In January 2018, we did set our travel objectives for the year. You can read them all in our blogpost “2018 Financial and Travel Goals“
Travel objective 2 on the list was described as:
Do ONE city break vacation in 2018 with my son. Last year I heard from another dad that he took his teenager on a few days trip to another country. Get to know his child better was the main reason. Well..I thought that was a great idea which I want to do in 2018 with my son.
Last year the kids also received a financial education class Budg€t Fun. It was time to put the budgeting knowledge in practice. I gave him a FIXED budget of 500 Euro for his trip including train ticket, 50% of hotel spend, food, drinks and his tickets to museums or tourist attractions.
Here is the blogpost about our journey to London and how well he managed his budget.
Our Hotel Location
Days Hotel Waterloo hotel is in the city center of Londen, 10 minutes walk from the London Eye.
The closest underground metro station is Lambeth North (Brown Bakerloo line) within a 2 minute walk and we always took the metro to our next destination. We bought an Oyster prepaid card of 15£ (my son) and 20£ (myself) and we travelled all weekend with this card.
You can also park your car there and WIFI is free in all rooms. Each room has their own bathroom, coffee and tea facilities and a TV with Freeview and international TV stations. We booked a two singles bed hotel room and check-in went very smooth. WIFI also worked smoothly as this was important for my son…lol. Teenagers don’t watch TV anymore but only Youtube.
We did not book the breakfast during our reservation. Upon our arrival at the hotel we received 2£ discount coupons per person for breakfast at the hotel. There is a choice between English breakfast and Continental breakfast which is separated in two different rooms.
The reviews of the hotel on Booking.com are good price/quality value and we can confirm that. The staff is friendly and helpful. After check-out of your room you can leave your luggage in a locker room for 1£.
The travel to St. Pancras station from Lille Eurostar train station went smooth and we arrived around 7 pm in the city center of London. There we walked to King’s Cross underground tube station and I showed my son how to buy a metro ticket. He was amazed by the double decker busses outside of the station and the long stairs downwards in the metro station.
Day 1 : Amazing View of London, Celebrities and Harry Potter
As this is the first time in England for my son, I convinced him and served him a typical English breakfast plate full of eggs, sausages, tomato and a little beans. He did eat almost everything except the beans…lol. I reckoned that he wouldn’t like that so I only served him a little.
Around 9 AM we left to the Underground station and headed to our first destination “London Bridge”. From there we did cross the bridge and walked along the river towards the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. With the sun raising above the Tower Bridge we had an amazing morning view from the London bridge. We walked along the Tower of London and crossed the Tower bridge. Great moments for a lot of picture taking and selfies.
In the middle of Tower Bridge we learned about all the buildings around us. You have a great view on the Gherkin and the Shard tower. 
From the Tower Bridge we walked to our second destination The Shard Tower. We booked our tickets in advance and saved 20% as a result. My son told me that this tower is the highest of West- Europe. I didn’t know that. Once we arrived at the top floor, we had a spectacular view on London.
You can also book a Virtual Reality experience and walk on a plank to conquer your fear for heights. There is also a bar where you can buy your glass of champagne or any other drink. This visit was a great experience and we purchased the pictures together. My son bought a little Shard tower as a souvenir (7.5£). The result of this visit was that we scratched the London Eye of our To Visit list as the view would definitely not be the same…and my son figured he could save the money for better experiences.
Our third destination was Madame Tussauds. Madame Tussauds is just a two minute walk away from Baker Street tube station. We didn’t purchase tickets in advance as we didn’t want to fix our schedule too much but the waiting queue for people without tickets was short. Thanks to a booking.com discount code that I printed and took with me, we were entitled to a 10% discount on our entry tickets. After 15 minutes waiting, we entered the home of famous and stardom and encountered immersive experiences like Alien: Escape, The Voice UK and Star Wars. We did meet more than 250 lifelike wax figures of celebrities! Some celebrities my son knew…others I was only familiar with….lol. It was fun to see my son embrace Emma Watson, take a selfie with Kim Kardashian and stand arm in arm with Einstein. We took together a selfie with President Trump, and had a picture taken with the British Royal family. We ended our visit with music stars such as Michael Jackson, the Beatles and Adele to name a few…
From Madame Tussauds in Baker Street we walked 20 minutes towards our location nr 4 in Regent street. The famous toys store Hamleys.
Hamleys is London’s most famous toy store and has become an international tourist attraction as the crowds add an even greater festive mood to this already carnival-like store. The toy selection at Hamleys is vast, taking up 7 floors, and its magical atmosphere and displays will enchant children, as well as their parents and grandparents. The friendly young assistants are also well trained to demonstrate the latest toys to the rapt attention of visitors of all ages.
Top tip: If you have small children, Hamleys ‘Make A Bear’ section allows the little ones to choose, create and name their own teddy bear.
We walked for 40 minutes discovery in this toy store but only purchased a gift for his brother and sister. Tough decision making when you don’t know how much money you (will) have left and no clear visibility on the budget so he suggested to come back the next day…good thinking !
Next was our final experience of the day : New London Harry Potter walking tour.
On this 2-hour* Harry Potter Walking Tour of London we covered
- The story of J.K Rowling
- Westminster Station
- Diagon Alley
- Knockturn Alley
- The inspiration for Garrick Olivander
- Leicester Sq
- Trafalgar Square movie premieres
- The Leaky Cauldron
- The Ministry of Magic
- Piccadilly Circus
- Inspiration for Hogwarts
- Inspiration for Gringotts
…and much more!
An international group of Harry Potter fans with people from Malaysia, USA, UK, Belgium,..were informed by our great guide Ben about the different film locations in London. He told us many stories and held a quiz within the group to test the knowledge about Harry Potter movies. Did you know there exists Magic Money from Harry Potter? My son told me that he has seen ALL Harry Potter movies 5 times. Well..that was interesting to know ….I didn’t even know that ! I was happy to find out ! I am sure I was the least knowledgeable about the movies within the group….lol.
We ended the tour in a little alley and we decided to have dinner somewhere close as our feet did hurt. We had a great 3 course dinner at a nice French Brasserie named CÔTE BRASSERIE. After dessert my son did review his budget excluding the restaurant bill.
After a great meal, we walked back to the Piccadilly Circus tube station and visited the LEGO store as a finishing touch of the day.
Day 2 : Virtual Reality and British History
Day 2 started with a continental breakfast, reading an English newspaper and reviewing the remaining budget. After day 1 minus our advance booking of Sunday experience, the remaining budget was around 80 Euro. (see budget sheet). My son was not happy about the expensive dinner bill taking a big impact on his budget but I told him it was worth it as we didn’t had any lunch.
Our first destination was the Tower of London. On sundays it opens at 10 AM. Tower of London is a royal fortress and London landmark. Its buildings and grounds served historically as a royal palace, a political prison, a place of execution, an arsenal, a royal mint, and even a zoo. We focussed on four things within our limited time frame visit :
Crown Jewels
We took a walk through British history and learned about some of the most important symbols of British culture and monarchy. I showed my son the crown Elizabeth II wore to her coronation!
The White Tower
One of the most famous keeps in the world, this Tower is so renowned that it was referred to by Shakespeare in many of his plays. It contains the impressive Royal Armouries collections and even an 11th century Romanesque chapel.
The Royal Mint
We explored the Coins & Kings exhibition which depicts the story of the Mint at the Tower between 1279 and 1812. We learned about what life was like on Mint Street through outdoor installations and interactive displays, even fun facts about Isaac Newton and his thief catching skills.
Royal Beasts
For 600 years the Tower was kept as a menagerie of wild and exotic animals; gifts that the King and Queen were donated by their visitors and admirers. Everything from ostriches to elephants, lions…and how horrible they treated the wild animals during that time.
Around noon time we left towards our main experience of the day : Virtual Reality gaming. We booked a 1 HOUR VR experience at DNA VR 12 minutes walk from Caledonian Road tube station. We both entered in our own VR Escape room and we did put on the Virtual Reality Headset. Then you can see the whole gallery of the VR games in front of you. You can switch between the experiences as you’d like. The VR Masters provided great guidance and explained the best possible game for playing together. My son did chose QuiVR.
QuiVr is an archery experience. You grab your bow, arrows, and together with my son we did fight the enemy onslaught. You need to protect a gate that is being attacked by different monsters. It was fun to shoot arrows together with my son and during those 30 minutes he gave me a lot of instructions. I have never shot so many arrows in my life…not realizing this was just a game…lol ! It was a very real experience !
Our next game was another shooting game where spiders, flying arks, and gun men did attack us. Side by side we had to defend ourselves. This was a very bloody game and after 5 minutes there was no more fun for me. We both were quickly killed several times and seeing “my son” on the ground murdered by some crazy gunmen was no longer appealing to me. We decided to pick our own games for the last 20 minutes. I did shoot drones out of the air as a spaceship soldier while protecting myself with a shield in my other hand. My son did play fruit ninja slicing fruit with a sword. After 1 hour we both came out of the VR Escape room happy and sweaty ! I can definitely recommend you this Virtual Reality experience ! It was great fun to do !
Only a few hours left before leaving London. We decided to go back to Hamleys toy store. A quick review of the budget sheet told us that we had around 60 euro as remaining budget. After 30 minutes my son had decided to buy a Hogwarts Wand Stand and a fancy book slider. Total price : 33£
We finished the day with a visit to M&M’s world at Leicester Square.
Spread across 4 floors, the store is dedicated to the popular sweet M&M’s with exclusive chocolates, merchandise plus limited editions and seasonal items. Visitors can get the opportunity to meet the well loved M&M characters and have their photo with an iconic London Bus from the 1960’s.
M&M’s World is also home to a special chocolate wall which allows fans to create their own custom blend from a range of 22 colours. That is exactly what we did. We purchased a box of M&M’s with our faces printed on the chocolates together with love messages M&M’s.
The family at home was happy with our chocolate present.
Managing a Fixed Budget
Below you can find the overview of the expenses. 36% of the budget (179,31 Euro) was spend on transportation, around 18% on hotel stay and 13% on food and drinks. Twenty one % of the money was spend on experiences..and we did five great visits and life experiences. The remaining money was spend on souvenirs and gifts.
Final Words
Objective 2 of our “2018 Financial and Travel Goals“ is achieved ! What did we learn during this city break with our son ? We did spend great quality time together and did talk about many different topics. As this young man grows to become an adult, it is great to learn how he thinks, feels or what he fears. We had a short list of tourist places to visit and had three advance bookings before we left. The five experiences were great as it was a blend of history, culture and fun.
The budget exercise was a success as my son did review his budget several times during this trip. He made conscious decisions on where to spend his money and was not happy about the expensive restaurant I “forced” him to. Well…I was happy to see him eat everything of a 3 course meal ! At home I paid my son 15 Euro pocket money as this was the remaining money he saved. Well deserved !
For myself as a father this was a great experience and definitely something we will repeat in the future. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the whole trip ! If you are a parent, spend the quality time alone with each of your kids ! Get to know them and learn about their character traits and thinking. Time flies and those opportunities to travel with your kid alone don’t come back if you don’t take them.
Be aware that the bold words above in the blog post contain hyperlinks to the different locations unless I want to highlight something. Just you know…
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