London Pass
| Adult | Child (5-15) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | £90 | £55 |
| 2 days | £125 | £70 |
| 3 days | £138 | £80 |
| 4 days | £151 | £96 |
| 5 days | £166 | £101 |
| 6 days | £171 | £106 |
| 7 days | £181 | £111 |
| 10 days | £201 | £116 |
| Note: Prices are correct as of | ||
If you spend any time at all planning your holiday then sooner or later you will come across something called a London Pass. It used to be a dark blue credit card but now they’ve gone digital, so it’s only available as a phone app from the London Pass website.
The pass provides you with access to more than eighty London attractions including lots of great places like the Shard, St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and London Zoo. But if you read through their list then you’ll notice that many of the most popular attractions like the London Aquarium, London Dungeon, London Eye and Madame Tussauds are missing (because they’re all run by Merlin, which has their own discount card).
Gaining entry to 80+ attractions sounds like a good deal, but what you need to do is compare the entry costs with the price of the pass. I have been sitting here doing my sums, and at the current rate you could purchase a 1-day pass and visit St. Paul’s, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, but you would save no money whatsoever. You would actually be £10 down. Typically it’s not until you visit a fourth attraction that you start saving each day. But do you really want to rush around four different attractions in one day? That’s something that you’ll have to decide before buying the pass.
Bear in mind that there’s also a maximum amount of attractions you can visit before the pass runs out of credit, so it’s not possible to go completely crazy and visit loads of places every day. Check out their FAQs page to see how they work it out.
Go City London Pass
| Adult | Child (3-15) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 credits | £55 | £45 |
| 3 credits | £75 | £55 |
| 4 credits | £91 | £61 |
| 5 credits | £111 | £76 |
| 6 credits | £131 | £91 |
| 7 credits | £141 | £101 |
| Note: Prices are correct as of | ||
The Go City London Pass is similar to the London Pass (it’s actually owned by the same people), and is available to buy online at the GO City website.
The idea is that you buy a pass with either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 credits, and then you can use each of those credits to gain free entry into one of the attractions on their list.
The current list includes places like the Cutty Sark, Globe Theatre tour, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Gardens, London Zoo, The Shard, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, plus a City Cruises sightseeing boat and Big Bus Tours sightseeing bus.
Despite having a smaller list of attractions than the London Pass it does work out cheaper most of the time. For example, if I use the same example as I used for the London Pass then buying a 3-credit pass for to visit St. Paul’s, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge would only lose you a few quid instead of £10.
Merlin Pass
| Price per person | |
|---|---|
| Discovery Pass | £99 |
| Silver Pass | £169 |
| Gold Pass | £239 |
| Platinum Pass | £299 |
| Note: Prices are correct as of | |
If you live in the UK and you have kids then you might be better off buying a Merlin Pass from merlinannualpass.co.uk. This will give you 12 months entry to the London Dungeon, London Aquarium, London Eye, Madame Tussauds, Chessington World of Adventures and Shrek’s Adventure, plus 26 more attractions around the UK including Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.
All of the passes get you into the same place, but the Silver, Gold and Platinum Pass give you some extras like free parking, 10% or 20% off food and drink and £5 off Fastrack vouchers. The Platinum Pass also comes with ’Share the fun’ vouchers which you can give to your family and friends to get them in a bit cheaper.
Because it’s an annual pass it probably won’t be of much use to tourists, but if you’re a family who happens to visit the big themes parks once a year anyway, then you could potentially save quite a lot of money.
Important note: Make sure you read the small print because some of the attractions have date restrictions. Most of the London ones won’t let you visit during August, for example.
Turbo Pass
| Adult | Child (5-15) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | £111.80 | £76.94 |
| 2 days | £136.86 | £85.50 |
| 3 days | £153.97 | £102.62 |
| 4 days | £171.09 | £119.74 |
| 5 days | £196.77 | £136.86 |
| 6 days | £213.88 | £153.97 |
| 7 days | £239.56 | £171.09 |
| Note: Prices are correct as of | ||
The Turbo Pass isn’t so well-known in the UK as the London Pass but it works in the same way. It’s available to buy online at turbopass.com/london-city-pass.
The idea is that you buy a pass for between 1-7 days and then get free or discounted entry to every attraction on their list. Highlights include the Big Bus Tours sightseeing bus, City Cruises sightseeing boat, Kensington Palace, London Dungeon, The Shard and the Tower of London. Be aware that a lot of the places on their list are free to enter anyway (like the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Science Museum and V&A).
You can also get one with a pay-as-you-go Oyster card included, but this is where you have to be careful because the amount they load onto it may not cover the daily cap. For example, if you buy a 1-day pass then you get £15 which is double what you actually need. If you buy 2-3 days then you get £20, which is okay for two days, but doesn’t cover the daily cap for three days – you’ll end up having to load on some more credit if you hit the daily cap each day.
2-for-1 offer by National Rail
National Rail’s 2-for-1 offer will be less useful if you’re staying within central London because you won’t be catching any National Rail trains, but if you’re staying outside central London then check out their big list of 150+ attractions offering 2 for the price of 1 entry.
All you have to do is print out the relevant voucher from daysoutguide.co.uk/2for1-london and then hand it over at the attraction, alongside a valid National Rail train ticket for the same day of travel.
But here’s the catch: the ticket has to be for a National Rail train (the overground ones). London Underground tickets are no good. And London Oyster cards are no good either, and neither are Freedom Passes for senior citizens. It has to be a paper National Rail ticket.
The list of attractions currently includes lots of popular places like the London Eye, London Dungeon, London Zoo, London Aquarium, Madame Tussauds, Churchill War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. There are also some popular day trips on the list like Hampton Court Palace and Chessington World of Adventures, so even if you’re staying within central London the chances are good that you’ll have to catch a National Rail train at some point.
Historic Royal Palaces membership
| No. of people | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | 1 adult | £65 |
| Joint | 2 adults | £100 |
| Family | 1 adult and up to 6 children (5-15) | £80 |
| Family | 2 adults and up to 6 children (5-15) | £120 |
| Note: Prices are correct as of | ||
If you’re planning on visiting London’s Royal palaces then it might be worth joining Historic Royal Palaces beforehand, allowing you to visit six palaces as many times as you like for a whole year. You can sign-up at hrp.org.uk/membership/.
But here’s the catch: it doesn’t include Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle or Clarence House. It only covers the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, Banqueting House and Hillsborough Castle. And you also have to pay the entrance fee into Kew Gardens if you want to see Kew Palace (which seems like a total swizz to me, because there’s no other way of getting inside!).
Cheap theatre tickets
Cheap theatre tickets can be bought from the TKTS booth in Leicester Square. It’s open from 10 AM to 7 PM (Mon-Sat) and 11 AM to 4.30 PM (Sun). They also have a website at officiallondontheatre.com/tkts.
If a theatre is having trouble selling their remaining seats then this is where they’ll end up – at big discounts. But you can only buy them for today, tomorrow or the day after – you can’t go any further ahead than that. And you’ll probably find that most of the good seats have already been taken.