We have just spent a week in London and thought I would share our Itinerary with you. Our 7 Days in London Travelling with Kids guide is kids/family orientated however I think it will suit couples of all ages and families alike. I hope it is helpful and of course there is so much to see and do, and everyone is into different things but this suited us for this visit. We have previously visited London for a 3 night stay, prior to child, and did different things on that trip. We also did a lot of these activities due to having the London Pass (read below to see what we think about this). Below is what we did plus notes, tips and advice. Further below are two suggested itineraries in dot form.
Day 1:
We hit the ground running, there is so much to see, and didn’t want to waste a minute. First stop we took the Tube to the singing elevator at the Royal Festival Hall! After a couple of rides up and down we took a wander along along the River Thames, past Jubilee Gardens for a play in the playground for Aria, past the London Eye (way to expensive to ride on), over the Westminster Bridge to stop in at the Parliament House and Big Ben, on to Westminster Abbey (which we were going to go into however it was closed). We continued on to Trafalgar Square and the Horse Guard Museum. We enjoyed this museum, it gave us a lot of information about the British Military that we wouldn’t have known otherwise and had fun dressing up. We then headed home on the Tube.
Day 2:
Up and at it early to beat the crowds to Westminster Abbey. WOW! It is impressive! It opens at 9:30am so you need to be there lined up and ready.
We spent about an hour in the Abbey before making our way to ‘The Mall’ and Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guards ceremony, where King Charles III drive past and waved! Aria was very excited!
From here we wandered up Constitution Hill to the Wellington Arch for a lookout over the area. We then took a walk through Green Park and saw our first squirrels for England.
We continued on to Piccadilly Circus and found some delicious burgers for lunch. From there more walking to Leicester Square and Covent Garden, where it was soooo crowded, we hit the roof top bar of the Royal Opera House for a drink and people watching.
We called it a day, caught the Underground home, stopping to grab some groceries for dinner.
Day 3:
First up, the Natural History Museum – just as wonderful as 11 years ago when we visited, just much much much busier. So worth the crowds, especially as it is FREE and the displays are epic! We spent hours here and still missed so much! Aria got the Kids Guide free with the London Pass and she is loving reading all the information. You can now also book your timeslot online rather than waiting in the que. We did not know this and highly suggest it. It is still free and is the same as just rocking up, you just don’t have to wait in line. (You can also take a tour here’s an example)
We then caught the train to Kings Cross Station for Platform 9 3/4 however again the crowd was beyond. So we skipped on that and went to our second museum for the day – the Canal Boat Museum. We have a canal boat booked for after London so gaining some history about it all before hand was important to us. It also has an area about how Icecream was brought to England from Italy and the history of the struggles to make it here. It was an interesting and fab small museum and included on our London Pass (more on that further down). If you want to experience a canal boat, you can do this tour.
Day 4:
Another day, another FREE museum! The Science Museum today, including the IMAX Movie – Our Beautiful Planet. This attraction is another awesome museum that we cannot believe is free. There is so much hands on to explore in all different areas of science, technology and the history of such. We spent a good few hours here including a snack of wedges (which weren’t very good, so we suggest to pack your own). You must now book your FREE Entry time slot online before arrival (even if it is just half an hour before hand) as there are no walk in entries.
We then made our way along Hyde Park past the Royal Albert Hall to The Churchill Arms Pub for lunch – a traditional English pub with delish Thai food. We then went to Kensington Palace for the tour (which we had pre booked online), but meh, wouldn’t do it unless you had spare time and had the London Pass. The highlight was seeing Princess Diana’s Garden and ‘wearing’ a royal crown. We then headed home back along the other side of Hyde Park, summing up Day 4 in London.
Day 5:
A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat, in case of emergency. A morning all about Paddington Bear.
Again another London Pass activity that is fun for the whole family. We took the Paddington Bear Movie Tour to learn about the story, the movie and some other history and knowledge of London Movies. The guide was fab, we wandered Little Venice while on the tour and the tour ended at Portobello Markets, both of which were on the list to visit. It was insanely crowded and I stopped a lady from being pick pocketed as I looked just at the right time, which is unfortunately a very common occurrence here in busy tourist areas, so keep your eyes peeled and things close! We always keep our valuables out of reach for example phones on straps, money belts and deep down in the backpack.
We wandered Notting Hill briefly before catching the Underground Home for a rest.
Day 6:
Tower of London and Tower Bridge – one of the most stunning bridges in the World!
We started our day at opening of the Tower of London and went straight to the Crown Jewels room as we heard the line up and wait gets really long very quickly. After this we joined the free beefeater tour. This was really well put together and informative. We looked in many of the exhibit areas including the amour which was fascinating, before taking a walk over Tower Bridge.
We continued along the River Thames, (tried to recreate a pic from last time we were here) and towards Borough Market for lunch and some cheese (that we also bought 11 years ago – the exact cheese from the exact shop). It was ridiculously hectic that we could barely take a step to walk. We got out of there quickly, unfortunately tainting our good memories and headed home for a rest as we have something super awesome, that we booked before even leaving Aus months ago, happening later today!
The super exciting highlight today – Harry Potter Studio Tour!
We caught the tube, then the rail, the the Harry Potter WB Bus to the WB Studio. We had 5pm tickets booked (all that we could get over 6 months in advance too mind you). We wandered around this incredible tour for 5 whole hours (including dinner with a Butterbeer) which was only just enough time. It was worth every minute and every cent to do this tour and absolutely recommend it. It is incredible, mind blowing and an absolute must even if you’re not a fan (it will convert you I’m sure). You see the sets, the props, the costumes, the technology and production tricks, and so much more. It is so interactive and you become immersed in the world, you honestly feel like you’ll be starring in the next movie!
Day 7:
This morning we did the Hop on Hop Off Bus to have a different view of the city and give our legs a rest. We did get off at the Zoo to have a look around. It was ok, but not as good as we were expecting. Again both of these were on our London Pass.
We had dinner booked at the Sky Garden (was meant to be the Shard but they cancelled last minute) so headed there for dinner with a view. In our honest opinion, food was terrible so do not recommend this, just book the viewing tickets and don’t do dinner.
Suggested Itinerary (with the London Pass, spare time for additional choice things)
| Day | Morning | Afternoon | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Singing Elevator at the Royal Festival Hall, Thames River stopping in at Jubilee Gardens, The London Eye, Walk over Westminster Bridge to Parliament House and ‘Big Ben’ clock tower. Trafalgar Square Horse Guard Museum. | Westminster Abbey closes at 3pm so didn’t make it in time to go in. | |
| 2 | Westminster Abbey. Changing of the Guards ceremony. Constitution Hill to the Wellington Arch. Walk through Green Park. | Piccadilly Circus for lunch (if eating out or stop for a picnic in Green Park). Leicester Square and Covent Garden | 9am opening for Westminster Abbey, Changing of the Guards Ceremony Commences from 10:30am and is at various times and locations around the area. If you want to be at Buckingham Palace, you need to be there at 9am for a spot. |
| 3 | Natural History Museum | Harrods Kings Cross Station (Platform 9 3/4 for the HP fans). London Canal Museum | The Platform is popular and so you may need to line up for a while. |
| 4 | Science Museum (including the 11am IMAX Theatre documentary). | Hyde Park Royal Albert Hall to The Churchill Arms Pub. Kensington Palace | We enjoyed a Thai lunch at the pub, however if you do the Royal Albert Hall tour, you may not time it well for lunch. |
| 5 | Paddington Bear Movie Walking Tour | Portobello Markets Thames Cruise to Royal Observatory and Greenwich Prime Meridian | Liberty Department Store and Hamelys Toy Store |
| 6 | Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Borough Market for lunch | Harry Potter WB Studio Tour | Look up the Tower Bridge Lift Times |
| 7 | Hop On, Hop Off Bus London Zoo | Sky Garden Free Observation Viewing and drink at the bar. |
Suggested Itinerary (No London Pass – Spare time for additional choice things)
| Day | Morning | Afternoon | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Singing Elevator at the Royal Festival Hall, Thames River stopping in at Jubilee Gardens, The London Eye, Walk over Westminster Bridge to Parliament House and ‘Big Ben’ clock tower. Trafalgar Square Horse Guard Museum. | Westminster Abbey closes at 3pm so didn’t make it in time to go in. | |
| 2 | Westminster Abbey. Changing of the Guards ceremony. Walk through Green Park. | Piccadilly Circus for lunch (if eating out or stop for a picnic in Green Park). Leicester Square and Covent Garden | 9am opening for Westminster Abbey, Changing of the Guards Ceremony Commences from 10:30am and is at various times and locations around the area. If you want to be at Buckingham Palace, you need to be there at 9am for a spot. |
| 3 | Natural History Museum | Harrods Sky Garden Free Observation Viewing and drink at the bar. | |
| 4 | Science Museum | Hyde Park The Churchill Arms Pub | Broadway Show one night too if they are of interest. They are really wonderful. |
| 5 | Paddington Bear Movie Walking Tour | Portobello Markets, Liberty Department Store and Hamelys Toy Store | |
| 6 | Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Borough Market for lunch | Thames Cruise to Royal Observatory and Greenwich Prime Meridian | Look up the Tower Bridge Lift Times |
| 7 | Harry Potter WB Studio Tour |
Helpful Info:
It is EXPENSIVE and we did it cheaply by not eating out very often. We cooked most of our dinners and bought the Tesco/Sainsbury’s Lunch Meal Deals for lunch while out exploring and breakfast at home every day. There’s no real way around it, you just have to budget for it.
The Underground is super easy to use and just need to tap your bank card/credit card on and off, you do not need a special train card anymore. We stayed a 15min tube ride out of the main tourist area (The Thames basically) and a 5 min walk to an underground, this meant we used to the cap charge of $8/day, every day as it was our main transport into the attractions. If we did it again we would consider staying further out but still on a tube station as it would be cheaper and being close to the centre only saved us 5-10 minutes a day on the Tube.
The London Pass
This is an interesting one… We got the 7 day pass for $836. If we paid for everything we did without the pass it would have cost us $938.50 (so $102.50 saving). It’s difficult to say whether the London Pass was worth it or not, as technically we got our value from the purchase of the pass, however realistically there were a few things we did that we would not have bothered with or paid for if we didn’t have it. These were things that ranged from glad that we did them because they were surprisingly good – Paddington Movie Tour, IMAX @ Science Museum, to things that we thought were OK but we definitely wouldn’t have paid the price for them – Hop On Hop Off bus, London Zoo, Kensington Palace, Canal Boat Museum, Horse Guards Museum.
If we went to London again, we definitely wouldn’t buy the London Pass, and if we had never been to London, we would NOT recommend buying the pass, because there are things that are really cool and free that aren’t on the pass, and a few things that we would have spent longer on. Also, days 5,6,7+ are much cheaper on the London Pass, giving you a cheaper price per day. We definitely wouldn’t recommend buying less than a 7 day Pass, unless there are a bunch of things on that list that A) Are your must do’s, and B) You know you will have time to do. We had jam packed days fitting lots in, and that is because 1. We had lots we wanted to see and do and 2. We wanted to make sure we were getting the value from our pass. This also means we missed some other things we wanted to do that were not on the pass or free. So in short this isn’t a black and white recommendation or not, it is a sorry you’ll have to calculate it for yourself. I think you need to weigh up how much time you have, what are you wanting to see and do (& how much can you realistically fit into your time as things take longer than you think), how much will those cost, plus any others you would do if you have the time and then see if that equals or is more than the pass. Oh, we had a couple of instances too that between us buying the pass and actually arriving in London to use it (it activates on the first scanned attraction) a couple of attractions we were going to do, were taken off the pass, so we did lose some value there which is annoying as we did the calculations prior to purchasing as to if it was worth it. We bought it so early because there was a sale on, but we have also since learnt, there is always a sale lol.
The Weather – we have visited in both Winter and Summer. We had cool cloudy days in Summer and Cold cloudy days in Winter. Both times we had a wonderful time, just have to be prepared for all weather and dress appropriately.
Where we stayed: We stayed in the suburb Kennington, which was good, but being another 5-10 minutes by tube out of the station would be fine too. The Tube is so good you can get to everywhere relatively quickly so you don’t need to stay right in the midst of the attractions. Week long stays have a discount with most places too, so look at for that deal! There are a few great spots here.
Mobile Data: We used our phones for directions, checking opening times, looking up places to eat and the London Pass is digital too (which is scanned on your phone) so having a connection is important. We have e-sims on our phones with MobiMatter and they didn’t let us down! You can check them out here with code: DANIE24483
Flights: We flew on a Tuesday as that appears to be the cheapest day of the week. We always compare a bunch of dates, times and airports on SkyScanner to get the best deals!
Facts & Figures!
7 Nights – 6.5 days (as we arrived at lunch time so had the arvo of arrival day to explore).
Cost (accommodation, eating out, groceries, transport, London Pass, HP Tour and other attractions, etc – everything we spent for the 7 days): $3,984
Must Do Recommendations:
- Harry Potter Studio Tour
- Tower of London
- Westminster Abbey
- Walk Tower Bridge
- Natural History Museum
- Drink at the Rooftop Bar of the Royal Opera House
- Walk the Thames to see the London Eye and Parliament House.
Things we missed due to sickness & therefore time but recommend if you have time:
- Royal Observatory
- Thames River Cruise
- Tour of Tower Bridge
- Harrods
- Hamleys Toy Store
- St Pauls Cathedral
- Royal Albert Hall tour
- Broadway Show
- Kew Gardens
Leave us a comment below if there is something else you recommend while in London!
Some other useful links you might need if spending more time in the UK:
~ A hire car we book those here,
~ Hotel Accommodation we book that here,
~ Travel Insurance we use here
~ House sitting opportunities here (Sign up 25% off discount OVERLAND)
~ Flights here
~ ESims for your phones here (Discount Code: DANIE24483)
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