2 1/2 years old

Family Day Out in London

14:03

We are so lucky to live in London, but sometimes I think we don't appreciate all of the amazing things that we've got right on our door step.  So when 365 Tickets offered to organise a fun family day out for us in London we jumped at the chance to be tourists in our own city!


We started our day by picking up or tickets for the The Original Tour and were so surprised that the kids each also got a little kids pack to bring along with them on the bus tour.  It was a lovely little pack with a couple of activity books for them to do.  One was a passport style book for them to keep track of where they had been and the other was a story book with lots of facts about all of the things that they would see on the bus.  They were great for keeping the kids busy during the day between activities, when we stopped for meals and on the way home on the train.


Both of the kids absolutely loved The Original Tour buses, just being on one of the open topped double decker buses that we always see driving around was so exciting.  They could really see everything from up there and loved pointing out the other Original Tour buses that we passed and waving at all the people.


I love that this is something that both children can appreciate at their own level.  Ethan was ready to learn a bit of history about all of the buildings that we were passing, while Ivy was just happy to watch the world go by and marvel at the experience of being on an open topped bus!  They absolutely loved it and couldn't get enough, when we got to the Southbank they didn't want to get off the bus, but we were ready for our next adventure!


Next we went to the London Eye which the kids were thrilled about!  It's something that we often see and walk past it all the time, but it was the first time that we actually brought the children on it and they couldn't wait.  We picked up our tickets and joined the queue, which can get quite long but we were lucky that it wasn't too bad that day.  We were ushered onto our little pod and away we went.


I was a bit worried that it could get tricky keeping Ivy in a confined space for half an hour (the length of time that it takes the London Eye to make a full rotation) but she was absolutely fine.  She loved looking out all of the windows, walking all around the pod and seeing the different views and watching the boats pass by on the river.


Ethan just couldn't get enough of it either, he was in his element just watching as we moved higher and higher and more of the city was revealed.  He was asking about different buildings that we could see and pointing out the ones that he knew already like the Shard and the Gherkin.  There were also small tablet like screens with interactive maps that he could explore to discover more about what he could see out the window.  They both had such a fantastic experience on the London Eye and I'm so glad that we took them.


Finally we finished our day off with a boat trip on City Cruises which was actually included in our Original Tour bus ticket.  We had seen the buses passing by while we were on the London Eye so the kids were already excited to get on board and ride down the river.


The boat was very crowded as it's obviously a very popular experience, but we were lucky enough to find some seats at the top so we could enjoy the views to their fullest.  


They give a fantastic and informative commentary on the City Cruise boat tour describing in great detail the buildings and sights that you pass and a little bit of history about them.  I also got to point out a few of my favourite sights, like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and tell the kids all about it.  They really do pick up a lot from these experiences and getting to see historical buildings first hand in a fun way!


We had an incredible time on our family day out in London with 365 tickets, the kids had so much to talk about afterwards and loved every experience.  We'll definitely be making more of an effort to be tourists in our own city more often!

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* This is a review post, we were given tickets to all of the attractions from 365 Tickets in order to write our honest review.*

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