London (Norway Cruise)

I had been talking with some other families about doing a cruise together which got me all excited and I booked this Norway cruise but then no one actually went with us. Boo! But I was still excited for Norway. Since this cruise left from England, we went to London for a few days beforehand. When I started doing research about what to do for kids, I started to regret that we wouldn't have more time. There is a ton of fun things for kids in London so we'll have to go back.

Wednesday

London Eye

I booked British airways for the way there and splurged for Premium Economy. Premium Economy is actually worth the splurge on BA. Bigger seats plus a little foot rest with good recline. We sat 2 and 2 in a 3 seat row with me with Christopher. Great entertainment system.

Thursday

When we arrived in Heathrow, immigration took quite awhile which sounds like is typical. Then we headed to the tube which I didn't realize wasn't air conditioned and there was a massive heat wave that weekend. It was way more painful than expected. After we got off at Covent Garden, we walked through the theater district to find our hotel (the Conrad Waldorf). I had booked a club level room which gave us access to the club lounge and we made that our lunch with snacks. After that, we headed to an early dinner at Sushi Sticks nearby and walked to the London Eye after dinner. The ticket machine was quite a pain to use and I ended up messing things up where the machine didn't spit out tickets. Finally we were in line for the long wait to ride the Eye. Of course, Christopher fell asleep in line as I was holding him.








Exhibits at Tower Bridge Museum


Right when the sun was going down, the kids discovered a fenced in playground that was also locked but I threw them over the fence (a bunch of other kids did the same thing). Then we walked the long way back to the hotel and the kids were asleep around 10:30/11 pm.

Friday

The kids slept all night and didn't wake up but we were all still asleep at 9am and I hated to do it but I had to wake the kids up to rush to breakfast. I had bought a 1 day London pass the night before that gave us free hop on and hop off rides and admission to a bunch of places. We hopped on the bus in the direction of the Tower of London but with traffic, we didn't get there until 11am (it ended up being an hour bus ride). It was a pretty fun to walk around but the line was too long for the crown jewels. We had a Starbucks break afterwards and then headed to the Tower Bridge Museum. That was really cool to checkout from above along with the exhibits at the end.

Transport museum

From there, we took a boat ride back to Winchester only to realize we had to make a long trek back to the hotel from here. We fortified ourselves with snacks at the club lounge again and after a bit of rest, we headed out to the London Transport Museum which was really close to us.

Dinner was at Shake Shack - Yum! Christopher fell asleep mid chew of his hamburger which was a bit shocking. Today was a super super long day of walking since we basically crammed all the major sights in 1 go. As a result the kids passed out around 8:30/9.

Unfortunately they had their 1 night of jetlag tonight and they both got up around midnight and were bothering me for a few hours. They did eventually go back to sleep but we had to get up at 7:30 am for the 10am bus at Victoria coach station.

Saturday

There was a bike event today so we had to walk to the train station via a lot of detours. We decided to go to the Temple station which seemed like a direct way to the coach station. The bus took 2 hours. Christopher threw up but told me beforehand at least. So yeah, I guess this boy takes after me and does get carsick. Couldn't figure out where taxis were at Southampton at first and had to end up asking even though it was tiny station. That was a bit embarrassing.