London Pre-Cruise or Post cruise for 2024?

[janetmojo]

It's been a long time since I have been to London and my husband has never been.  We want to spend about a week exploring the city as well as day trips to Dover, the Cotswolds, Windsor etc.  In other words we want to do ALL the things.  We are booked on Celebrity Apex out of Southampton Aug 27th through Sept 18th on a B2B.   It's not a super strenuous cruise as we have done many of the ports before.  Normally I'd book the week in London pre-cruise because hubby prefers to get that kind of travel done and then when the cruise is over go straight home.  But I'm wondering if waiting to do London in mid/late September instead of mid-August will make a significant difference in price and crowds?  We will be 47 and 61 at the time, no kids.  But he can get a little grumpy with crowds which we dealt with pretty significantly in Europe this past summer.   I'd appreciate any advice 🙂

[Ashland]

I would do this post-cruise. This option turned out great for us in the past. We spent a week post cruise in London which also gave us a better day of the week to book our return flight.

[Meander Ingwa]

most definitely I would do post.  Remember the Olympics are next year and London may get a slight uptick in visitors as they spill over from Paris.  The weather will still be fine and you might get a slightly better money value (hotel costs)  and decrease in the traditional summer tourist volumes.  But any way you slice it, London is a busy crowded city. 

 

Check out night hours if you want to visit museums.  The British museum is a different place on their night open, which I believe is still Friday.  Instead of paying and waiting in line for Westminster Abbey or St Pauls, go to Evensong for a service.  If you dont need to have a guided tour or see endless plaques statues and memorials, this is a way to get inside and see the space and , most wonderfully, hear music designed to be sung in such spaces.  That is the magic. 

 

 There is no way, however to not have crowded Underground, for instance.  I too really dont enjoy crowds but London is my favorite city and when I am in control and know where and what I am doing, I can pretty much shut out crowds.  Ear plugs can help with anxiety triggers.

[Globaliser]

22 hours ago, janetmojo said:

It's been a long time since I have been to London and my husband has never been.  We want to spend about a week exploring the city as well as day trips to Dover, the Cotswolds, Windsor etc.  In other words we want to do ALL the things.

 

If you only have a week, don't bother going outside London.

 

London itself needs at least three months, so a week isn't going to allow you to do "ALL the things" there, let alone anything that's not in London. If you spend three days out of your week outside London, you won't even have scratched London's surface.

 

Another way of putting it is to ask what the word "or" is doing in the thread title. 😉 

[janetmojo]

Thanks for the tips, I forgot about the Olympics, that is a very good point.  And yes I know we could spend a LOT more time but combined with our cruises if we spend a week in London then it's still a month long trip.

[sleepingcat]

On 9/26/2023 at 7:21 PM, janetmojo said:

We are booked on Celebrity Apex out of Southampton Aug 27th through Sept 18th on a B2B. 

the week before your cruise will be one of the busiest as UK schools are still on holiday and there is also a public holiday on the last monday in August.  Schools usually return on the monday following the monday of the public holiday. So after is likely to be somewhat quieter, and prices might be a bit lower. 

[Harters]

On 9/27/2023 at 6:15 PM, Globaliser said:

If you only have a week, don't bother going outside London.

Completely agree. I've been visiting the capital on day trips or long weekends, usually annually, for the best part of 50 years and still find new things to see and do every trip. 

 

Bear in mind that Dover has comparatively little to offer the tourist. Fine for a day if it was your departure port but not worth the schlep from London. If you feel the need to visit Kent, then choose Canterbury instead. 

 

Whereas, on the other hand, you could easily spend a week in the Cotswolds. It's a large area, spreading over five counties. And worth noting that the drive time from central London to , say, Stow-in-the-Wold (my favourite small Cotswold town) is two and half hours)