Sunday Stansted airport- Postal museum london time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - It's looking like actually our 1st day will have relatively decent weather (57 and cloudy) and our first full day will be super windy and rainy. Fortunately, I haven't booked a ton so I'm thinking about changing our itinerary around.

Day 1: Debating between two options:

1) kensington palace, princess diana playground and just walking around hyde park...maybe try to join a hop on/hop off bus if we feel up to seeing more at that moment

2) Drop stuff of at a luggage hero and go to buckingham palace, st. james park, big ben, ect.

day 2: Nice English breakfast in a neighborhood restaurant, British museum, then Regent street and Hamley's OR walk towards Covent gardens, grab lunch there and then walk past Piccadilly circus and onto Hamley's...I don't know the area, what would be a better route?? We do have raincoats, rain cover for stroller, waterproof boots, umbrella....

Day 3: Probably our big buckingham palace, st. james park, big ben, ect. day (weather won't be quite as nice as sunday per current forecast). If we get to london sunday and it looks like sunday is our best day, probably doing buckingham palace, big ben that day.

We have 3 more days after that, 2 of which are pretty set and one of them would be the Tower London (flexible).

Trying to wait and see with the weather! Big questions are what would you do for the 1st afternoon pending weather and how would you plan out our rainy day??

Thanks

Why so tightly planned? Leave some room for flexibility and playing it by ear.

The biggest piece for me, especially upon arrival is trying to figure out if I need to rent a storage locked ahead of time if we go straight to buckingham palace or if I need to double check with dropping our stuff off early.

I've spoken with my "big kid" and we have a plan for our 1st day!!

Drop our luggage off and then it's off to hyde park for a picnic and to explore! I think we will try to walk down to Buckingham palace and see big Ben and then take the underground back. We looked at the double decker hop-on-hop off bus but it would take 3 hours to get from kensington gardens to buckingham palace and is very expensive. I don't know about what we'll do after that but I think we'll definitely visit the British museum on tuesday, the weather looks awful!!

[Anonymous]

oh woops, not tuesday..monday looks like there will be awful weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - It's looking like actually our 1st day will have relatively decent weather (57 and cloudy) and our first full day will be super windy and rainy. Fortunately, I haven't booked a ton so I'm thinking about changing our itinerary around.

Day 1: Debating between two options:

1) kensington palace, princess diana playground and just walking around hyde park...maybe try to join a hop on/hop off bus if we feel up to seeing more at that moment

2) Drop stuff of at a luggage hero and go to buckingham palace, st. james park, big ben, ect.

day 2: Nice English breakfast in a neighborhood restaurant, British museum, then Regent street and Hamley's OR walk towards Covent gardens, grab lunch there and then walk past Piccadilly circus and onto Hamley's...I don't know the area, what would be a better route?? We do have raincoats, rain cover for stroller, waterproof boots, umbrella....

Day 3: Probably our big buckingham palace, st. james park, big ben, ect. day (weather won't be quite as nice as sunday per current forecast). If we get to london sunday and it looks like sunday is our best day, probably doing buckingham palace, big ben that day.

We have 3 more days after that, 2 of which are pretty set and one of them would be the Tower London (flexible).

Trying to wait and see with the weather! Big questions are what would you do for the 1st afternoon pending weather and how would you plan out our rainy day??

Thanks

Why so tightly planned? Leave some room for flexibility and playing it by ear.

The biggest piece for me, especially upon arrival is trying to figure out if I need to rent a storage locked ahead of time if we go straight to buckingham palace or if I need to double check with dropping our stuff off early.

I've spoken with my "big kid" and we have a plan for our 1st day!!

Drop our luggage off and then it's off to hyde park for a picnic and to explore! I think we will try to walk down to Buckingham palace and see big Ben and then take the underground back. We looked at the double decker hop-on-hop off bus but it would take 3 hours to get from kensington gardens to buckingham palace and is very expensive. I don't know about what we'll do after that but I think we'll definitely visit the British museum on tuesday, the weather looks awful!!

It's a very short distance from Kensington Gardens to Buckingham Palace- I am sure there is a double decker local bus you can take for $2 and would take 15 minutes.

[Anonymous]

The weather changes fast this time of year, so don’t try and plan around it. Just plan for awful and you’ll be fine.

You are planning a lot of walking through touristy areas which is fine, but my favourite thing to do in London is getting lost. There are just so many neighbourhoods with their own vibes.

Plan a walk along the canals either from Angel heading east, or from Kings Cross towards Camden Town.

[Anonymous]

How much are the train tickets? It cost me 25 pounds to take a one way ticket from Kings Cross to Reading, which only took 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Update: we ended up NOT going to the postal museum but went to Kensington gardens and then did walk down to Buckingham palace upon the request of my older child. We barely made it there and my little one slept in the stroller for several hours.

The Princess Diana playground was so cool but it’s really hard to keep an eye on multiple kids….so busy and so many different areas to play in with different hedges separating them. I actually really prefer smaller playgrounds! The playground at St. James park was wonderful!!! I think my favorite (just a beautiful park, right now it’s just gorgeous). I also like the small playground at Hyde park near the serpentine. Jubilee playground was also really nice!

Also- the science museum didn’t really live up to the hype for us. The natural history museum was where it was at. While my big kid requested the British museum, it was highly stressful and I do not recommend with younger kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much are the train tickets? It cost me 25 pounds to take a one way ticket from Kings Cross to Reading, which only took 30 minutes.

i think it was 30 pounds to go from stansted airport to Victoria. The tube hasn’t been bad because
My kids are free and you can just tap in/tap out with a credit card (just Use with same credit card for a single journey)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much are the train tickets? It cost me 25 pounds to take a one way ticket from Kings Cross to Reading, which only took 30 minutes.

i think it was 30 pounds to go from stansted airport to Victoria. The tube hasn’t been bad because
My kids are free and you can just tap in/tap out with a credit card (just Use with same credit card for a single journey)

To Liverpool Street station, not Victoria, right?

You can check prices here: https://www.stanstedexpress.com/

If you book 2 months or so in advance it's around 15 pounds per adult, 10 pounds per kid. It gets more expensive the closer to departure. You don't need to book a specific train- the ticket is good for a single ride on any train on a calendar day