London, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace with Free Snack Pack

Experience did not disappoint. Seeng history up close and personal is amazing. If you enjoy history, make sure to see these two castles.

The tour changed itinerary and we went to Windsor later in the day which prevented us from having ample time to see the entire castle as the queue was already 1 hour to enter when we arrived. In addition the bus dropped us off at a different location upon returning to London.

To walk the courtyards, rooms and halls of Hampton Court Palace where Henry the VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey and others walked was absolutely overwhelming…Mark was our Tour Guide and Claude was our Coach Driver…Mark gave us a wealth of information and pointed out little things that the group may have missed…but he also gave us an plenty of time to meander on our own…but the pièce de résistance was Windsor Castle!!! we were actually charmed to the fact that the royal standard was flying when we arrived…King Charles III was in residence!!! Of course, we didn’t actually expect to see him, but the fact that he was on the property was exciting! I was able to capture The Guard change just as we were getting ready to depart…just Thrilling!!!

This is a great way to see both sites on one day. Easy meet up place, nice transportation, a couple hours at each place. You are free on your own to go and see what you want, so not forced to follow along a predetermined tour. The Bus Driver (Elviro?) was polite and on time. The problem for me came in with the tour guide (Dolly). She gave back history and stories on the way to the sites, and then after we disembarked the bus and before we were set free to go explore. Unfortunately, she continued to pepper her commentary with personal opinions and bordering on racist remarks. For instance, there were some people in the way of the bus, walking down the middle through a parking lot, and she asked “is it the Chinese?“ On the way through London she was explaining how the area used to have Russian lettering all over the place because the Russians had bought everything up, but now everything is written half in Arabic. She stated that “the Arabs have bought everything up and come here and act like this is their home.“ she clearly does not like King Charles, and made numerous comments about some of his policies and things that he is changing. I don’t feel like these are appropriate comments and opinions to be regaling tour members with. I certainly didn’t want to hear it and was personally offended by some of the comments. I’m sure with a different tour guide I would’ve given this experience five stars.

First we booked our trip on 5/11 and it was rescheduled for 5/9. This messed up our 3 day London Pass for 5/8 through 5/10. We lost a day to use our pass and ended up having to pay for other entries that would have been included into the 3 day pass. Dolly our tour guide was slow and wasted a lot of time. She said we couldn’t bring in water to both places and you could have done that. Cost us extra to get water we already had. Some of the things she was telling us were also incorrect. She is a lovely person, but maybe should retire. Last thing was they didn’t drop us off at the same place as the pickup. We had to find our way back. Both pickup and drop off were located far from our hotel and they could have used a large van instead of a bus.