Our travel agent’s first pass suggests are packages for Melia (Kensington) and Park Plaza (Victoria). She makes getting the medical/cancellation insurance easy. Will be studying the recommendations more later today.
I thought it was very walkable. It’s 0.8 mi to St Paul’s; 1.1 mi to the Tate. That’s not very far for us to walk at all. It is in The City but we didn’t want to do a lot in the evenings anyway besides eat dinner. I have heard good things about the Blackfriars Premier Inn and the Southwark Premier Inn too. I think I picked Monument/Bank because it was cheaper for our dates and still walkable for us, plus very close to the Tube. There are a ton of Premier Inns, though, so I’d just figure out what you want to see and try to get something centrally located. I did enjoy being near the river because I felt like I could orient myself easily.
We’ll be there around the same time, just for 4 days on the way back from another trip leg. It’s been a while for us both so we plan to hit the typical sights as well as several museums. We are also day tripping to Oxford, which I am very excited about because I spent a summer there studying when I was 21. I am looking forward to revisiting my old haunts: which mostly consisted of really old pubs, lol.
I don’t know the last time you were in London, but if it’s since the opening of the Tate Modern (which I mentioned above) and the restoration of the War Rooms/Churchill museum, definitely worth it. I found my revisits to the British museum to be ho-hum (the controversies around plunder/restoring artifacts to their original home, etc. have taken a toll IMHO… even with the new entry wing and more tactful signage/explanation, it felt very old fashioned to me) but the newer stuff at the V&A was spectacular.
My goodness that’s a long day. From Central London probably 2.5-3 hours to Warwick, then 30 mins to Stratford and another 1.5 hours to Oxford and nearly 2 hours to get back to London. I note they don’t give a return time, but I’d guess 9pm. I pity the coach driver trying to fit all this in (and worry about the likelihood of Oxford being cut short if you get stuck in traffic earlier in the day). And I don’t know anyone British who’s made a point of visiting Warwick Castle, I guess its just conveniently near Stratford.
Everywhere in London is very walkable, it all depends on what you want to see. Bank is a long way from Buckingham Palace and the Natural History Museum, and only walkable to the National Gallery, Whitehall and Westminster Abbey if you are a really keen walker (though the path along the South Bank is nice).
If there are going to be long day trips out of the city, then prioritize being near the departure point for those, as the tube (other than the Elizabeth Line) is now pretty busy at rush hour, especially Tuesday to Thursday.
VERY long day on that particular tour. (Description says starts at 8:30am, then 10.5 hours… I suspect longer if traffic). My husband is liking the idea that somebody else handles all the driving and logistics - there is a driver and tourguide. We are thinking it would much like our lonnnng shore excursion days on our 2012 Western Med cruise, except we’d do just one long day (not Pompei/Sorrento, Rome and Florence back to back 12 hour tour days! that was grueling). Looks like plenty of availability, even near term. We are not settled on what plan we’ll use, but we hope to do 2 day trips out of London during our 10-ish night stay.
Eons ago I did a self-guided tour of Oxford, but these days you may needs something more formal if you want to go inside some of the colleges.
The three stops in a day bus tour you are looking at sounds like way too much to me. We did a bus tour in Spain like that and we ended up bailing on it. Too many people, too rushed. Small more thematic tours can be great though.
My spouse managed multi-day guided coach tours as a summer job in college (speaking four European languages was an excellent qualification). It was miserable because the budgeted driving times were always too short which meant reduced time at each stop (which meant the clients were never happy). And getting them back on the bus was like herding cats, someone was always late. The frequent joke was that the trip planner had assumed they’d hire Niki Lauda to drive the bus.
I think tours can work ok but I’d consider looking for a half day trip from Oxford (maybe Blenheim Palace and the Cotswolds?) rather than starting from London.
When we did our trip in 2016 it looked like Warwick was aimed at families for a day out with the kids. We considered it but went to Alnwick Castle instead on our way to Edinburgh. It seemed like Warwick had a lot of activities for young kids. Didn’t seem quite right for our then teens.
One option, relatively close to London, is Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s childhood home. It’s beautiful (both house and gardens) and also interesting history.
But hard to get to without a car unless you can find an arranged tour.
I would second a combined Oxford/Blenheim day trip from London.
Take an early train up, do the Carfax Tower, Christ Church Meadow, Radcliffe Camera/Sheldonian/Bodleian, the Ashmolean and then my son can get you into Worcester College.
Bus depot is right across the street from Worcester for the bus to Blenheim. Do the tour there, bus back to Oxford, then a short walk from the bus depot to the Oxford train station for the ride home to London.
In addition to Premier Inns being decent value, they seem to have best cancellation flexibility. For a little bit more, you can Flex rate which allows cancel up to 1pm day-of. Has anybody stayed at Premier Inn near Victoria Station?
Actually we did not like the deep dive on reviews of Premier Inn at Victoria Station. And even though my husband was originally keen on staying in that area (loved being near the train station in Munich), we have started to get concerned about homelessness etc.
So we are looking at other areas. Premier Inn still seems to give the best value and cancellation terms. (We have some family stuff that means a small chance we’d need to cancel. A cheaper room would mean less waste if we had to cut the trip short.)
The London County Hall Premier seems like a good location, nice tube access. Recent reviews are a bit of a concern though.
Possibly, since we want to stay 10 nights. I’d heard cautions about using them in London, so to this point I’ve not priced them. If we were traveling in bigger group would be more likely to do that.
I used to live in London, in South Kensington, and was just back for a visit last month. I now have dreams of renting an air bnb for a month and from what I’ve seen, they look pretty good! I would be far warier of cheap British hotels, but maybe I’m not being fair.
Personally, my favorite neighborhood by far is South Ken.