Where is this Year going. Busy working, so have not had a chance to write any more reviews recently....
Where is this Year going. Busy working, so have not had a chance to write any more reviews recently. Oh well!
Member since:24.10.2006
Reviews:39
Members who trust:7
It was half term for my children at school, so we had decided to have a trip into London, as they were both a bit older now. Being 5 & 7 Years old I felt that they could handle the long walking and the Underground a lot better. Well, with that decided we started to think about attractions to visit. Obviously they wanted to seeBig Ben, like most children do, so we made that our first stop.
Before the day I had gone onto the Internet Site for the London Eye, as I knew that was close to The Houses Of Parliament. The Web Site gave us all the information need, from pictures of the views to all the travel information needed. All the prices were available to see for all of the different types of Flights you can take. (Flights being Rides). I could give you the list of all of these but why? When you can visit the site yourself right? Londoneye.com.
They were doing a special offer on prices if you booked over the Internet.
10% off. So for our Family of 2 Adults & 2 Children it cost us £39. I thought that this was a fairly reasonable price for a London Attraction, as it did last over 30 Minutes. So we booked the Tickets which we were able to pick up at the Ticket Office right outside the London Eye the very next day. We only had to queue for 5 minutes for the tickets.
Anyway, here for some more details.
*HOW TO GET THERE*
This is how we got there. I am not a travel expert and I'm sure most of you know how to get to London know.
We arrived at PaddingtonTrain Station via the Great Western Train which came in from Slough. We had got a Travel Card from Slough which cost about £20 for the 4 of us. As usual the Trains were packed, but then this was on a weekday at 9:30am. Once we got to Paddington we headed for the Underground Station for the Circle Line. The Circle Line goes both Anti-Clockwise and Clockwise (Southbound & Northbound). You will need the Southbound line and head to Westminster Station. Nice and easy, only the one Train to get onto and only 9 stops away. Once you get out, head for Big Ben. When you can see Big Ben look across the River Thames and you will see the London Eye. It's a Massive Wheel, you can't miss it.
When you get to the London Eye there are signs telling you where to queue up. This didn't really help as it lead us to a Gift Shop (which was tiny). So we headed for the queue of people standing under the London Eye and were told that we could just queue up. We had specified a time on our pre-booked tickets, but this didn't seem to matter. I suppose it would be more useful if it was busier.
In the queue there is a security gate, which only takes a couple of minutes. They check any bags and run a detector across your body. A good thing in my view, but some people might find this evasive. The children were not checked. They also seemed to do a security sweep of each Capsule of the London Eye once it had been emptied. (Not sure if they did this on every Capsule.)
It was our turn to enter the Capsule. Obviously we were not alone in our own Capsule. There were about 20 people in ours (it normally takes 25 I think). There is a big bench in the middle, enough for about 10-12 people to sit comfortably. It is completely surrounded by glass, so you can see out of every window. As I said earlier the ride, sorry flight lasts for about 30 minutes (This will depend on how many times it stops and if it has to let disabled passengers off, as this takes a bit longer.) We went on a lovely sunny, but slightly hazy day. You can almost see all of London. We managed to spot the new Wembley Stadium which is about 8 miles away. That's quite some distance.
You get a lovely view of the River Thames, and it is quite nice to just sit and relax and enjoy the views. 30 minutes is quite a while, so you can imagine it is quite warm in the capsule. Luckily there is some Air-Conditioning, but it doesn't make that much difference. I would suggest to go when it is a bit cooler (weather wise), but obviously you need it to be a clear day to really appreciate the views.
Anyway to sum up, I felt that the £39 paid for a family of 4 was well worth the money. It would have cost us £43 on the day, so we managed to save a little bit. The whole experience was memorable, the children loved it. My Husband, who has a fear of heights actually managed to enjoy it, despite sitting through almost all of it. It is an extremely smooth ride. I didn't notice the difference when we were moving or had stopped.
There was an opportunity to have a Souvenier Photo taken at the end, and although we had got into position for the photo, my 2 children were covered up by one of the bars across the glass, so their faces were covered. I'm not sure how much the photos cost exactly, but I think they were about £8 each.
Well, I hope this has given you an idea of how good the London Eye experience was for us. Like I said before if you want any more info you can visit their Web site. Londoneye.com. Sorry, I don't have any pictures as they are too big for this site to take.
Thanks anyway. Shelly
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I've always wanted to go on that but being born in London, I'm fearful of becoming too much of a tourist now that I live elsewhere! Maybe I will one day.
Star92 28.07.2007 19:02
Great review! The only time I ever seem to go to London is to get to the airports or to go christmas shopping! Really must make a special trip just to go on the London Eye! x
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Advantages: views over London though Im sure there are better Disadvantages: Long queues, costs too much, poor visibility through the glass when its sunny
fionad86 26.06.2009 ·
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Review of London Eye, London
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Jun 1st, 2007
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