We went with our 4 kids last November for 7 days. Here was our itinerary - our kids loved it - ages 8-13. I'm a travel planner and used Viator to book all our tours.

Friday November 17 – fly to London

Saturday November 18 – arrive, go to British Museum (free admission)

Sunday November 19 – Best of London Tour - Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Thames River Cruise, London Eye

Monday November 20 – Harry Potter Studios Tour

Tuesday November 21 – Cotswolds Tour with lunch

Wednesday November 22 – Harry Potter play 2 PM and 7 PM

Thursday November 23 – Hampton Court and Windsor Castle

Friday November 24 – Cambridge and Oxford Universities tour

What are your interests and what time do you arrive? Last year, we got to London early afternoon so went to our hotel to try to check in. Room wasn’t ready so we had a snack at the restaurant and ended up in the lounge for a bit. After check in, we wandered around our neighborhood, had dinner and just looked around.

This year since we are getting to London early, we’ll drop our luggage off, do breakfast and go shopping since we are looking for something special. We’ll fart around, go back to check in and have dinner and rest the rest of the evening. We’ll start true sightseeing the next day. We did the red hop on hop off last year and didn’t really take advantage of all it has to offer so it was a waste. We got off and then never got back on, ended up in a taxi instead.

I’d suggest for day one to do one of the boat cruises. It’s a way to rest and see the city at the same time and if one of you are tired you can easily take a nap.

Anonymous wrote:You could get an oyster card and use the double decker buses. There's a daily cap, so after that you can on and off for no extra charge, or you can pay as you go up to that cap. You can also use it on the underground.

We bought ours at a corner store. You can either keep the card forever or turn it in at the end to get back the card deposit I believe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

Oyster card not really needed anymore for adults, because you can pay with contactless cards/Apple or Google Pay. The 5 pound fee is no longer refundable, so it's not worth buying one.

It is good for kids ages 11-15 though, as you can buy them an Oyster card, and then have an Underground employee add a young visitor discount to the card and get half off all rides.

https://www.londontoolkit.com/briefing/london_transport_child_fares.htm#discount

You still have to add funds to the Oyster cards at machines, so that adds a bit of time, and means you have to try and make a "best guess" at some point to try and end up with as little left as possible on the card. You can get a cash refund at a fare machine of the remaining funds on the card, but not the 5 pound original cost.

Anonymous wrote:Planning a trip to London and trying to map out our itinerary. Are all the hop on hop off outfits the same or does anyone recommend a certain one? What is the best activity to do there the first day we arrive when we are likely tired and jet lagged? Struggling a bit with how much to plan on one day and which activities to pair together (without knowing how long they all take, especially with kids) and distance apart. Thanks for any advice.

How old are your kids and what activities are you planning to do?

We didn’t use the hop on and off busses but instead just rode the regular busses. My kids really liked that.

For the first day, I don’t plan anything that needs advance reservations. We usually nap when we arrive (early in the morning) and then we have a flexible list of places we’d like to go to and we just see what we feel like doing that day after we nap for a couple hours.

Traffic in London is terrible sonthe HOHO buses are usually the slowest way to get anywhere altho you do get to see the city.

You could get an oyster card and use the double decker buses. There's a daily cap, so after that you can on and off for no extra charge, or you can pay as you go up to that cap. You can also use it on the underground.

We bought ours at a corner store. You can either keep the card forever or turn it in at the end to get back the card deposit I believe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

Planning a trip to London and trying to map out our itinerary. Are all the hop on hop off outfits the same or does anyone recommend a certain one? What is the best activity to do there the first day we arrive when we are likely tired and jet lagged? Struggling a bit with how much to plan on one day and which activities to pair together (without knowing how long they all take, especially with kids) and distance apart. Thanks for any advice.