Buckingham Palace

I visited with my teen daughter and after long queues, part of it in the rain, thank God I thought of taking with me my umbrella, we were inside. The place is beautiful if you love the grandeur of English state homes but it’s not much enjoyable really. The tour is electronically guided and you either talked to your companion(s) or you listen to the robot sounding voice of the gadget and so. I believe it would be a better experience, if it was done by a human tour guide rather than the gadgets. The staff in general is too quiet for a customer service as if they are annoyed or too tired. The most annoying thing is that you can’t take pictures which we would have liked a lot. If you want to have a souvenir of the visit, you have to buy the £20 book and you won’t figure in it, will you! It’s an era of pictures and social medias and especially for young people, it’s necessary that such service includes the permission to take pictures. It’s a big building obviously and too tiring, if pictures are not permitted why not buy the book and just read about it rather than waste your time visiting!!!!!! As they are cords to limit where you can really step in every room (you see everything at a distance really), you don’t get a chance to approach the windows and see the views the royal family get from the room. You get little for your money really. Another downside, the place is big, too hot, and too crowded as they let in too many people at once and it would be good to have some drink vendor machines installed in discreet places during the visits or warn people to bring their own filled water bottle. Yeah we left with less of an impression than we had before the visit and wondering if it was worth it. My daughter thinks she should write to the queen and give her personally her impression of the visit!

The tour was very well organized with separate queues for separate entrance times clearly marked. The only downside was the torrential downpour that made moving from the queue where tickets are purchased to the queue for the entrance a mad rush with umbrellas tangling and pedestrians just trying to get out of the rain. My young son enjoyed the special activity for the children to find items in each room and then at the end of the tour the activities for kids including a picture "with the Queen".

This was our second visit to Buckingham Palace having previously been in April 2012. If you've caught an early flight into London, may I recommend leaving your luggage at a Left Luggage facility and travelling to Green Park tube station. From here you can take a beautiful walk through Green Park and then into the grounds in front of Buckingham Palace. The crowds are very minor at this time of the morning (approximately 8.30am). From here you can walk into St James' Park. If you aren't exhausted you can then continue walking down to Big Ben along Birdcage Walk. It is approximately 1.3km (15 mins) walk from Buckingham Palace to Big Ben. This self guided walking tour is so perfect to try and walk off the jetlag. Plenty of fresh air. You'd be surprised what you can get to in a short period of time by walking instead of taking a Hop On Hop Off bus.

Very disappointing visit to Buckingham Palace Gardens in July 2021. Security queue (worse than an at airport) took 45 minutes. Gardens were plain and disappointing. Many areas shut off. Advertised as a wonderful place for a picnic but before arriving we were sent an email saying we were not allowed to bring in alcohol, glassware or cutlery. Too many people trying to find space made it a distinctly unpleasant experience. I recommend taking a picnic for free to nearby Green Park and enjoying more space and no limits on your picnic feast, without paying the fee or having to queue with lots of other disappointed people. Not special at all.

I'd been visiting Buckingham palace from the outside since I was a young child so was very excited to go on a tour of the state rooms and the royal mews. I've come away feeling ripped off and wanting my money back! The royal mews was supposed to be an opportunity to meet the royal horses, there were 2 there and they were hidden so we couldn't even see them. It even says on one of the information boards that the horses go on holiday in the summer, so why run summer tours to meet them if they aren't there?!

We then went on a tour of the Buckingham Palace state rooms afterwards and that was even worse! We were herded through security like cattle, had to check our pram and were given a baby carrier that stank of vomit. There were hundreds of people starting the tour every 15 minutes, it was horrendously organised and if you reached your hand out you'd be touching someone in every direction. It was hot, stuffy, smelt and was unpleasant and uncomfortable in every way. As soon as we started the tour we wanted to get through as quickly which was a horrible feeling after being so excited and paying so much to experience Buckingham palace. The rooms are grand as expected, some bits are a little worse for wear but you aren't allowed to take photos for some reason? I can understand no photos of artwork, no flash etc but to not be able to take any at all is ridiculous.

There is an audio guide but it's a few minutes per room and doesn't give you much detail. I had to carry my 1 year old through the last 5/6 rooms so wasn't able to listen to the audio guide and there's no written information boards at all so you're basically on an informationless tour of an overcrowded house.

The cafe wasn't big enough for the amount of people, huge queues and long waits so we didn't bother. The gardens weren't anything special, St James' Park is nicer.

I love the royals and I love being British but this tour is an embarrassment and not worth the money or the time. I am so upset it was so bad as it shouldn't have been, it's Buckingham palace!! I've been to dozens of national trust sites that wipe the floor with this place and that should not be the case. This should be the standard everyone else holds themselves to. I'm sure if any of the royal family knew what an embarrassment this tour was they would do something about it.

After queuing online back in March for 2 hours to get tickets and paying £16.50 a head I had high hopes for our day out in Buckingham Palace Gardens.
After queuing to get through airport style security, (which I completely understand and accepted) we were pleased to finally be in. We walked around the corner and came to a huge lawn and the rear of the palace, I felt a little disappointed but thought once we get into the borders it will be a different story. Off we went to have our picnic lunch, we had plenty of space it wasn’t crowded at all. They could of put on a instrumental band, it would if created some atmosphere….which was hugely lacking.
After our lunch we wanted to get walking into the gardens themselves and around the lake, after 10 minutes we were back where we started after looking at dying flowers and plenty of weeds.
A staff member picked up on our disappointment and said the walk to the exit has views of the lake and the palace. It did but not enough, more green trees and lawn, barely any colour.
It feels RHS have come in and gone “right now can we make some money”, which I’m willing to pay if I get something in return.
I wouldn’t recommend the day as it currently stands, if they make a few changes then I think it would improve hugely.
My advice? Go to Hampton Court Palace instead, the gardens are simply beautiful!

We payed £30 each to go inside the palace, would highly recommend it as it made our visit special.
You can buy a book for about £5 which I found really nice to have whilst walking around, or you can take one of the free headsets which tell you all about each room.
We found it all really interesting and enjoyed seeing the jewels.
The tour ends in the gardens where there is a cafe.
At the end of the visit you can opt to validate your pass to become a year pass for free which we did just incase we wish to visit again.

We had a very enjoyable few hours - it actually felt very special to be able to saunter round the Palace lawn on a beautiful summer day and eat our picnic lunch on the terrace. We really appreciated the fact that numbers were kept low and there was plenty of space and seating. Also that there were so many attentive staff around who were only too happy to answer any questions. They were all very polite and friendly and really don't deserve the criticism from those who felt spied on - that definitely isn't why they were there! We took food and drink with us, but the prices of the food on offer didn't look bad and the queues weren't long. The icecreams were excellent! I do feel a bit sorry for visitors who are keen gardeners and had expected a stunning garden to admire - the entrance fee was really all about the experience. We paid the extra £6.50 for the small group tour of the private gardens, and what we saw with our guide Joanne was very interesting. We overheard someone trying to book the tour on the day, so perhaps the information wasn't quite as clear as it could have been on the website. Anyway, we loved it and would highly recommend a visit while it's available.

Although it was a special place to be and picnic on the lawn, the walk around the gardens was very disappointing. There are 39 acres, of which we were able to walk around the perimeter of approx. 5 acres. What we saw was interesting with many trees to admire, but we were looking forward to our extra cost guided tour of the Rose Gardens. It was a big let down. As we approached the area of lawns where the Rose beds were, we were told “no photos, no walking on the grass”. That meant we could only see the main beds from about 10metres away! No chance of smelling the roses either.

Behind some shrubs, we glimpsed the tennis court and then moved around the eastern side of the boundary, viewing more trees and shrubs.

After our 20 minute tour, we tried to view the Lake’s island and surrounds, but it was very overgrown and mostly roped off. Nearer the Lawns, we walked the other way around the lake, then sat on the terrace with an ice cream.

Then a visit to the Royal Shop and loos, before we departed. A pleasant day out, but less enjoyable than expected from the preview on the website.

We went with teen children and grandparents. We were lucky the weather held, but there were covered areas set up in case of inclement weather!
We had a SUPER afternoon, arriving at 1.45, queuing for about 15mins for security, and leaving just before they closed at 6pm.
The gardens themselves are more akin to parkland, but with wonderful vistas and the historic palace as a backdrop. But we took the opportunity to listen to 2 of the 3 free talks that staff gave hourly … about the herbaceous boarders, the lake and the island. And although they were quite brief at 15mins each, we learnt fascinating facts and appreciated more of what we saw as a result.
The staff were friendly and helpful. There were enough fellow picnickers to create a vibe, but it certainly wasn’t busy or crowded.
We wish we’d discovered the tables and chairs on the terrace a little earlier, which would have been more comfortable for the elderly among us.
But really, we had a great afternoon spent eating, roaming, napping, gleaning interesting info and enjoying the ambiance.