London attractions wait times

[mattR]

Will be in London Jul 14/15 plan on buying the LONDON PASS what should I expect for wait times at:

Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge Exhibition

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

HMS Belfast

Churchill War Rooms

[mattR]

Will be in London Jul 14/15 plan on buying the LONDON PASS what should I expect for wait times at:

Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge Exhibition

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

HMS Belfast

Churchill War Rooms

 

What would be the minimum amount of time one would realistically spend at each location?

[Morgans]

That is quite a lot for 2 days - some merit quite a few hours each. I would suggest you have one day for the Tower, Tower Bridge exhibition and HMS Belfast as they are all very close. (HMS Belfast is brilliant by the way.) Second day for Westminster Abbey & Churchill War Rooms ( again very interesting & well worth a visit.) The Globe is between the two areas as it were so a bit out on its own in your itinerary so would eat into time.

The quietest queues I believe, are for the Tower Exhibition & Belfast - probably about 5 - 10 mins at the most. The others are very, very popular especially in the height of the summer. Perhaps others who have visited in the summer could advise (but London is busy all the time these days....)

You may have to trim your list as we spent about 3 hours each at Belfast & the War Rooms & that's without the Tower where you could easily spend hours and hours.

[aquilegia]

If you look on the London forum of Trip Advisor, you will find that many people consider that there are better options than the London Pass.

[Pet Nit Noy]

Will be in London Jul 14/15 plan on buying the LONDON PASS what should I expect for wait times at:

Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge Exhibition

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

HMS Belfast

Churchill War Rooms

 

At popular destinations, the wait time should be least when the doors first open. That means each day you should decide which place you feel most passionate about seeing and begin there. The over-all time at your stop might end up being the same, but more of the visit will be spent enjoying the site rather than waiting to enter.

 

In mid-morning, the crowds build and continue to be high, but if you've got stamina to still be touring around 4:00 PM, the crowds go down.

 

Here's a specific example from a visit to the Tower of London last summer: We had bought our tickets on line so we saved some time on that detail. We arrived at the Tower Hill underground somewhat after 9:30 and headed for the building with the Crown Jewels. (The place opens at 9:00 most mornings, but our trans-Atlantic flight had arrived at LHR at 11:00 PM the night before, so were were content to be up and going as early as we were.)

 

When we arrived at the building displaying the jewels, we were able to walk right in without having to go through even one turn of the snake/queue set up outside the jewels building. By the time we left the exhibit, people were lined up and waiting in several but not all of the turns of the snake.

 

We went to other buildings within the Tower walls, but we never went past the snake so I can't report on the line at other times of the day.

 

The link below has a suggestion for what to see if you can only stay one hour, stay two hours, or stay three hours, although I find an estimate like 20 minutes in the White Tower results in a stroll-by experience.

 

http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/visit-us/visit-planner/

 

The Churchill War rooms kicked off our touring for another day. That's a place you really can't stroll through and have a meaningful experience. We really enjoyed the audio tour there.

 

Note: We were particularly fascinated by the wall-sized map with pin holes showing ships' positions during the war.

[moniquet]

I pass by the entrance to Churchills war rooms a lot. Wait time varies. Obviously worse during holiday periods, lines were massive around Christmas. Late afternoon seems quieter but cannot be guaranteed.

[mamkmm2]

Don't forget that with the London Pass you get "Fast Track" status for several of those attractions.

 

But fast or slow lines, expect crowds from what I understand. We are touching down in London on the 14th as well and will be there through the 19th but plan on a day in Paris as well as a day excursion to Dover Castle and the White Cliffs of Dover ... think Canterbury is in there also.

 

What I found while trying to schedule our days in London is that unlike here in the States attractions do not stay open much beyond 5:00 pm and even then sometimes "last entrance allowed" is even earlier. It has made scheduling things interesting to say the least. Sometimes you'll find that an attraction is open later but that's rare and normally restricted to say a Friday night.

 

Good luck, I think we'll both need it.

[P&O SUE]

I would say your biggest queue would certainly be the Tower of London - always busy especially in school holidays. (Even when I last went on a cold February day) So I would do that first and if you can get fast track tickets all the better.

[Giantfan13]

If you can get to the Tower of London right at opening, you should not have a long wait for tickets. I would recommend that you should try and see the Crown Jewels first as that line does build very quickly. We also joined a Beefeater's tour, but left it about midway to see things on our own.

 

The Tower Bridge experience isn't that time consuming and we had no wait at all. In fact the longest wait was for them to take the stupid pix of us that they do for everyone. Once upstairs, depending on how much reading you want to do, it goes rather quickly. .

 

Cheers

 

Len

[insanemagnet]

Using an Android phone, if you use the Google search application (the search box at the top of the screen) not a browser or Maps, to search for a tourist attraction, shop, restaurant, etc, then Google show a 'helpcard' about the place.

 

Not only does it show a map, address, phone number, opening times, but it also shows how busy the place is, hour by hour for each day of the week.

[Putterdude]

Will be in London Jul 14/15 plan on buying the LONDON PASS what should I expect for wait times at:

Tower of London

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge Exhibition

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

HMS Belfast

Churchill War Rooms

 

Using your London Pass you should not experience a line at any of them. However I would organize one day to do the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, the Globe Theatre and HMS Belfast. On the other day I would visit Westminster Abby and the Churchill War Rooms. You will want to spend a couple of hours at the Tower but the others on day one will be about 1 hour or so. Westminster Abby will take 2 hours plus but the War Rooms will only be about an hour. While in that area of the Abby and the War Rooms you may want to see if you can get into Westminster and perhaps the Horse Guards museum and a walk by 10 Downing St.....albeit it you can't get within a half block of it.