London weekend on the cheap for one adult and 2 kids 24th April one night

bluenose1

dangers wrote: »

Don't know whether I have read this correctly, but the marathon is actually on Sunday, not Saturday.
Hope you have a good time anyway.

Thanks I did think that the Marathon was on the Saturday.

bluenose1

kerrymay wrote: »

Sorry to jump on your thread but I started a very silmilar one a few days ago. I am also planning a trip to London on my own with three kids but not till August. I too want to go on the London Eye - didn't realise you could buy tickets with tesco vouchers via airmiles. Could someone please explain to me how that works please? I would like to get Aquarium tickets too which I have seen on the Airmiles website. Not sure how to go about ordering them though. I have just converted the last lot of vouchers into Clubcard Deals ones worth £200. I a expecting another £30 worth of vouchers (£120 in deals) with the May mailing - will this be enough?

Many thanks for any help you can give x

£2.50 in Clubcard vouchers gets you equivalent of 60 miles. Have a look on Airmiles site to see how many miles you need for chosen activity.
eg 500 miles would be approx £21 in Clubcard vouchers
(500 divide by 60miles =8.33 x £2.50 = £20.83)

bluenose1

for anyone planning on travelling around London I have found this a great help.
www.tfl.gov.uk

You just put in the date you want to go and the places of interest eg London Eye to Westminster Cathedral and it tells you the best route.

Have printed out loads of route maps

bluenose1

Well I am back after our weekend in London and thanks to all the tips we had a super time.
The tube was great and very easy to navigate, plus we all enjoyed the novelty of using it.
Went to the London Eye first and thanks to our fast track tickets only queued for about 5 minutes, it was really hot so this was a blessing. Then we went on the river cruise and afterwards walked down South Bank, it was great watching all the entertainment. Crossed over the Thames at Millenium Bridge and saw the exterior of St Pauls.
After our evening meal went back to hotel in Watford. My big mistake was I didn't realise there was an express train and ended up on one that took 50 minutes instead of 20 minutes.
Jury's Inn hotel was very good, and I would recommend as it only cost £35.
Next day were up and out by 8.30am, had breakfast at Ed's Diner outside Euston, then were at the Science Museum and Natural History Museum. Both were ok, but we soon had had enough. Got Tube to Westminster Cathederal and went to the top of the Tower. They had a very reasonable cafe in the basement - cup of tea for 70p.
Then my youngest decided he wanted to see the Marathon so we went to Buckingham Palace and the atmosphere was great.

Don't think the trip could have gone better, we walked for miles but because it was so interesting no-one complained. We have already decided we want to go back to explore more.

My feet are still sore from all the walking. The Travel cards were a great investment and we got our moneys worth out of them, we never seemed to wait longer than a minute or two for the Tube.

Our favourite of everything we did was the London Eye, especially as I had used Tesco vouchers, so it had cost nothing.

plzhelpmesave!

Great thread - glad you had a good time bluenose! I am going at almost the same time as you went last year and have been sarching for this thread all morning!!

Im going on Thursday with my 7 and 8 year old boys - My son is 7 on Friday so taking him as a surprise bday treat, We are going from Birmingham and staying in london covent garden (booked room a few weeks ago for £47).

Want to do things on the cheap and have lots of Tesco days out vouchers to use up before May - BUT will i be able to use te generic days out vouchers on london attractions? Also anyone know if I could get merliin passes using the Days out vouchers... don't think so but if anyone knows how it would be good.

Im driving down to Luton to leave my 4 year old with her aunty overnite. Then train from there the next morning to london Euston via kings cross - £30 for the three of us using F&F card. Ths includes a tube ticket between kings cross and eston.
Any suggestions as to which zone travelcard I need to get pls as we staying in covent garden and trying to do local cheap things inc entral london (same sort of things as bluenose).
Planning to do NHM first thing on Friday morning - using the side entrance.
Will do london eye, free 4d show late on thursday so hopefully queues smaller.
Will do the free sights (buckingham palace, bus tour etc on thursday.
Might nip into hamleys...- but probably not!
Will take rucksaks and 1 spare Tshirt. They can sleep in Thursday daytime tshirt and boxers!!
Food will be M&S or tesco sandwiches.

Thinking about taking my 12 year old nephew with me, if his mum pays for his main travel and towards other costs (50-60??)- that way we can get most of 241s (if cc days out vouchers cant be used) and kids will have someone else to talk to other than me!!

Any ideas/comments welcome please!!

susancs

You should be Ok to get a zone 1 to 2 travelcard. Your lads will travel free on tubes and buses. In regard to tube travel, just go to the lugguage/pushchair barriers, put in your travelcard to open it and they follow you through. Buy the TC after 9.30am to get off peak prices i.e. £6.60 for a zone 1-2 TC.

The return fare from Luton Parkway to Kings Cross/St Pancreas is £22.40 for the three of you on First capital connect. I wouldn't bother getting a tube ticket to Euston, just purchase a zone1-2 travelcard at Kings Cross as that would cover you to Euston. I am a bit confused about why you are travelling to Euston on the Thursday morning as you seem to be planning to visit attractions?

I wonder if it might be more cost effective especially if you are bringing your nephew to drive from Luton to a tube station such as Stanmore, park up and get the tube in. It would be a 40 minute drive from Luton to Stanmore using the M1so £5 petrol and then £1 for weekend parking per day and £4.50 weekdays. You would need a zone 1-6 TC at a cost of £8 off peak for you and £3 for a childs 11-15 daily TC. You could then get the tube direct to Green Park with 20 min walk from there, as nearest tube to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard at 11.30am on the Thursday (Friday it is not on) or if you do not fancy this go direct to waterloo from Stanmore on the tube for the Eye and nearby attractions such as Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Horse Guards Parade, Westminster Abbey and Boats to the Tower.

IanD

susancs wrote: »

You would need a zone 1-6 TC at a cost of £8 off peak for you and £3 for a childs 11-15 daily TC.

If you use your F&F railcard at the ticket office you can get a childs 1 day travel card for only £2.

plzhelpmesave!

Thanks so much for the replies Susan and Ian!

I know I said Luton, but my sister lived Luton in Arlessey, where I will leave my daughter. About a 2 min walk to their local train station which goes direct to Kings Cross - does that make more sense?? From there it costs me £30 return...

Im gonna spend tonite on the internet to research what I am doing and where I am going...!!First time im going to do the sights with the kids so getting really nervous.
Gonna trawl through the vouchers and print off whatever I can...

plzhelpmesave!

Just a quick update ..

We went and had a great time. Definately spend the time planning what you going to do and when and draw up a rough timetable - so you can be flexible.

We walked MILES - some of it by accident - as after all my planning, i didn't stop to pick up a free london map (DOH!!) soooo endedup walking miles until somone kindly gave me a map in trafalgar square.

We did buckingham palace for changing of guards first - absolutely rammed, and my kids were bored to tears and totally unimpressed. Lots of jostling with adult torists and we got to see very little so wont be doing that again! with on

We did a harry potter walk via Brit movies using 241 vouher - more walking!!! but got to see lots of london and kids made friends with other kids. This was about 2.5hours long and was the highlight of the trip for my kids.

Went to check in at hotel, and took a nap (2 hour nap!!) as we were all tired.
Went to eat at Bella Italia with Tesco Deals - there are millions of BI in london - and then went into leicester square to walk around in the evening - got back to hotel nearly midnite and went to sleep!

Next Morning, out by 9am and went straight for the NHM, to the Exhibition road entrance and we were the second peolple in the queue! We were in there for 10am and out by 12.30pm to see hundreds of people queueing outside to get it, and then queueing for the dinosaur exhibition - museum was packed by the time we left - so DO GET THERE EARLY if you are going. and use the EXHIBITION ROAD ENTRANCE - it says access but is open to everyone. We walked past it on out way out and there was no one there at all - while there were barriers for crowd control at the Cromwell Road Entrance!!

Walked it to Princess Diana Memorial Playground - but we should have caught a bus down Kensington HIgh Street - took us over 30 mins walking throgh Hyde Park - when we'd been walking since yesteday was exhausting! FINALLY got there, had some food (£13) and then let the kids loose in the playgroud. Gorgeous weather, brilliant playground so the kids had greta fun - and got nice and sandy!! Definately do this if you go...free and good fun!

Last stop was LondoN Eye using 241 trains voucher (£30 for three of us) - the 4D film was brilliant and kids loved it! We queued for about 25 minutes which is quite good - we did this at about 5pm. There was a wedding party in a couple of the capsules so crowd was cheering for them so a bit of a party atmospshere! When we came off, we saw some street enertainers, walked over millennium bridge and then caught a bus all the way back to Kings Cross Rail Station.

Overall a great time - cost £200 altogether with hotel, trains, food and bits & pieces, for me and my two boys. Met another woman who had flown down from Scotland with her son and was paying £500 to stay in the same hotel for 4 nights and did all of the main paying sights with no vouchers ..... i nearly cried!!!

We took change of tops and underwear in backpacks, as well as drinks and snacks, bought lunch from the tesco express opp trafalguar square. Only thing to do differently is to use my travel card more - get onto buses more for driving to and from different sights....coz we walked waaaay too much!

Thanks to Bluenose for all the original tips!

bluenose1

Thanks plzhelpmesave
I was thinking of changing of the guard next time we go but you have put me off.
We went last month again and I know it is too late now but for your next visit the Thames Clipper is brilliant and you can use your 2 for 1 train discount.
The Clipper runs every 20 mins and goes really fast by Canary wharf to Greenwich etc.
Stand at the back of the boat, the kids will love it. also it is nice for a sit down with decent cafe facilities aboard.

Will try Princess Diana Memorial Playground next time, hoping for another visit September time. Just need to convince husband.