3 and a half August days with teenagers
My wife and I are visiting London with our 13 and 15 years old kids this spring. It will be our first visit and we are looking to balance seeing the classic sights with keeping the kids engaged. We are generally not museum people and for what it’s worth, my kids do not care about Harry Potter. And thoughts on our developing plans are appreciated. Thank you.
Day 1: arrive at Heathrow around 9:45. Take tube to hotel likely with all exhausted and grumpy and move toward a non intense but active afternoon to push through jet lag and adjust to schedule. We are thinking about a Thames cruise or Hop on hop off bus (getting off near the Shard or Horizon 22 for the view and a very specific shopping request for my daughter. Eat and browse in Covent Garden and back to the hotel to sleep by 8:00.
Day 2: Changing of the Guard (join a tour group?), visit Buckingham Palace (no guided tour), eat, sit/rest/walk in St James’ Park, visit Westminster Abbey, walk towards more food and the hotel via Big Ben and Trafalagar Square
Day 3: Tower of London (take the Yeoman Warder tour), walk across upper level of Tower Bridge, walk along the Queen’s Walk toward Borough Market, maybe visit the Globe Theater (I don’t think the schedule comes close to aligning with seeing the 2:00 show), turn towards moving in the direction of the hotel and see what happens. My wife wants to see the Postal Museum, which is not far from where we are staying, so that may happen towards the end of this day.
Day 3: Currently less structured. It will involve an afternoon tea, maybe the show at the Globe or whatever else we’ve discovered or forgotten. The kids would both enjoy the Zip World slide, but it’s a little out of the way. Either way, this will be a less intense day before we hop on the Eurostar the following morning.
Thank you for taking the time to read and for any feedback.