London travel and attractions hints and tips pls

susancs

mutley74 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies.

Been discussing the advice from here with the rest of my group.
Can you only buy the oyester card at Kings cross from a ticket office or are they available from machines? (just wondering how bad the queues could be) (as pre-ordering a Oyster has a £3 admin fee but no mention of £5 deposit).

On our return journey we are catching a late evening train out from Kings cross. Where is the best place to leave baggage for a few hours? (or is there any family museum nearby which we could visit with luggage storage facility).

Is there any MSE way to see a family theatre show? We have been looking at some show prices and put off paying anything more than £20pp.

There is a ticket machine at Kings Cross that has Oyster cards preloaded with credit (think it may be £5 but not sure).

The British Museum is not too far as only one stop from Kings Cross to Russell square on the Piccadilly line and 5 mins walk to the museum. It is only open until 5.30pm. £1.50 per item and there is a size restriction on lugguage.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/visiting/facilities.aspx

You could look at www.lastminute.com for shows as they sometimes have £10 seats, but often these will be the the seats that have a restricted view, legroom etc. You could go to the theatre of a show you want to see and wait for the box office to open as they often sell the best seats left on the day for about £20-£30, but it is 2 per person in the queue. Wicked reserve the front two rows and only sell these on the day at the Theatre Box office. Shrek is a fun family musical. Legally Blonde which is finishing on 7 April sells ten seats at £10, 15 at £15 and all remaining tickets at £25 from 10am at the box office. it is 2 tickets per booking though.

Miss_J

We've recently come back from a week in London. We went to see Wicked (absolutely fantastic) and we paid £76 for a family of four to see a matinee performance. I bought tickets through Ticketmaster as it has a floor plan and lets you scroll through the theatre seating showing you all the individual prices for each seat. I also used Theatremonkey.com to see reviews on selected seats. We booked 2 seats with restricted view and 2 normal seats and we didn't have too much of a problem, only problem at the Apollo Victoria is the rake which is all at the same level in the stalls, so the kids had to shift around in their seats a few time to see some things.

mutley74

Query on Oyster card.
My friend says if i buy one from KGX its is only a tourist one; whereas he suggests i buy preorder one via mail which is a standard type allowing more flexibility on top. I cant find anything on website saying there are different types of cards.
Also hows does one register the card with a family rail card?
To get the discounted Oyster fares you need to add the National Railcard discount entitlement to your Oyster card and register it. You can do this at Tube, London Overground and some National Rail ticket offices. The entitlement on your Oyster card will need to be renewed when you renew you National Railcard.

if i preorder one there is no option that allows you to register this with a rail card.


Miss J - thanks for the tips but we were not looking to pay more than about £15 ticket for a show.

wealdroam

mutley74 wrote: »

...we were not looking to pay more than about £15 ticket for a show.

Please be sure to post back where you buy tickets for £15, won't you?

susancs

mutley74 wrote: »

Query on Oyster card.
My friend says if i buy one from KGX its is only a tourist one; whereas he suggests i buy preorder one via mail which is a standard type allowing more flexibility on top. I cant find anything on website saying there are different types of cards.
Also hows does one register the card with a family rail card?
To get the discounted Oyster fares you need to add the National Railcard discount entitlement to your Oyster card and register it. You can do this at Tube, London Overground and some National Rail ticket offices. The entitlement on your Oyster card will need to be renewed when you renew you National Railcard.

if i preorder one there is no option that allows you to register this with a rail card.


Miss J - thanks for the tips but we were not looking to pay more than about £15 ticket for a show.

You can go to an underground ticket office and ask them to link a railcard to an oyster. This applies to a 16-25 railcard, HM Forces railcard, Disabled railcard, Senior Railcard and Goldcard. If you are talking about the friends and family railcard this is not a railcard you can link with Oyster to get a discount.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx

Registering your Oyster is only useful I feel for regular users as you can report it stolen or lost and a stop is put on it so your credit is not used by someone else. It is also useful for online auto topups. For someone visting London I can't see the advantage as you will probably only top up small amounts on the cards as required rather than loading larger amounts and won't want to activiate auto top up of £20 or £40 every time your credit runs below £8 and if you top up online your credit will not show up until the next day on your Oyster card, so not available for instant use as it would if you topped up in the tube station.

geoff416

Little tip, opposite Selfridge's there is a glass building, approaching from regent street its on the left hand side, next to it is an alley and on the corner you will see a small stand called bens cookies, freshly baked goodness! My favourite place in the whole of London! The only way to find it is to look for it, but its deffo worth it!