Looking for advice from anyone who knows London.

We will be there at the end of June for a band gig in the Victoria Embankment Gardens (Sat 30th 2-4pm).

We are travelling down (as a family) on the Friday and leaving on the Sunday. We'd like to see some of the sights/highlights around the band committment before returning home.

We'll be staying in a Premier Inn at Hangar Lane and travelling by tube for the most part. My son wants to go to Pudding Lane as he's done about The Fire of London at school. I fancy the Eye.

Also, the zoo, a show (Wicked?) a trip up Big Ben and seeing the main sights such as Buckingham palace have also been mused .... We know we won't be able to do it all so any tips? Especially where to get cheap tickets/ where to eat - family friendly and on a budget, save some cash etc all welcome.

Anyone know the Apollo Theatre? Available tickets for Wicked are at back of Dress Circle or Side stalls (restricted view) Orchestra side. .... Don't know whether it's worth it for these "cheap seats" ???

Thanks in anticipation.

Nearest tube to your hotel, unsurprisingly, is Hanger Lane (Central line), though Park Royal (Piccadilly) is also close. Pudding Lane is near Monument tube, but is nothing too exciting, to be honest. The Eye is great : you can book it in advance on their website. Quite walkable to/from Embankment Gardens too, across Hungerford Bridge.



Big Ben has to be pre-booked, and is a Monday-Friday affair only, sadly. The zoo is well worth a visit (Camden Town tube, then bus 274), you'll need at least half a day though. For travel, get yourself some Oyster cards (which you can do online), in the long run, it's so, so much cheaper, even for the amount of time you're in town. If you're eating during the day, you can do a lot worse than branches of EAT and Pret a Manger : there are a load of eateries along Villiers Street (near Embankment) for the Saturday.

Have you thought about doing a museum? The Science, Natural History (both South Kensington) and the London Transport Museum (Covent Garden, and walkable to Embankment) are all excellent.



Don't do the restricted tickets, the dress circle will be more than OK.



Hope that helps!

As far as travel goes, I would get an off-peak day travelcard for each day as the cheapest option. For zones 1-3 or 1-4 it's ?7.70 each for adults. (Hangar Lane is in zone 3). These will allow you tube/bus/DLR/Overground within the zones. Children up to 10 go free if travelling with an adult and 11-15s can get a day travelcard for ?3.20 - or less if you have a family rail card for example but look it up on the TfL website under Tickets and 11-15 fares.

You can get an Oyster card but they will charge ?3 deposit on each one and I'm not sure it's worth it when you can get a travelcard on the day for the same cost. The travelcard on the day is the same as the capped rate on Oyster for adults. You can order them online from the TfL website: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/. I think 11-15s have to have a photocard for oyster.

In terms of itinerary during the day, try to plan things in particular areas or you can find yourselves spending a lot of time travelling across town. At weekends, especially it's important to check engineering otherwise you can find sections of the line you want to use unavailable.

I see Barry-clari has filled in other details so I'll stop here for now!

The website theatremonkey.com shows seating plans for all the major London theatres and gives advice on what seats represent good value for money. Well worth a look.

An eating alternative that may work out cheaper than Pret / sandwich shops would be to make your own sandwiches by going to any supermarket - when my family was here last year, we did that quite a few days.

If you really must have a hot meal, a cheap alternative is Chinatown (obviously only if you like Chinese), and it's near the theatre district- Wong Kei is the cheapest and I find the food decent (people do make a big deal about how the staff "shout" at you, but I find that that's a bit "put on" - the staff "shout" at you because people expect them to!).

Tesco, Sainsbury's and M&S do quite good lunch deals.

As, perhaps quite surprisingly, do Boots

Loving this thread - we'll be in London this weekend too for a rare trip.

We have our plans in place (including seeing War Horse in the theatre ) and only Saturday afternoon to fill. Mind you, we're doing so much I think it might be nice to find somewhere just to 'sit' for a wee while

It's an 'age' thing

Hampstead Heath. Some of the best views in London

Thanks guys .... Some good advice here and from my friends on facebook so lots to mull over ..... the kids are 7 and 9 so good to hear that they go free.

I've had mixed opinions on the eye - ie. good for a while but soon becomes "boring" especially for kids.
Had the open top tour buses recommended too.

As we'll be on a limited budget we won't be able to do everything -- the zoo plus the eye plus a show and of course hotel, travel and eating could potentially rack up to the tune of ?400-?500 if I'm not careful ...


We were considering the zoo on the Friday if we are there early enough .... After hours zoo sounds good but it's adults only!! ....

It may come down to either the eye or a show .... which would you choose?


Oh ... and forgot to say ... a photo of one of the school bears at Pudding Lane is a must for my son ....

I would definitely choose a show. The Eye is good, but can be disappointing if the weather's murky.

We went to see Wicked when the children were 11 and 8 - loved it.

I would pick a show any time over the Eye. Not a big deal, in my opinion. Sure, the scenery is nice, but I didn't think it was worth the money and certainly wouldn't have paid for it myself (work paid for us to go, ages and ages ago when it first opened)

Any other opinions on "side stalls" vs "rear dress circle?" Bearing in mind that there are 2 kids and even at cheap prices this is a lot of money for us.

Years back we went to see Miss Saigon in Drury Lane. We were rear stalls under the dress circle, weren't aware it was restricted view and as we were so far back the stage and everything on it was soooo small we had to use the theatre glasses. For me this had the effect of making it like we were watching it on TV - a somewhat disappointing experience that I don't wish to repeat. On this occasion the tickets were cheap but not THAt cheap. I felt that I'd have rather paid more or not bothered at all.

With the kids I'm worried about them winging that they can't see ...
So if we do go see a show I want to be sure of a good all round experience.

I don't know if this site is accurate: http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheat...plans/index.htm

It purports to give seating plans of major London theatres

You can get some very good discounts on shows, attractions (including the Eye) and meals if you're able to travel by train: www.daysoutguide.co.uk/2for1-london

You'll struggle a bit for cheap tickets for Wicked. Most tickets are ?65 each. You may get some at the discount booth in Leicester Square, but this is hit and miss and they may well not have any at all. The discount booth is best really if you're not bothered what show you see - you can get some good deals. (The other booths aren't official and should be avoided!)

Be careful with Wicked, as you pay the same at the front of the stalls/dress circle as you do way back in the circle - it's really sneaky. We ended up sitting way back in the circle once and we'd paid exactly the same as we had done for 3rd row of stalls a few months earlier. I find that at the Apollo Victoria the sound isn't that great if you go too far back. I think if you want to go and can afford the full price tickets, I'd select the seats from somewhere like Ticketmaster and make sure you get decent ones.

I love the show! Well worth seeing, in my opinion!

It just made the National news how busy Heathrow is going to be this weekend.


I'm only away for two and a half days and don't want to spend most of it in the airport because it will take hours to get through security. It's only a domestic flight so it shouldn't be too insane?

Security took me over an hour at Birmingham a couple of weeks ago because of the queues. Luckily I had allowed enough time but Heathrow is huge...


Now I don't want to go.

It's likely the longest wait you'll have is at the luggage carousel, lottie. Would be immensely surprised if it takes hours.

Excellent site - thanks for posting this



I'm sure it won't be so bad for domestic flights.

And my son has seen War Horse and said it was amazing

Ticketmaster has some tickets available at the cheaper end. you can get tickets from ?15 for Wicked which is cheaper than many other shows.

My hesitation is that we'd have to go on the friday and after the travelling i just worry whether my youngest will cope .....

considering side seats but near the front after looking at theatre monkey.

Well swallowed my uncertainty and ......... booked tickets for Wicked!! Woo Hoo ..... bring it on!!!

Excellent. This is a fab show, in a fab theatre (Starlight Express was there for many, many years). Enjoy

We intend to!!!

I've bought the Gregory McGuire book for us to read before we go ... And I think the soundtrack may well be downloaded .... I like to know a show quite well before i see it.

Sorry to jump in Tequila, but the gig has been brought forward and will now start at 1:30 and finish at 3:30pm

*makes note*

I believe the Oyster card is a ?5 refundable deposit - took about a minute for me to get one from a ticket machine at King's Cross (had forgotten to bring my Oyster card along).

http://www.theatremonkey.com/ is good for seat reviews and show information, http://www.theatremonkey.com/APOLLOVICTORIAbooking.htm is for wicked. Also lastminute and studentbeans sometimes have cheap theatre tickets...