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Bright and early, we were on our way at 7:30 am. We boarded our coach and met our local guide, Natalie. She was with us throughout our time in London. We also each got a Vox unit and earphones. We held onto these for the entire trip so whenever we needed to listen to a guide anywhere, we had them with us. Our first stop was a photo op with the Tower Bridge. Because we were so early, there was no one else there. At each photo stop, the guides took individual family photos with our own cameras and with theirs. We received all the photos to download at the end of the trip.
 Next, we entered the property of the Tower of London and had a greeting from a Beefeater. Beefeaters are the guardians of the Tower of London. They protect the Crown Jewels and conduct tours of the Tower. He gave a brief overview of the Tower of London’s history.
Then we moved on to the viewing of the Crown Jewels. The Crown Jewels exhibit was opened just for our group that morning. We had a private guide there. They opened the vault to let us in and then locked the vault door behind us. Melissa and Lewis had let us know beforehand that if anyone felt too hot and needed to leave, they would assist but we would probably not be allowed to re-enter. We were not allowed to take photos. To say they were impressive is an understatement. After we exited this exhibit, Natalie gave us some more information about the grounds of the Tower of London. There is a monument on the location where all of the beheadings took place. We were about to have some free time to explore so Natalie gave us an overview of the buildings / exhibits that were available and about how much time it would take in each so we could budget our time. We choose to go up into the imprisonment tower. Prisoners would carve “graffiti” into the tower walls and you can view them. They were incredibly detailed. Amazing to see. We also had time to go through a brief exhibit that had replicas of the various torture devices that were used at the Tower. As we were finishing up, the Tower had been opened to the public and it was starting to get busy. It was great to have had all that time on the grounds to ourselves.
Now we were off to our next activity – a high speed boat ride on the Thames. Here was an example of this being “your” adventure. Sue didn’t want to do this activity and Carrie decided to stay with her. She spoke with Lewis and Melissa and knew what time we would be done and where to meet us. Chris and I continued on to do the boat ride. Once again, it was just our group. We were divided into 3 groups, given lift vests and a safety briefing and then we boarded our boats. Most of the ride was going along the Thames and seeing the major buildings and sites from the water. There was a guide on board who explained all that we were seeing. Then at a certain point, they cranked up the James Bond music and we were off! It was about 10-15 minutes of going fast with some sharp turns and a big u-turn at one point. It was fun and the staff was great. We slowed down as we made our way back to the dock and got to see Tower Bridge opening. We met back up with Sue, Carrie and our local guide Natalie for one more group photo. Then it was on to our next location – lunch!
 Our lunch was at a local pub called Kings Stores. Everyone was able to get an alcoholic beverage from the bar, if you wanted, and then our group had a private room upstairs. We had all pre-selected our meals. They had little cards with our names and selections that we put at our place settings so the servers would know who ordered which items. Had to get fish and chips here. It was very good, though very big!
After lunch, we were onto our next location – St. Paul’s Cathedral. Using our Vox devices, Natalie gave us an overview tour and then we had a few minutes to walk around on our own. We then went down into the crypt area and Natalie gave us a tour there as well. That area was certainly not what I expected. While it did have the final resting place for many people, that was also the location for the gift shop and a little café.
We finished up there and were on our way to the last location for the day – Buckingham Palace. The Palace is not open year round, but it did happen to be available for tours when we were there. The tour was not part of the ABD but the guides were great at looking online and seeing that there was availability for the next tour, if anyone was interested. You could book it online on your own. You would then be on your own to go back to the hotel. Several people did do this, but we did not. So for us, it was a photo op similar to what we had done the day before with our driver. We went with the remaining group back to the hotel for a regrouping break.
Prior to the trip, we could see what evenings would be “on our own” but we did not make any plans. We didn’t want to be locked into anything. The ABD guides were great about making suggestions for activities and restaurants. On our first day, they mentioned that this would be a good night to see a show on the West End, if we could find tickets. We looked at availability and ended up getting tickets to see MJ, the Michael Jackson musical. We have not seen this show on Broadway.
We took a cab over and Sue had scheduled a cab to pick us up with the best guess at our desired pick up time. The show was good – the music and the performers were great. It ended about 2 minutes later than we had scheduled the cab and Sue looked on her app and the driver had cancelled. When we got outside the theater, it was very busy with pubs and people and not many cars. The app Sue was using was not showing any availability. Thankfully the hotel was only a little over a mile away, so with the help of Google Maps we walked back. It wasn’t ideal but we made it. I know I fell into bed after a very long and full day.
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AuthorI have been a huge Disney and travel fan since childhood. I love going to new places and, of course, heading to Disney as often as I can. Archives
December 2023
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