London Trip - Buckingham Palace

Tuesday 19th November 2013

We would have liked to be able to go and see the river Thames, London eye and some other things but we didn't want to be rushed and end up missing our coach home. When we arrived at the coach station there was still a few hours waiting time so we decided to look up how far away Buckingham Palace was - it turned out to be about 10 minutes away so we walked over there to see it and get some pictures. We saw some horse drawn carriages and the famous Royal guards.

When we were done being tourists it was time to head home. Our coach set off at 4.30pm and it was already starting to go dark at that time. Both kids slept pretty well on the way home and I even nodded off for a little while. When we arrived back to Liverpool we still had to get a bus back home so we arrived back home at about 11pm and all went straight to bed.

London Trip - Madame Tussauds

Tuesday 19th November 2013

On day two of our trip to London we got up early to have breakfast before catching a train to get to Madame Tussaud's. We were waiting outside before the doors were opened so we got in pretty fast.
It really is amazing how life like all of the figures are. We took pictures with all of the celebrities we know (Armando took photos of the rest too even though we had no idea who some of them are).

Chloe was really staring at and trying to touch some of the models, I'm not really sure what she thought of them but she seemed to like it (especially Emma Watson for some reason).
There are all kinds of different celebrities there. Lots of current film and music stars, some iconic figures like Shakespeare and Albert Einstein, sports stars, musical legends like Michael Jackson and the Beatles, the Royal family, the American president and lots of British political figures. There was even a dungeon section that was supposed to be scary, Chloe jumped when she heard dogs barking on a recording but we stayed out of the main section (while Armando went through it).

The last part was a Marvel section which had Spider-man, the hulk, wolverine and some other characters. In that section there was a 4D film with some super heros getting together for a meeting, the special effects were pretty good - even Chloe kept her glasses on to watch the whole thing.
We had a look around the Madame Tussaud's shop and bought some gifts and suvenirs before eating and getting a bus back to the area of the coach station.

London Trip - Warner Bros Studio

Monday 18th November 2013

On Monday morning we travelled to Liverpool to get on a coach that took us down to London. It was a long journey but both children slept and were well behaved. Chloe was sick all over herself and Armando but it was just because of the movement since she was fine for the rest of the day.
When we arrived in London we got tubes and trains to get to the Warner Bros. Studio where we were going on the Harry Potter tour. We got there with plenty of time to spare, picked up our tickets and wandered around the shop before the tour was set to begin. We took a lot of pictures of everything.
The first thing we did was sit and watch a short video in a cinema then the tour started off in the great hall of hogwarts.

After the hall the others doors were opened up and we were free to walk through the rest of the tour by ourselves. There were lots of boards with writing about each thing - what scenes certain costumes were worn, what inspired certain things in the films and things like that.

I was carrying Elliot in his carrier and Chloe also wanted to be carried around for quite a lot of the tour.
There was an outdoor section to the tour which had some of the vehicles used in films, like the bus and the Weasley's car.

There was a room full of all types of fantasy creatures and wax works. There were some wax works of people from the films - the most realistic was one of George Weasley, it could easily pass as a person.

One of the last parts of the tour was a huge hogwarts piece that you had to walk all the way around. It was covered in snow since our tour was during the Winter theme.
After we finished the Harry Potter tour it was about 6pm and we got the train back to the area of our hotel but still had to walk for about 50 minutes to get there. It was really cold out and by that time we were super hungry so as soon as Elliot had been fed and both children were dressed in pjs we went for a meal at TGI Fridays which was right next to the hotel. The meal was lovely and by the time we were finished and back in our hotel room it was a little after 9pm so both children went straight to bed.