Tower of London

Such a great place to visit in many ways. The staff are excellent and really know their stuff. The guides answered lots of questions from my children (age range 3-16) and were incredibly engaging.

They do need to sort out the Armed Forces Discount- our neighbour (serving officer) and family were let in for free last week; we (also serving officer) just got a discounted price).

However what really ruined a five star rating was the awful organisation of the queue for The Crown Jewels. We queued for about 80mins. There is no entertainment or really interesting things to look at- once you are inside there are a few displays but with minimal information. This exhibit should really have a timed entry to avoid such a lengthy queue. This exhausted our children and our patience!

We spent about 3 hours there; we didn’t visit the cafe etc. Almost 50% of the time was spent queuing for the one exhibit. We went the Bayeux this summer and saw the tapestry which was far more organised and significantly better value!

Your guides and staff saved the day but the Historic Places need to do a lot better.

I have lived in London almost 10 years and have always had Tower of London on my doorstep so never got around to do it and I’m SO glad I finally have.

We started our tour with the Yeoman Warder who was incredible. He made the door so engaging through his theatrics and incredibly projected voice.

The tour started by the entrance gate and ended in the central court by the White Tower and took roughly 45 mins. I definitely recommend tagging along, it doesn’t cost extra and you learn quite a lot more.

I also recommend queuing for the Crown Jewels as soon as you can as they can get quite long so best get them out of the way earlier rather than later.

There is SO much to see around the Tower and loads of interesting rooms to read about. Our entire visit took around 3.5 hours but you can easily spend more or less than that.

So much history and interesting stories in one location so I would thoroughly recommend a visit for residents and tourists alike

We had been here about 20 years ago when the kids were small so decided to go by ourselves this time. We had printed 2 for 1 vouchers from the Days Out website which gets you both in for the price of one with a current rail ticket. Entrance otherwise is £27.50 or £30.20 with a donation. I asked what the donation was for and was told it was for the upkeep of the Tower. Why they don't just add it to the ticket price then I have no idea. There is lots to see in the Tower which is divided into several parts including the Crown Jewels but you must not miss the free guided tours by one of the Beefeaters who are funny and bring the Tower to life. You could easily spend all day in here if you wanted. Happy that I went for £30 for us both but not sure I would have paid £60

Have visited quite a few times over last 50 years and always find a new bit of information! This time wasn’t planned but nether the less very enjoyable. ( Corona virus put paid to Yorkshire visit!) Yeoman tours this time of year start every hour at half past the hour. Our Yeoman of the Guard Clive was on top form and be proud of your job we enjoyed your hour long talk. Already knew things about Tower and was pleasantly surprised to know a few more bits after Clive’s presentation.
Didn’t do White Tower as did couple years ago and had changed then as a lot less armour in there think it’s gone to Leeds.
Jewel House had altered their format and was much better for visitors to get excellent views. Do they hire that punch bowl out I wonder as you can get 144 bottles of wine in it! Lol perfect for a celebration bbq when this Corona Virus ceases!!!!
Ravens were in form squawking around and flying in and out their pens. Visited Armouries Cafe loads of seats had tuna & cucumber sandwich which was a bit hard priced £3.95 tea was £2.20 and a scone with butter £2.20 was nice.
Fusilier Museum,Torture Tower, Traitors Gate, Royal Mint worth a visit and spent around 4 hours there for just viewing those few things. So allow plenty of time if viewing everything. (Train ticket you can get buy 1 get 1 free still on offer. )

If you are in London then you have to go to the Tower of London! Not only does it look incredible from the outside and inside, but it also has a fascinating history very vital to England
I know a lot of people go there to see the crown jewels, and they are cool to see for sure, but me personally, I found other parts of the castle more interesting than the jewels.
You can do an optional free tour with one of the Beefeaters, and I highly recommend that because they are hilarious but also give great information and insight into what it is like to live there.
There are so many different parts of the castle, with different histories, and you can pretty much walk through the entire thing. I didn't buy an audio guide, but you can still get so much information from the plaques, the workers, games, and small movies throughout the castle.
You can spend as little or much time as you'd like there. I got there on a Sunday, right at 10 when it opened, and I spent about 4 hours there. That was me seeing everything and reading almost every plaque.
I definitely think kids and adults would like it, but some of the information is probably not suitable for really young children as it can get slightly gruesome.
Overall, it's a fantastic sight and piece of history and I recommend touring it

My husband and I took a self-guided tour of the tower and got audio guides for a minimal fee. The place is enormous so plan to spend a couple of hours here if you choose to see all the buildings in the compound. The interior of the buildings are spectacular and the history attached to it are even more interesting to hear. The grounds are gorgeous and are well maintained. Not to be missed are the Crown Jewels which is absolutely breath taking. Photography is not allowed in the Crown Jewels but is allowed in most of the other buildings. Some of the buildings have steep, narrow staircases that may not be suitable for people with mobility issues. There are plenty of restrooms, gift shops and snack shops on the grounds. Take advantage of pictures with beefeaters and the guards outside the Crown Jewels.

A visit to the Tower of London is fascinating. It was suggested that we arrive early in the morning and go straight to see the Crown Jewels. We are so happy that followed that advice. By the early afternoon, the line to see the jewels rivaled a Disney park at peak time. We took the Yeoman tour and highly recommend that any visitor do the same. The Yeoman was John Kelly and he made the tour enjoyable for children and adults. He had a wonderful wit and had the crowd laughing during the tour. We learned that the Yeoman are military personnel and are there to protect the Tower. They are not merely tour guides. Highly recommended.

No crowds in December! It was very cold, but worth it to just have space to move around. Go to the Crown Jewels first. Even in Winter, we really noticed a difference around 11-12pm when the tour group buses rolled in. The Crown Jewels were amazing, and I loved the moving platform you stood on to pass on by for a look. Our 10 & 13 year old probably road that around 10 times while waiting for the adults to read everything. There was a interesting video with real footage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
After this, the Yeoman Free Tour was brilliant! It was hard to work out the meeting place, so give yourselves heaps of time to find it.
Our kids loved the crows, for some reason, but don't feed them!
Rug up for a cold day in the wind, but it really is a good experience.

This was our third visit to the Tower of London. We had travelled to the tower onboard a Big Bus hop, hop off bus. The bus stop is on the hill above the tower and there is just a short walk down the hill to the tower’s main entrance.
Despite there being many people in the vicinity, we were able to quickly gain entry to the tower’s ground by using our London Passes which were simply scanned as we entered.
Once inside the tower’s outer walls, we were amazed to find the grounds quite crowded. The line to view the Crown Jewels was several hundred metres long. We estimated that we would have had to queue for well over an hour to get into the chamber where the jewels are secured. Fortunately we had viewed the Crown Jewels during both of our previous two visits to the tower. Consequently, we didn’t bother to join the queue this time. Instead, we spent quite a bit of time viewing the various exhibits within the White Tower. We also walked along part of the tower’s walls and again enjoyed the views from there.
When it was time to rest our legs, it was actually quite difficult to find somewhere to sit, simply because there were so many visitors at the tower on this particular Sunday afternoon.
After watching the antics of the famous tower ravens for a short time, we visited two of the gift shops, before heading to the exit.
We thoroughly enjoyed our third visit to the Tower of London. Because the place is steeped in so much history, it never ceases to fascinate!

Having read the reviews, we should have got some vouchers, been there for the opening gates and taken a Beefeater tour. Unfortunately we hadn’t read the reviews before we left!

We had wanted to visit the Tower of London for a long time so we were very much looking forward to it. We had booked our tickets online, thinking that as well as saving some money, it would also save us considerable time when arriving at the Tower.

Unfortunately this was not the case. Unless you have printed the tickets off at home, you’re required to go to the group booking window to exchange your email vouchers for actual tickets. On the day we visited we would have been much quicker just going to an ordinary ticket window where the queues were far less than the long queue of people doing exactly the same as us.

When we eventually made it into the tower we were really looking forward to visiting the crown jewels but also the torture chamber. This proved to be a huge disappointment for us.

The torture chamber consists of one small room with a rack in it and a few other bits and pieces. To say that this was an anti-climax would be an understatement. We left the torture chamber, as quickly as we had arrived in it given it is so small, and walked around the corner to go and visit the crown jewels.

As we rounded the corner we were presented with a really long line of people. We were curious as to what all these people were doing and upon enquiring with one of the helpful staff, It became clear that this in fact was the queue for the crown jewels! We were astonished! The queue at the entrance to the crown jewels is operated using a snake pattern akin to any attraction. However after the snake pattern this queue then carried on the entire length of the Tower of London to the wall closest to the river whereupon it then came back upon itself nearly all the way back to the building where the jewels are housed. There was no way we were ever going to have time to stand in the queue for so long. So it is with sadness and disappointment that we left the towel without having seen the crown jewels.

Generally I think the Tower of London is a tourist trap that offers very poor value for money and you would be much better spending your time and money elsewhere. Or read the reviews first maybe!