bus as buses are not allowed to drive around in front of it so you don't really get a very good view.

Your ticket will include a trip on the river to Tower of London so it might be worth using that to get there as its something your children might enjoy. You can do a return trip or get off at either end.

 

[Teaspoons]

Whoops managed to reply twice!

 

[Teaspoons]

Im sure it was the yellow route we did and we stayed on for the whole trip and really enjoyed it however by the end we were ready to get off so it might be worth doing some hop offs along the way rather than just staying on.

I hadn't thought about that - you make an excellent point! Looking at their map, there's a stop near St Paul's - we could get off there, walk across the Millennium Bridge, have a squiz at the Tate Modern and then pick up the bus on the other side of the river. That would skip the Tower Bridge part of the bus tour but we would see that the next day anyway.

Its also worth knowing that if you want to see Buckingham Palace from the front you have to get off the bus as buses are not allowed to drive around in front of it so you don't really get a very good view.

I kinda noticed that on the map - reinforces my idea to go for a walk up to the palace on the way to Harrods

Your ticket will include a trip on the river to Tower of London so it might be worth using that to get there as its something your children might enjoy. You can do a return trip or get off at either end.

We could use this to get to the Tower of London instead of catching the bus again. Thanks so much for sharing your experience you've given me so many tips in one post!

 

[A Small World]

We had intended getting on the bus again the 2nd day for an hour or so to use up the 24hrs but didn't get there in time - we were staying outside the centre and were very tired after the first day.
Instead we got the tube to Hyde park and had a walk in Hyde park and then played in Dianas fountain for a while and had a picnic lunch. We then walked to Harrods from there - our other option was to carry on from there to Kensington Gardens as they link into each other but decided on Harrods instead.

We had a really fun time and hopefully you will as well

 

[lolainkent]

We're going to head to Dover after Windsor, with one little stop off in Surrey to show the family where I lived when I was a kid. We'll do Dover castle in the afternoon and on the way to London on Sunday we'll have a wee tickey tour through Deal and Walmer. My Dad and grandparents used to live in Deal and I was christened at St Mary's Walmer. So not doing anything in particular just a nostalgic trip through areas from my childhood!

Oh nice. We love Dover Castle (we have English Heritage memberships so we go there a few times per year). Leave time for the war tunnels, they're really well done! The food is outrageously expensive, it might be worth scoping out a couple pubs and bringing snacks to the castle with you.

We also go to Deal and Walmer at least yearly; Walmer Castle is one of my favourites. I get the nostalgia tour - we were in Sydney over Christmas (dh is from there) and we drove through all his old neighbourhoods and to his schools.

 

[Lolsmum]

I have taken my kids into London for day trips a number of times. We used to live in Croydon, so it was easy. We're a bit further out now, but still go at least a few times a year.

I would use the hop-on hop-off buses to get around, not just to sit and do the tour. At 2, unless we hit naptime my kids both would have wanted to get off pretty frequently and since you can, why not? A friend and I spent a day just wandering around London and hopping off whenever the mood struck once when our kids were 2 1/2 and my little one was a baby. The buses go to or near a lot of places you wanted to go.

I would also say my own kids (now 6 and 8) would prefer the Natural History Museum over most other options. They also like the Science Museum (right nearby) and the British Museum. I'd consider putting the Nat Hist and the Science museums in if the weather is bad on the Wednesday at least. The Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens is fantastic. In good weather, there can be a queue to get in. Once you are there, it's a fairly short walk to find Peter Pan's statue, which is well signposted. I would probably try to do those and Oxford Street on the same day, as they are relatively close together. You can get to Marble Arch, at the end of Oxford Street, relatively easily walking from Kensington Gardens, through Hyde Park. We once lived on Queensway, right near Kensington Gardens, pre-kids. It was a lovely walk out on a nice weekend morning.

Actually, if you are dropping the car at Paddington you are walking distance to Kensington Gardens, etc. right then. If you can sort the hotel first and drop off any bags, I'd just plan to do Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Oxford Street that day, adding on Trafalgar Square, etc. if you want or picking up a hop-on hop-off bus from Marble Arch.

With a 2 year old, are you planning to use a buggy/stroller? I found the tube surprisingly difficult with one sometimes. Most buses are actually easier as many of the old tube stations do not have easy access without stairs. Central London is actually fairly small and sometimes tube maps make things appear much further apart than they really are.

Also, St Pancras and King's Cross are much, much closer than you might think. You can walk from one to the other without ever going outside I believe. I haven't done the Platform 9 3/4 thing, but we're just waiting until the kids are reading the books to do it. If you are aiming for the 10ish Eurostar (direct to Disney) and likely to be up and about early, you could probably fit it in as long as you don't mind dragging the luggage along.

 

[Lolsmum]

I was just talking about this with my husband, who still works in the City and admittedly is slightly better about London geography (though I'd never admit that to him).

I think you need to get a hold of a London map and try to group things together a bit more.

If you really want to fit in Covent Garden, it's not actually far at all from Leicester Square and there are tons of restaurants all around there if you are looking for dinner then.

I'd probably combine Hamleys on Regent Street with Oxford Street shopping too. They are close together and a toy store might be a good idea after a few "boring" shops for the kids.

 

[Teaspoons]

Hi Lolsmum, lots of great tips from you thank you

We arrive in London on Sunday, so Monday morning we won't have any luggage with us, it was just easier to get the car back to the hire place on a Monday, their opening hours are really limited on Sunday. Plus that gives us the kickstart we need to be on the road early!

I have been planning with the help of google maps, an actual physical map and the tube map - is my geography that bad?! There is method to my madness, for example going home via Hamleys on the Tuesday - the Central line tube or buses down Oxford Street are our easier route back to our accommodation in Holland Park, so I've been trying to end our days close to stops on that route. You make a great point about stairs in the underground stations - we will have a stroller for the young fella - although it folds and is lightweight carrying it up and down stairs wouldn't be the most fun. There are 3 or 4 buses that go past our accommodation, we will utilise them.

I want to try and keep Wednesday as our Kensington Gardens day, I think we will all benefit from a "no plans day" (which ironically I've planned???g) I guess if the weather is terrible a museum or even the aquarium would be good wet weather options.

 

[Lolsmum]

Hi Lolsmum, lots of great tips from you thank you We arrive in London on Sunday, so Monday morning we won't have any luggage with us, it was just easier to get the car back to the hire place on a Monday, their opening hours are really limited on Sunday. Plus that gives us the kickstart we need to be on the road early! I have been planning with the help of google maps, an actual physical map and the tube map - is my geography that bad?! There is method to my madness, for example going home via Hamleys on the Tuesday - the Central line tube or buses down Oxford Street are our easier route back to our accommodation in Holland Park, so I've been trying to end our days close to stops on that route. You make a great point about stairs in the underground stations - we will have a stroller for the young fella - although it folds and is lightweight carrying it up and down stairs wouldn't be the most fun. There are 3 or 4 buses that go past our accommodation, we will utilise them. I want to try and keep Wednesday as our Kensington Gardens day, I think we will all benefit from a "no plans day" (which ironically I've planned???g) I guess if the weather is terrible a museum or even the aquarium would be good wet weather options.

I think the real issue is that Central London really is smaller and tighter together than you think and the tube map is not geographically accurate at all. It took me a few months living in London before I really realised that. Kings Cross and St Pancras are almost more one very large station, excluding Kings Cross Thameslink which is a bit further away, than two separate ones. I really would combine Oxford Street with Hamleys as Regent Street is right off Oxford Street. Leicester Square is a short walk from Covent Garden and not terribly far from Regent Street. We normally do both when we go into London. Harrods could be combined with either the parks or the South Kensington museums. If the weather isn't bad, I would stick to walking between those places rather than fighting with public transport just to go one tube stop or maybe a couple of bus stops. The HOHO buses are easy to use as both transport and a tour. Rather than taking one tour all the way around then getting off, it would be easier with kids to utilise the HOHO functionality.