London: Kew Gardens

We always find it difficult to decide what to do on the day we come back from a break away, especially when you have to drive back home. As a family enjoy National Trust places and there are quite a few on our journey back to the Midlands; however, on this occasion we decided to do something in London before leaving in the afternoon.  As we stayed in Chiswick we were not far from Kew Gardens and having heard so many good things about it we decided to give it ago.  

We brought our tickets the night before online as they were slightly cheaper, and doing my own research found that in the car park can get quite busy.  So we decided to head to Kew for 9.30 as it opened at 10.00am. 

Although we were there 30 minutes too early, we spent this time plane spotting as Kew is in the flight path for planes landing at Heathrow.  This kept Titch and the Husband good until the entrance opened.  As we had pre booked we just needed to scan our tickets from my phone and we were in.  

One thing we did not realise was how big Kew Botanical Gardens is.  There was so much to do that , even though we had been there for 5 hours, we could not fit everything in.  

If you are worried about what there is for kids, Kew is very kid friendly.  After a bit of a walk alongside the waterside path, we came cross 2 areas for kids. 

The first was a log climbing area. The husband and Titch couldn't resist this. Logs from trees and trucks of trees were laid out as an obstacle course that your could walking around - or run, jump and hop like Titch did.  

Next to this there was also a man made badger set, which we all decided to explore. Titch loved exploring the different tunnels and appearing in different places.  We could have definitely spent more time here than we did, but as we had never been before we wanted to explore.  

Along with the gardens outside there are also a few Temperate houses.  These were great to explore and we all loved looking at the different species of plants.  You can even walk up stairs to a veranda that covers the perimeter of the house so that you can view the plants from a different view. 

There is also a tropical house and although extremely humid inside is worth the visit. We loved exploring and examining the different patterns of the leaves in here and we even managed to spot on Iguana that was lay on a branch.  

Do you want to venture up 253 steps? Well we did.  We paid to climb the Great Pagoda to see the spectacular views across London - 18 miles I think.  As we queued up the member of staff advised us to climb to the top straight away and not to stop on any floor, instead to do them as we come back down.  Oh my... we climbed the 253 steps and we were shattered. It was hot and sticky but definitely worth it as it gave a 360 degree view of London around you. Titch was exceptionally happy that he could spot the London landmarks that he had visited or seen in previous days.  

Kew Gardens as so much to explore that we found it hard to decide what to visit.  We did though visit  The Hive - which Kew Gardens describe as ' a unique, multi-sensory experience designed to highlight the extraordinary life of bees.' We were all fascinated. The sounds that you hear inside are stimulated by actual bees in Kew.  
You will also find at Kew, a treetop walk, a play centre for children, Kew House, Cafes and food vans and they are currently building a children's sensory garden. There are plenty of places for a picnic too. 
We had such a wonderful day, and if we loved closer would definitely purchase the yearly pass to visit as we would never get bored.  

Hotel Review - Premier Inn Chiswick

We have been to London a few times recently and have stayed in Premier Inns each time.  We choose Premier Inn because we know what we are getting and know what to expect. Plus if you book early enough and you aren't too fussy about where you want to stay then you can get some good deals.

After purchasing our Merlin Passes in February, we decided that we would book 2 trips to London. 1 in May to do Chessington, Thorpe Park and Hampton Court Palace and 1 in August to do Central London attractions. For our first trip we stayed at Premier Sudbury as it was an ideal location for visiting the parks; whereas, for this trip to Central London we decided to stay in Chiswick.

There were a few reason initially why we choose here:
1) The price - 3 people for 4 nights (without breakfast) for £156
2) Location to drive to - straight off the M4
3) Location for amenities - Chiswick has it's own high street with restaurants
4) Location to visit Kew Gardens on our last day
5) Onsite car parking (chargeable at £10 a night)
6) Tube link straight into London Via District Line.

Getting there 
As my Husband has only passed his since last year, and not had much experience driving around big cities, the Premier Inn Chiswick was in the ideal location and the drive to it was straight forward - leave the M4 at the end onto the A4 and you are there.  It was also easy to get to Thorpe Park which was around 25 minutes away.

There is also onsite parking which is always useful in London.  The only down side is that if you leave the car park there is no guarantee that you will get a space especially if like us you are not coming back till late.  Luckily we did manage to get one. And we then left our car parked until the day we left.

Rooms

As mentioned previously, we are not new to Premier Inn and have stayed in a few around London.  That being said, we found that this hotel was just that little better. It felt clean and new.  The room on arrival was spotless and there was plenty of room for the three of use.  The only downside to the room was the lack of storage for three people - but we managed.  

Location

The hotel is located about 10 minutes walk away from Chiswick High Street where you will find, bars, restaurants and shops.  We found this useful as on one night we did not fancy the journey into London and instead stayed local.  The only downside to the location is that the nearest tube station - Turnham Green- is between 15 -20 minutes walk away. Now when going out in the morning this was not a problem, but after already walking over 18,000 steps around London, the 20 minutes walk back to the hotel seemed to take forever.  

Hotel Bar and Food 

Originally we had decided not to book breakfast as sometimes we miss it; however, after our last visit  and spending £16 each morning on a Costa we decided that the £19 all you can eat breakfast for 3 of us was a better deal. Plus it kept us all full until late afternoon which suited us as then we could have tea a little later than normal too. The breakfast itself was great. Lots of choice and always fresh. 

On a couple of nights we had a few night caps in the bar. The drinks were reasonably priced for London and the staff were always very pleasant. 

On the last evening, we were so tired that we decided to eat in the hotel.  

The food was averaged priced for hotel food and we all enjoyed it and thought that it was worth the money especially as it meant we didn't have to walk very far.  

For the price we paid for 4 nights in London in August we think that we got a really good deal.  Would we return again? Yes definitely, although if a similar priced hotel came up but was closer to a tube I think we would try there.    

London: Sealife Centre

We have already visited two of Merlin's Sealife centres at Blackpool and Manchester and thought that both of these were great, but then again we all love anything to do with sea life and never get bored of seeing the same things over and over.  Knowing how good the other Sea life have been, we decided to pre book our time slot for the Sea life Centre when doing the London eye with it being in the same area.

Our time slot was fro 5.15pm and we got there at around 5.00pm. There were no queues so we went straight in.  Like all other Merlin Sea life centres there are photograph opportunities all the way around.  You can skip these and all the staff are extremely pleasant when you say that you don't want your photo taken.

One thing that we did love at the start of the London sealife centre was the glass floor that was above the Shark tank.  We thought that this was a great way to start the tour. In the other sea life centres there have been booklets that the children get to collect stamps as they go around. If this was available there we didn't see it, but this time as a treat we did treat Titch to the Ranger Pack at a cost of £4.  This kept him busy on the way around and searching for facts. He particularly enjoyed using the magnifying glass to look closer at the animal.  For Titch this added to his experience as rather than just walking pass each exhibition he was keen to look closer.

Although it was busy, it was much calmer than our previous trip to Madame Tussauds. The only queue that we encountered was when going through the tunnel.

As with the other Sealife centres, there was plenty to see.  Now maybe because of the time we went, we did not see or hear of any talks that normally occur in sea life centres, in actual fact there was not many staff around.  This did not ruin the experience as we read all of the information that we wanted too.

Titch enjoys anything interactive so enjoyed playing the Jelly fish game which is something that is not at the other Sealife Centres.

We also enjoyed seeing the penguins, although most were asleep.  

In total we spent around 1.5 hours in there which is about the average time we have spent in any Sealife Centre.  As Merlin pass holders it is obviously worth going too, but if I was a paying customer I am not sure if it would be worth the money unless we had some sort of discount or deal - which they do for the London Merlin Attractions (5 attractions for £55) 

London: The London Eye River Cruise

Before going to London we had read on the Merlin Pass holder Facebook group about the London Eye River Cruise.  As pass holders you get 50% discount - which is pretty good.  We booked the River Cruise that afternoon and were given the 6:45pm cruise slot.  If you want an earlier time then I would definitely recommend that you head down the the South Bank Pier in the morning.

We arrived on the Pier at 6.30pm, to a queue that was already extremely long, and most must have been queuing up since 6pm. As there was already quite a considerable number of people in front, we knew that we weren't going to get a seat up on top deck - this did disappoint Titch but we assured him that we would still get a good view from below. So if you definitely want to be up top I would recommend getting there 30-45 minutes before your departure time.

The cruise lasted 45 minutes going from Westminster down to the The Tower of London and back.  And although we had been to London many times before, and knew about some of the monuments that the guide told us about, we also learned some new things too. You also get to see these monuments from a different perspective on the Thames. Being downstairs did not ruin the experience. We still got to see the sights and took some great photos.

I would though recommend sitting on the left downstairs,  as when you get to Tower bridge the boat turns left which gives you a good view of Tower Bridge (see photo), where as if you were on the right you would not have been able to see this.

We paid just over £16 for 2 adults and a child and think that it is definitely worth the money for something different to do in London.

London: The London Eye and Southbank

Having been London many times before, we have also been on the London Eye Many times too, during the day and in the evening, but never as a Merlin Pass holder until today.

The Southbank area was extremely busy when we arrived at 1.30pm.  Following the advice of other Merlin Pass holders we had pre-booked all of our London Merlin attractions before hand.  We could have waited until we had got there, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to go on at the time you want.

When we arrived, before we got onto the London Eye, we wanted to book the London Eye River Cruise as recommended by others.  To book you have to walk pass the London Eye to the pier. There was a queue but it moved quite quickly.  We did want to do the cruise in-between the times we had booked for the Eye and London Sealife, but the next available time was not until 6:45pm so we booked this instead.

As with Madame Tussauds, we found that staff were unsure where we had to queue up if we had Merlin Passes and Pre booked times, as one gentleman told us that we needed to go inside to collect tickets.  This is not the cases, you simply go to the fast track queue show your pre-booked tickets and Merlin cards and you enter the queue.  Our time slot was booked for 2.30pm but we decided to go over at 2.15pm and they were happy to let us in as the normal and fast track queue do merge.  I would definitely recommend pre booking, as it was extremely busy and the queue to book time slots was long.
Titch loved the London Eye once again, and it is something that none of us get bored of each time we try to spot things that we hadn't before.

After getting off the London Eye, we had a couple of hours until we needed to be at the Sealife Centre.  We decided not to do Shrek as it was heaving nor the Dungeons, I am a wimp, so instead we walked down the Thames enjoying the street entertainment, had some lunch and then Titch played on the climbing area behind the London Eye.  And of course a cheeky Ice-cream to cool us down.  😉

Titch loved watch the street entertainment and then further down under the South Bank Centre the skateboarders at the skate park- free entertainment to kill some time between Merlin attractions.

London: Madame Tussauds

Having already visited MT in Blackpool, we were hoping that MT London was going to be better, and it didn't disappoint.

We had pre-booked our tickets the day before as were wanted to get there at around 10.00am for our first attraction of the day.  We arrived in Marylebone from Baker Street tube station a little early at 9.30am, but hoped we would be able to queue to go in as already the queues were building up outside.  Although the staff outside were very helpful we found that they all did not know where we needed to queue up.  Initially we were told to queue up at door 2, another gentlemen told us we needed to collect our pre booked tickets,  finally when in the queue for tickets we asked another girl who said that we didn't need to queue up instead we needed to go through fast track.  Once we got to fast track we were straight through - no queues at all.

Once inside, we realised how busy it was. You could hardly move in the first room.  There was lots of pushing for photos, for many of the Wax figures people tried to make queues but others pushed in.  There was one organised queue for pictures with Harry and Megan which was quite long.

After the initial room the queue, pushing and chaos did seem to reduce.  There was the odd family of 10 who thought they were above the rest still... patience was definitely required.

Having already seen the Wax figures at Blackpool, we did feel that the ones at London were better. They looked more realistic and the variety was good too. 

We all also enjoyed the extras in London: the Cab ride and the 4D cinema. 

The cab ride was a great way to learn more about the history of London and was a welcomed rested from the crowds, as was the 4D experience. 

At the end there is a shop where you can collect your pop badges if you are collecting them.  We did buy pin badges so not sure if you have to buy something to get them though.  

Although it was busier and crazier than the Blackpool MT, I think we all prefer the London one.  There was so much to see and do that all of us were kept entertained throughout the whole experience.  In all we spent about 2.5 hours here but I would say that you could spend more or less depending on how many figure you want to see. 

If I could given any advice, it would be: 

1) Pre book your time slot if you are a Merlin pass Holder 

2) Buy your drinks from inside (2 bottles for £3) rather than from the stall outside (£2 per bottle) 

3) Make sure you are patient 

4) Use Tube at Baker Street - right next door 

5) Do not go in the holidays if you are easily annoyed by rude people 😂 (like me)