It may sound corny, but we took the dinner cruise on the Thames. The food turned out to be quite good and the lights on the bridges, buildings, etc. were lovely.

Driving in London is a big NOOOOO...definitely the tube or walking. The ordinary London bus routes are pretty hard to figure out compared to the tube actually, but the bus tours are good if you want to do all the classic touristy things, although you might not have time for most of it if you're only around for a couple of days.

For good food I'd recommend Soho or Covent Garden...and if you're looking for something particularly classy (and Sherlockian), try the Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly or Simpsons-On-The-Strand.
 

Davina wrote:

From there you can get a river boat up to the Embankment.
...The Globe Theatre, The London Eye, The OXO tower etc...
Eating out? You are spoiled for choice in London. Depending on where you are staying and what sort of budget for a meal I can let you know (I have my sources!). PM me with details if you want.
Cardiff is quite a way from London, not in American terms but in UK terms. I think I would get a train.
If you only have a couple of days then a trip to Cardiff is probably out of the question. It is a lovely little city it I'm not sure I would take all that time out to go there if I was in London itself for such a short time.

What is the Embankment?
What is the OXO tower?
Do they still have plays at the Globe theater?
I don't know yet where we will be staying, but I'll drop you a PM when we firm up our plans.
It's a shame about Cardiff. I am a huge Doctor Who fan and I understand that Cardiff has an attraction called The Doctor Who experience. It seems a shame to be so close and not be able to fit in the time. If I can get a few extra days off from work maybe we can extend our stay by a few days. I don't know if that will be possible but we could always try.

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Driving in London is a big NOOOOO...definitely the tube or walking.

Ok, no renting a car then. Even my sister, who has been a few times, said don't even think about renting a car. It isn't worth it due to parking fees and such. She said to get an oyster card. That's for the tube right? Can we get those at the hotel or do we have to go to some sort of transportation hub?

erunyauve wrote:

Not to mention that you're driving on the left side of the road in a very congested city you don't know.  (And then there's the roundabouts, and we're not talking the quaint little circles in upscale areas - these are several lanes deep and move very fast.  My mum would just go round and round sometimes.  We thought it was a carousel ride.)

I suppose it might be like driving around in a reflection - what with the steering wheel on the other side of the car and the car on the other side of the street. It would be somewhat weird. I know that the turnabouts could be challenging, but I once drove through the DC beltway at rush hour on my way down to Virginia Beach. Those folks drive six lanes deep anywhere from 65 to 75 miles an hour! It was a bit hair rising, but I managed it in a huge cargo van. Of course that was 25 years ago before I started wearing trifocals! LOL

Thanks for the tips guys. As we get closer I may ask a few more questions. Oh wait here's one. Can we buy the DVD sets for Sherlock that will play in region 1 DVD players or do we have to do that on-line at like amazon or something?

 

Ok I am a Londoner living in Cardiff. My 2c

Really no point drivving in London. The public transport system is excellent and cheap and driving is discouraged anyway with the congestion charge. The Tube is a lot of fun but my tip would bo to make sure you also take buses and overground trains because that's a really good way to see London as well. 

Cardiff to London is doable, I do it all the time. It depends on your budget but the train is quick, around 2-3 hours, and takes you into central Cardiff. There are times to take the train and times not-say if you want more info (basically, try to go off peak and/or upgrade to first class-its pretty cheap to do this) . To get cheap intercity tickets you can book in advance. I've been to London and back for £20 but that's booking aeons in advance and a fixed ticket. Depending on how many kids you have, a family railcard might be cheaper.What I'd say is that if you have Doctor Who fans, Cardiff might well be worth a visit. Its location shots are mainly filmed here and a fair number of the locations are easily accessible from the station. I'd have thought there would be a tour actually. That might be the point at which renting a car (with sat nav!) would be worthwhile. You could do a lot of Dr Who locations in a day, certainly, the city is crammed with them (my kids are better at spotting them than me!) . There's the Dr Who experience too, which is easy enough to get to. Sherlock is a bit different. There certainly are locations you could go to and several of them are central (eg the museum) but because London is so important in Sherlock, a lot of the location filming happens there while afaik a lot of the Cardiff filming is studio work. I don't think you can do any kind of tours and tbh, if the studio is where I think it is its not very interesting to drive past or anything. Cardiff really hasn't jumped on either the Dr Who or Sherlock tourism bandwagon at all, its all there but you have to do the legwork.

I'd say you could do a good, intense, Dr Who/Sherlock day in Cardiff if that's what you want to get from your visit and you will see stuff like the locations where various episodes were shot and so on. It would be something very different. But of course it is a day out of your trip. Think what you really need is a tour of some kind, preferably someone else driving you from location to location.

http://www.doctorwholocations.net/ this is completely accurate as far as I know.

Re things to do in London on Sunday. How old are your kids? Mine are all under 10 and really love the Kensington museums (free). There's a great playground nearby-Diana Princess Of Wales Memorial-which has an outdoor cafe with actually decent food. River tours are nice too. My kids really like the Emirates cable cars over the Thames, actually they just like riding around on the Tube network! The Transport museum is good for this age group and very London. My kids also really like the Museum of London-there are two, both good, one in the Barbican and one in the Docklands. Oh my tip would be, make sure you get an Oyster card as it makes travelling cheaper. Oyster cards you can get from any tube station, newsagents too, I think. I dunno, a hotel might have them too. You won't struggle to find one. Kids don't need them, young adults do but iirc still travel free (mine haven't hit that age yet!)

Any more questions, please go for it. I know London and Cardiff really well and both with and without kids and they are two of my favourite cities so I love talking about them!
 

Last edited by beekeeper (April 28, 2013 7:56 am)

beekeeper wrote:

tardis wardrobe-just had a look at a few. Honestly, I'd say they'd be pretty easy to make! Or at least mod an existing wardrobe. Certainly for the amount it would cost to buy and ship it back.

Thanks for that tip. My daughter is a HUGE Dr. Who fan and she does not have a closet so I thought the Tardis wardrobe would be the perfect sweet 16 present.

Ok. Thank you for all the info. This is our honeymoon trip so no kids. We never took a honeymoon when we got married so now that we have the time and the funds we are finally taking it after 20 years of marriage. 

The whole reason for taking extra days in London is so that we could fit in the Cardiff trip. I have been watching Doctor Who since I was a wee little child. I really want to go to the Doctor Who experience and see that square with the towers and the waterfall sculpture where the rift is supposed to be. I have also become a Torchwood fan (not surprising). In any case yeah we will get the train. The most advanced I can buy tickets would be when we arrive unless I can get them from here before we even leave for England. No worries. We planned on spending money while abroad and have set aside for it. I'm not worried about a 20 pound train ticket.

Thank you so much for all the tips and advice. I am so excited for this trip. I have been a fan of everything English for as long as I can remember and I'm finally going to get to see your country. 
 

Last edited by AliceI (April 28, 2013 11:44 am)

oh god if you have no kids DEFINATELY the train. Without kids it will be actually enjoyable! Re the tickets they go up a lot in price the closer you get to the date-and it can be a LOT, like £150 each as opposed to £30. Sure you can book from abroad-you usually have a collect at station option. TBH if all else failed and the train turned out to be amazingly stupidly expensive there is a coach too, and its fine, and much cheaper. 

The rift is five minutes walk from the Dr Who experience and very easy to find. The entrance to the Torchwod hub is also easy to find as it is plastered with "Ianto lives" graffiti, messages and so on :-). There is actually almost no signposting in Cardiff for unofficial Dr Who/Sherlock stuff, for some reason, so its worth checking into this stuff before you arrive.

They seemed to film quite a lot down there for the first few seasons, so the church in "Fathers Day", the estate where Rose lives (mainly). Torchwood tends to film a lot in Cardiff centre, its rarer for them to film local to the hub, but the centre is a short train ride away.

Oh also just realised they are now filiming Sherlock at Roath Lock studios, I believe. Think you'd be able to see them at least from the "hub"-they are pretty distinctive/