family weekend trip to london

misc2013

just looking for some tips before we travel. Family of 4, kids 10 & 7. Going for 3 nights, 2 full days. plan is one day in legoland and 1 day sightseeing. Thinking of getting an open top bus tour for the sights, hop on and off if possible and maybe Emirate stadium. Any tips or advice ? I'm reading that the Emirates stadium tour is 1.5 to 2 hours, a bus tour could be 2.5 hours, which seems long so the hop on and off seems better? Would that nearly be enough in a day?

Ceist_Beag

I would highly recommend the British Museum. It's a fantastic museum, well worth a visit.

magicbastarder

natural history museum might be a better bet for a 7 year old, than the british museum?

https://www.vam.ac.uk/young?srsltid=AfmBOor-dwve-Kcp74az7IU1s-5z9m605CwrQ85Qhqdmb7HBM5uxw91v This is brilliant if you have young kids.

little bess

Would highly recommend the Grant Museum of Zoology , it’s near the British Museum but a lot smaller. Lots of bones and specimens in jars including a jar of moles that’s quite famous!

https://www.tripadvisor.ie/Attraction_Review-g186338-d638483-Reviews-Grant_Museum_of_Zoology-London_England.html

witchgirl26

Just be aware that Legoland is about 2 hours on public transport (trains) from central London. We did Legoland last year & stayed near it, ended up not going near London itself because of this.

brokenbad

Highly recommend the open top (big bus tour) on your first night - good way to find your bearings while catching a glimpse of the main sights. Have a wander around Chinatown and nearby Leicester Square - kids will love the M&M store. Check out Madame Tussauds wax museum also. If you can catch a musical, there are loads to suit all ages in the theatre district. London is best seen on foot - might not be practical though with two young kids in tow….

delboy85

Not sure when you are travelling but Winter Wonderland opens in Hyde Park in about 4 weeks. I'd say the kids would love it!

https://hydeparkwinterwonderland.com/

misc2013

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122735490#Comment_122735490

No, the midterm. But thanks.

Daisy 55

The imperial war museum is excellent too...

misc2013

We're back. While fresh in my mind, I would say to do a bit of research into planning the hop on and off routes . We find it great but didn't factor in where to get off for lunch. We ended up hopping off and walking a bit and found ourselves in a very upmarket area and walked for ages trying to find a cafe or pub grub and eventually settled for a McDonald's in Kensington but that was not what we wanted. We were so focused on the sights that we forgot to plan for food.

The queues for the natural history museum were really long so while we thought we'd manage both science and natural museums, being literally beside each other, we skipped the natural one as too long a wait with impatient kids..Re. science museum, i was most interested in the Wonder lab for the kids but didn't realise it was extra and you had to book separately so that didn't work out as there wasn't a slot that suited. i didn't have all my homework done there but what we did see was good. Hopped off for the main sights so the tour took a few hours but it was really good. Worth it for one day definitely.

We took in Leicester square cos had heard about the bronze statues being a nice thing to see with the kids but there was something being set up there, like a Xmas village or something so didn't see them.

We walked from Leicester square back to Waterloo Station which was nice e.g. passing Trafalgar square , Southbank area at night time. Lots of busking, night markets and a nice atmosphere and a chance to see some sights lit up before we caught the train.