As we were planning for our first family trip to Europe, we couldn't all decide on where to go. Seven family members, seven opinions. We knew we wanted to spend two weeks in Europe, so we landed on London - Rome & Paris.
Luckily for us flying out of the east coast made the cost more palatable getting to Europe - we decided to start in London. In my search for airfare the regular domestic airlines (United, American) were 3x higher than others. There was one time I recall about four months before our trip that United was somewhat affordable, the price continued to escalate. I began to explore other airlines, and what kept popping up was WOW airlines and Icelandair. We decided to go with WOW at a price of a one-way ticket to London for $250 per/person. Not bad - HOWEVER, keep in mind nothing is included. It's basically a budget airline that will charge for bags, food, drinks, no wifi and NO charging ports on the plane. Still, it got us to London. One thing to keep in mind - I paid for bags online ahead of time - $350 for 5 checked bags and 7 carryons. When we checked in the airport, the representative told me I shouldn't have paid for the 7 carry-ons. So essentially I threw away money with no way to recoup the $$. So, my suggestion - pay for checked bags - and hold of on any other bags.
We only planned on spending two days in London so we had to make sure we maximized our time. Here's what we did and where we stayed:
1) Selected a hotel centrally located (though w/larger rooms). As you'll notice quickly, London hotels are pricy. I found the Premier Inn Hotels. Think of them as a DoubleTree/Holiday Inn like hotel. They're all over London. We stayed at the London BlackFriar (Fleet Street). Reasonable price, and great staff. Here's my review . We easily walked to the London Eye, Westminster Abby and it's super close to the BlackFriar Train Station (which is a great way to get to Gatwick APO).
2) The London Eye (and did the add on which included the Big Bus Tour) - tickets p/p online were 45 EURO pr/adult and 26 EURO pr/kid. The bus tour allowed us a 24 hour window to see the city. Well worth every penny.
3) Eating. Two restaurants that we liked were: Harry's Bar Pizzeria. Great service, a little pricy but w/i walking distance of the hotel and good portions. The other big hit with the kids, was Giraffe World Kitchen on the Southbanc. Great value and variety.
4) Transportation. This is the one cost I underestimated. Getting from Gatwick to our hotel was about 45 minutes and an uber ride was 85 EURO (almost $100). I now know that we could have easily taken the train from Gatwick to the BlackFriar Train station and walked two blocks to our hotel. Average cost on the train 12 EURO pp.
So this was our whirlwind two-day trip. We saw a lot (Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, the London Eye and much more.