Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I wish I had a Christmasy post to share with you today, but instead I have a London travel post all set and ready to go. I’ll share all of our Christmas events and travel in my upcoming Scenes From the Month post.
Welcome back to another Travel with Me post. My hope is that you can use this post, along with Part 1 and Part 2 of this London with a Toddler series, to help plan your next London trip with or without a baby/toddler. While everything we did is child-friendly and great for planning days with your young child, most recommendations would be fun without children too. Part 3 of this London with a Toddler series covers the final days of our trip, right after our one-night trip to the Cotswolds which I’ll share in an upcoming post.
For days six through eight of our London trip, we spent a rainy day in the Crystal Palace area near our Airbnb, had a date night in the Covent Garden/Soho area, and spent time exploring the boroughs of Greenwich and Blackheath before packing up and flying back home to Austin.
Day-by-Day
{Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a map for the first couple of days of this trip.}
Day 6
Crystal Palace Area
We were tired from our long couple days of driving around the Cotswolds, so we decided to make this day a time to hang out around the Crystal Palace area (where our Airbnb was located) and for Daniel to get some work hours in. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs all day so my exciting plans of taking Carson to the beautiful Crystal Palace Park were squashed. But, we made the best of it!
We started off our day with coffee and pastries at Roasted Bean, a cute local place walking distance from us. We also shared a fresh fruit smoothie with Carson.
Carson and I tried to wait out the rain, so we played with Instagram filters for a while. He was a lot more impressed than he looks in this photo, haha!
For lunch, we met Daniel at the Crystal Palace Market, which is a really good, local pub with an excellent “market-fresh” menu. I had fish and chips, and it was the best I’ve ever gotten – full of flavor and nice and crispy! We went early so there was some space for Carson to walk around and look out the window at the rain toward the end of our meal.
While Daniel tried to get a little more work done, Carson and I headed to an indoor soft play area for children. Unfortunately, the soft play place was just getting ready to close, so we couldn’t get in. We had walked about ten minutes in the rain to get there, and there wasn’t anywhere nearby for us to huddle in for shelter, so we decided to embrace the rain and run around a little park nearby.
A little rain doesn’t scare my little boy!
Date Night in Soho
After we cleaned up and got Carson ready for bed, we had a sitter come by that we hired from www.sitters.co.uk. I had thought about hiring a sitter through them for months before our trip to London and had very mixed emotions about it. It felt strange having a stranger come watch our child, but we really wanted to enjoy one evening out in London since our other nights ended at 8pm on this trip.
As soon as we met our assigned sitter, Rachael, I felt at ease about our decision to go through with it. Sitters.co matches you with background-checked sitters in your area (within the UK), and you are able to read lots of detailed information about the sitters, including the number of babysitting jobs booked through the site, reviews, qualifications (CPR-certified, experience levels, etc), and whether they have their own children or work with children outside of their sitters.co bookings. Rachael was so kind and caring, and Carson immediately took to her and was excited to play upon her arrival. If I find myself in the UK again with a young child, I definitely plan to hire a sitter through this website again.
For date night, we went to an Italian restaurant in Covent Garden called Margot. My in-laws recommended it to us. It is definitely a very nice restaurant, but not so much so that you have to wear overly-dressy attire. The food, ambience, and service were all top-notch.
Next we walked around Soho and found some yummy gelato at Gelupo!
Day 7
For our final full day in London, we decided to explore areas of the city that we’d never been to before. On recommendation from our Airbnb hosts, we went to Greenwich and Blackheath for the day.
Greenwich
National Maritime Museum
After making our way by train to Greenwich, our first stop was the National Maritime Museum.
The main reason we went to this museum was to visit the very highly-rated children’s gallery. We didn’t know this before arriving, but to enter the children’s gallery in the museum, you have to book tickets ahead for a specific time, which can be done online. Thankfully, we were able to get a ticket for a time slot starting about forty-five minutes after our arrival. There are other free children sections in the museum where we waited for our ticketed time, but none compare to the ticketed section, as you will see below.
The giant world map shown in the photo below is a fun place for children to run around while waiting to enter the gallery. Carson did fall and bust his lip at one point here but still had a good time.
After spending time in the free children’s sections and trying to push the stroller through some of the regular exhibits in the museum (with a grumpy child), it was finally our turn for the children’s gallery! Scroll through the photos below to see how much fun Carson had. I think any young child who is able to walk would have a great time. They don’t allow children over the age of 7, but parents can enter with their children. Children’s tickets cost £3.00, one adult with a child is free, and any additional adults (with children) are £3.00.
Carson loved the play fish market…
The play ship…
And the toy freight ship and freight train…
Greenwich Market
Next on the agenda was grabbing a bite to eat. We wandered around the Greenwich Market where we ran into Crosstown Doughnuts. Yummy!
Then we went for meat pies at Goddards. Highly recommend for a meat pie experience!
Cutty Sark
We didn’t explore it, but we did pass by the Cutty Sark, Greenwich’s historic sailing ship.
Greenwich Park
We walked from Greenwich to Blackheath via Greenwich Park, stopping along the way at the viewpoint by the Royal Observatory. This park was a beautiful setting for a fall family walk!
Greenwich Park View
Blackheath
Blackheath is a picturesque village just on the other end of Greenwich Park from Greenwich. We went mainly to walk around town and grab a quick bite.
I wish we could have eaten dinner at this beautiful tearoom, but it wasn’t very kid-friendly.
I’d love to go back to Blackheath to do some window shopping. There were so many adorable shops full of unique items, but many were not stroller-friendly, and we were running low on time and energy. It was time to head home for dinner and packing for the trip back home!
Dinner at Home
We ordered in Italian food from a place right by the Airbnb.
Needless to say, Carson loved it….
Day 8
On this final day in London, we took a slow morning to pack up our stuff. We had Family Transfers come pick us up again (see my review of them within this post) about 10am, and we made the journey to the airport.
Travel Day
I mentioned this in a previous post, but London truly is one of the most baby-friendly places I’ve been to. They even had this amazing soft play area at Heathrow airport! All airports should have a place for toddlers to run off their energy before a flight. It’s a huge benefit to the baby, the parents, and to the fellow flight passengers!
The flight back was easier than the flight to London one week prior. Since it was an afternoon flight, we had a little more energy to entertain Carson while he was awake. He was (mostly) content to people watch, watch a few in-flight movies, and take naps. Daniel enjoyed a nap too….
We had a quick layover in Houston (which was the worst part of the trip by far), but I don’t want to end this series on a negative note, so I’ll skip the details of this story. I’ll just share a couple things we learned on this tough layover:
- Babies need a separate Global Entry pass from their parents. You may know this, but I had no idea because you don’t need a separate one for TSA Pre-Check. Carson did not have one which meant we needed to go through the regular Border Control/Customs line.
- Always be prepared to not be able to use TSA Pre-Check. After going through regular customs, we were told that Pre-Check was closed, and we waited in the long regular security line. We were not prepared for all of our liquids and electronics to be pulled out. TSA made us toss out a few baby pouches, which was really annoying since I know that they should have been allowed per their baby liquid regulations. We later learned TSA Pre-Check WAS open.
In the end, Carson was happy the entire stressful layover, we made our connecting flight to Austin, made it home from the airport, and Carson still slept through the night despite jet lag, so all was well. And that, my friends, was the end of our successful trip to London with a toddler!
// Do you have any additional recommendations for a trip to London with a toddler?
To read parts one and two of this London with a Toddler series, click here and here.
{Thanks for reading! Want to know a little more about me? I’m a CPA learning how to balance a career with motherhood and regular travel while planting roots at home in the Austin, TX area. When I’m not exploring my home city with my husband Daniel and baby boy Carson or cuddling with my chubby orange cat Banana, I’m probably either out on a playdate with my son or planning, packing for, traveling to, or daydreaming about our next adventure. After all, my travel mug collection is never complete. If you have wanderlust too, be sure to follow me on Instagram (and InstaStories!), Pinterest, and Facebook, or subscribe to my blog!}
Like it? Pin it!
