London for Kids
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in London for Kids:
So... Oyster cards.
A couple more things:
- Oysters can be bought in advance in some planes (and Eurostar), I know at least EasyJet does it. They're weird for-tourist Oysters, not the regular ones, but as far as I can tell the only difference is that you cannot register and top it online (I know, I got bitten by that the day I lost my Oyster while abroad and thought I was smart by buying a new one in the train back...), which doesn't matter for you. It's not more expensive than buying in a station and gains some time.
- Contactless is likely the most convenient but I have no idea how this will work with a foreign card (you might end up paying a small fortune in bank charges, if it works at all).
- Unless there are Oyster tourist day passes or equivalent (I don't think there are since the variety sold in Eurostar is standard pre-paid ones), you'll have to use pre-paid which means you have to get the balance refunded at the end, which means more queuing (and usually very few staff for that), or monitor the account closely to not leave with a huge balance.
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@remi said in London for Kids:
Oysters can be bought in advance
Yes, I was planning to get the Visitor Oyster Cards.
@remi said in London for Kids:
Contactless
Easy; not available on Swedish credit cards. I might be able to use Android Pay, but then Google would know my credit card number.
@remi said in London for Kids:
pre-paid
About that; are there terminals of some sort where I can see my remaining balance? Can I, as I "touch the yellow card reader" (
), see somewhere what the current trip (will) cost me, and how much I have remaining?Silly questions, I know. The simple answer is "go there and you'll find out; it's not the end of the world". But herding kids -- even only two -- first to a gate, then back to top the card up, then back through the gate again (or on to a bus, off a bus, on to the next bus), has a higher long-term cost when trying to piece them together at the end of the day than the immediate time wastage, so I prefer to do my research beforehand. Praemonitus praemunitus, and all that.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in London for Kids:
About that; are there terminals of some sort where I can see my remaining balance? Can I, as I "touch the yellow card reader" (), see somewhere what the current trip (will) cost me, and how much I have remaining?
You can see how much is left on the card on any of the terminals where you can charge it, yes (and I think there is at least one in each and every tube station, with more on larger ones). With a non-visitor card you can also check online, but probably not with a visitor one.
The gates also display the amount left (and the amount debited when exiting at the end of a trip), but in busy stations you have to be pretty quick to see it with the rush around you (and that doesn't show in buses either).
Finding how much a given trip will cost you depends on where you exit (i.e. how many zones you cross), and there is also a daily max cap above which you don't pay anything (which is about 3-4 zone 1 trips, I think) so it makes predicting the exact fare a bit tricky (and also, there is a daily bus-only cap that is lower than the tube+bus one, so if you travel a lot by bus and then take the tube once at the end of the day your last bus trips will be capped (=free) but you'll pay for the tube trip!).
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@remi said in London for Kids:
- Contactless is likely the most convenient but I have no idea how this will work with a foreign card (you might end up paying a small fortune in bank charges, if it works at all).
My Dutch contactless card doesn't work. I checked in advance and had read a note that some Dutch contactless cards don't work, but after I came back got the impression none of them work. This is ~1.5 years ago.
At the time though I only had contactless on my normal maestro debet card (with Dutch account number). I've since gotten a new mastercard credit card with contactless, and it's possible those do work.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in London for Kids:
Book shops - any particular area or any particular shop?
If your kids are even slightly geeky then Forbidden Planet is a must. Top level is sci-fi/fantasy/cult things and the bottom floor is an awesome book shop. Tons of signed books mixed in too. For an London shop it's huge.
It's also right by Covent Garden which is worth a look for your shopping requirement.
The London Eye is indeed a bit crap, but the fantastic London Aquarium is right beside it and worth at least a reconsider. I managed to barge my way through a line of kids and handle a Starfish last time I went. Made my day :D
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@Cursorkeys said in London for Kids:
London Aquarium is right beside it and worth at least a reconsider.
My main reason to rule it out is that, as far as I can tell, it is no different from any big aquarium in any other big city. Which isn't to say that it isn't nice, but it's not specific to London. Now, of course, with kids you sometimes want to do something that will be fun for them, regardless of whether it's original to the location...
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Back again after a week in London, and I thought I’d share the experience.
TL;DR: I hate noise, I hate bustle, I hate people. London was nice, though.
Monday Arrive at Victoria at around lunchtime.
They should really finish the roof here!Walk to hotel (just across Westminster Bridge), drop off luggage, Then tube to Leicester Square to pick up tickets & walkabout (to Piccadilly Circus and back).
There are some nice streets here (Cecil court, New Row) that gave the right Harry Potter mood to
. Surprisingly little HP merchandise, though given it’s the 20 year anniversary for the books and all.Ate at “Five Guys”. The meat in the burger was ok, but the bread was sub-standard. Also, the music was so loud that it seemed as if they deliberately wanted people to not go in there. I can’t imagine working in a place like that, my noise-meter on the phone was well above 90 dB!
Regular Bus back to Westminster. Interesting, and the kids loved it.
Tuesday River boat (RB1) to the Tower. The Tower was really interesting and fun.
Crown Jewels:
Wow! Discoball!The crown jewels were fascinating, and cleverly displayed at the end of a series of darkened rooms that prepared you so you would know what you are looking at before you get there (so you don’t dally around too long in front of the warez). Also, the darkened rooms allowed your eyes to adjust so you could see the jewels in all their glory. We started with this (at around 10AM), so there was no queue. Later during the day, the queue was massive, though.
White Tower: Very interesting, but as usual in places like this the displays often get in the way of actually experiencing the building itself. I mean, this is a slab of unadulterated power that has been standing there for nearly a millennium. You do not need to fill it with modern pieces of art for it to become interesting.
There were other interesting displays. I can’t remember the names of the rooms just above traitor’s gate, but here they let the rooms themselves speak — including the medieval wall constructions.
We were planning to go to the Tower Bridge exhibition after this, but the kids were getting tired so we opted for one of the open-top hop-on-hop-off tour buses instead.
Evening: My sushi-loving girls and myself ate 27 plates at a YO! Sushi restaurant.
(Waiter) Where are you from?
Sweden.
… like ABBA?
And “Smorgasbord”, which I believe is quintessential to your establishment.Wednesday Mmme Tussauds. This was disappointing. I remember the historical displays as much larger and more vivid with plenty of fancy clothes and stuff. I also remember the chamber of horrors downstairs. During my first visit there, there was also a display of the gun deck of HMS Victory at the battle of Trafalgar. None of that was there this time. The historical displays were much smaller and full of noisy rock music that spilled over from other sections, and in general there were not that many wax figures left. What the kids remember from this place is the 10-minute 4D movie featuring a bunch of superheroes that they do not recognise very well because they are too young to see the movies.
Zip back to Paddington Station to pay our respects to Michael Bond, then over to King’s Cross to find Platform 9 3/4.
Platform 9 3/4 Again a long queue, so we decided not to take a photo of
there. Or, to be precise, have her photo taken and pay for the pleasure. Incidentally, there is both room and a market for a second trolley halfway through the wall.We had planned to get back to Oxford Circus, visit Hamley’s, and do some general shopping after this, but again the kids were so tired that we went home and hit the hotel pool instead.
Dinner at Iguana’s, which was excellent.
It’s annoying with all the sirens all the time.
I agree. It’s bloody inconsiderate of the ambulances to still try and save lives when you want to go to sleep.Thursday We had planned to go to the Museum of Natural History, but we decided to skip this and go shopping instead. Main attraction: Hamley’s. A short walk to Piccadilly Circus, lunch, and back to Bond Street and the last few days were really taking their toll on
, so an early return to the hotel (it was also probably more than 30 degrees out, and even more underground).Friday A walk through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace. We didn’t have time to visit the Royal Mews, but there was a refreshing lack of queues to enter. Onwards to Victoria, and then train back to Gatwick.
So all in all, I had a long list of places that we were planning to visit (thanks in no small degree to your helpful contributions here), but we had to cut back quite a bit for the sake of the kids. We’ll have to come back soon instead. I had also hoped to visit a plain old Tesco or Sainsbury’s, but we never found any. I think
would love Branston Pickle (and even the Piccalilli), but I couldn’t find it in the corner shops. I did feed her some Marmite at the hotel breakfast, though: I hereby declare war on Marmite! There is no room in the world for this vileness.
