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23 of the best tips for a visit to Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace Visit. Last weekend we ticked something off our bucket list that we have been trying to do for a couple of years. We visited Buckingham Palace seeing the Queen’s Gallery, the Royal Mews and the State Rooms. We had a lovely time and saw so much. Even the boys stayed engaged all the way around and since we were there for over four hours that is pretty good going for them. If you are thinking about visiting the iconic Buckingham Palace yourself. Then here are some tips for your visit and how we got on when visiting Buckingham Palace with kids.

Top tips for a visit to Buckingham Palace

We visited Buckingham Palace with kids but all of these tips are helpful regardless of whether you are visiting Buckingham Palace with your family or not.

Buckingham Palace Tickets

Tickets are extremely popular both with tourists and also the British public. They tend to sell out. So sign up to the palace newsletter to be the first to hear about tickets going on sale. I booked ours back in December when they first went on sale.
Book a combined ticket to see all three attractions – The Royal Mews, The Queen’s Gallery and the State Rooms. This will save you money on your entrance costs. However we found we had three different tickets.
Think about timings as you have to select timings for each attraction. Thankfully they are all close together so it is easy to move between them. The entry time of our tickets was the Royal Gallery at 12:15 p.m. The Royal Mews at 1:30 p.m. at the State Rooms at 2:30 p.m. We found that this worked well and that we weren’t rushing between one or the other, and yet we still managed to see everything we wanted.
Your timed ticket is for fifteen minutes allowing entry at any point during this time.
Top Tip – Make sure you get your Buckingham Palace entrance ticket stamped so that you can return free within 12 months. I think this is especially important for the Queen’s Gallery since they tend to host different exhibitions throughout the year. When we visited, it was all about Georgian dress which was actually very interesting and to my surprise held the boy’s attention.

How long do you need when visiting Buckingham Palace?

Buckingham Palace tips – allow 4 to 5 hours for your visit. We left the State Rooms around 4 o’clock by which time the boys were shattered and had enough. Although still needed to walk through the gardens to the exit which is at the back. You will need to allow longer if you plan on eating in the café within the Palace grounds. It was busy when we left the State Rooms, I am not sure if you can book a table but it may be worth investigating.

Buckingham Palace Tour

Make sure you pick up the audio tour, which is available at each of the attractions. We found that it helped with the boys It comes in lots of different languages as this helps with the children’s interaction as well as making sure you see all the points of interest.
In the State Rooms, there is also a family guide which is on the same handset, you simply select it at the beginning
When visiting the Royal Mews, you can get an in-person guided tour. These tend to leave on the hour and a half hour throughout the day. When we visited there were also two family tours at 11:30 am and 1.30 pm. Hence the reason we timed on tickets to pick up the 1:30 pm kids tour. I’d recommend doing this as the guides are very good and it also helps to keep the children engaged in what they are looking at.
There is not a huge amount to do at Buckingham Palace with kids. A fun area which is easily missed, but there is a children’s pavilion just outside of Buckingham Palace staterooms opposite the café which is worth a look

Refreshments

One of the most Buckingham Palace tips is to take water with you as there are limited places to buy water. You may also want to take snacks although you cannot eat in any of the attractions. But you could potentially squeeze something in as he would move between them.
The only place we saw water to purchase was on entry to the Buckingham Palace State Rooms.
There is a café on site outside of the Staterooms. However, this is right at the end of your visit and therefore you might want to be mindful of this. We actually ate brunch before going in and there are several places locally to eat.

Extending your visit to Buckingham Palace

You can also time your entry so that you catch the changing of the guard ceremony which although busy is definitely worth seeing. The new guard normally happens around 11 o’clock in the morning and takes place in the front of Buckingham Palace. With the road travel arrangements amended. You may also want to combine your visit with a walk down St James’s Park and Serpentine to reach the horse guards.
Buckingham Palace is located close to St James’s Park, Hyde Park and Green Park all of which also offer additional things to do to keep the kids entertained.

Taking photos

Photos are allowed in the Royal Mews on the Queen’s Gallery. However, they are not allowed in the Buckingham Palace State Rooms for security purposes.
My biggest Buckingham Palace tip is do not be tempted to have a go anyway. There are a lot of staff on hand to keep an eye on you and will ask you to delete any photos you take and will wait and watch you delete them off mobile phones. I saw this several times during our visit.
The Guide Book will set you back around £6 and is available to purchase at the entrance.

Souvenir shopping during your Buckingham Palace visit

There are plenty of gift shops in one for each of the three locations. However, I did notice they do sell things that were sometimes slightly different.
If you only want to visit one then I would opt for the one outside of the Buckingham Palace State Rooms towards the exit because that is by far the biggest of them all.

Security

You need to go through airport-style security to get into each attraction since they are all separate. It is relatively painless and you can take liquids in.
However, they do look at the size of the bags as go through the scanner. On the Buckingham Palace website, it suggests that the maximum size for bags is 45cm x 20cm x 30cm.

How to get Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is located in the heart of London. We normally catch the train into central London. The nearest station (mainline) to Buckingham Palace is London Victoria Station. Which is also serviced by the underground Victoria lines, along with the District and Circle lines. If you are walking from the train station it’s around 20 minutes walk at most even with little legs. The closest underground stations is St James Park which is also serviced by the District and Circle line.

Obviously in London, there are a lot of black cabs, so you could look to get a taxi from wherever you are staying. If you’re looking for good hotel recommendations for children when visiting Buckingham Palace you may want to consider 100 Queens Gate Hotel.

London also has a great bus network with your closest bus stop is Buckingham Palace Road Bressenden Place (Stop P). More information on the bus network can be found on the Transport for London website.

Places to eat close to Buckingham Palace.

Before going to Buckingham Palace for our visit, we decided that we would have brunch. There are several places in which you can do this. If you’re travelling from Victoria, then there is Café Rouge within the station located upstairs in the food court. Albeit there is no natural light. There are also a couple of restaurants that are located in the Sir Simon Milton Square area. It does make sense to book these in advance if you’re planning on having brunch. As we found it difficult to get into them

The two that we looked at were Jimmy Greens although we couldn’t secure a table unless it was outside and it was cold. We did end up eating in the Rail House Victoria which was expensive. But nice and could get a table inside, however, it definitely started to fill up from late morning onwards.

The Queens Gallery

The Queen’s Gallery was our first stop at 12:15 am and we left about an hour later. There is a large gift shop by the entrance on the ground floor. You can actually visit this without going into the gallery itself so without and without going through security.

There is a cloakroom downstairs once you’ve gone through security where you can leave your belongings. There are also toilets in the same location and it is at the cloakroom counter where you can get your ticket stamped to return in the next 12 months.

You go upstairs to the Queen’s Gallery where you are handed a handset. Before you go into the gallery itself. If you’re visiting Buckingham Palace with kids then it’s worth going into the room to your left. In here there are opportunities to dress up and have photos taken. As well as do some colouring and reading about the Royal family. The Queen’s Gallery itself is only spread across two large rooms. But by using the audio guide you work around them in a certain way, which insures you see all of the points of interest.

When we visited, it was all about Georgian dress. There were several original outfits dating from this period, and various pictures depicting day-to-day life. As well as information on accessories, wigs and society in general. There is a large gift shop by the entrance on the ground floor. You can actually visit this without going into the gallery itself so without and without going through security.

The Royal Mews

We were due at the Royal Mews at 1:30 pm and arrived slightly early to ensure that we got the family tour before it started. When participating in a spoken tour you do not need to pick up an audio headset you can’t do both at the same time. We found our guide to be very engaging.

The family tour involves interactive things such as gold leaf and coconut to emulate the horse’s hoofs. Our guide also had a number of large photos laminated, with photos of some of the members of the Royal family. Such as King Henry VIII and Queen Victoria. They can help to bring the story to life and the kids to recognise some of the main characters that the speaker is talking about.

The guided tour of the Royal Mews doesn’t take you through every single coach. So it’s possible to come back and pick up the ones that you missed afterwards. As well as look at some of the more interactive exhibits in the stable area. The main point of interest is the Queen Elizabeth Gold State Coach. Which is very ornate, covered in gold leaf and complete with waxwork horses and guards. As mentioned photos are allowed throughout the Royal Mews and the carriage itself tends to be a popular photo spot.

Buckingham Palace State Rooms

There are three entrances to the Buckingham Palace State Rooms. If you pre-booked your tickets as we did, then you want entrance C. It is possible to buy tickets for the same day for Buckingham Palace State Rooms and also the other attractions. However, you do run the risk of not being able to get in. So it is best to book them in advance when possible.

The Buckingham Palace State Rooms are the main attraction and for this reason, I left them to last. The security area is larger and set up to cope with more demand. Once through you can pick up an audio guide which will take you around the 14 rooms. At the moment there is a special exhibition surrounding the Coronation. This means that the Diamond Jubilee State Coach is also in the courtyard area at the moment. This means you can’t take pictures of this because of where it is. Although normally is in the Royal Mews where you can, it will be returned there at some point.

There is a small shop stall as you enter into the main Buckingham Palace State Room area selling water for £2 and guidebooks in various different languages. We found that the numbers contained within the entrance times were not too high. And therefore although busy it wasn’t too bad, so we didn’t miss or couldn’t see anything which is nice as tickets are limited.

What do you see?

Buckingham Palace is the King’s official London residence. Each room you enter is stunning with floor-to-ceiling opulence. But in a slightly understated way which you would expect from a royal residence. Among others, we saw the grand staircase, the throne room, the white drawing room, the state dining room, the music room and of course the beautiful picture gallery. Full of pictures of Queen Victoria, as well as a private collection of artwork including masterpieces from Van Dyck and Canaletto.

We took about an hour and a half to walk around Buckingham Palace State Rooms, listening to the multimedia guide. The main Coronation display is in the ballroom where you can see the robes worn by the King and Queen.

You exit the Buckingham Palace State Room is right next to the café. However, it was extremely busy by the time we reached it at 4 pm. Exit to the palace is through the gardens although these were roped off you can’t sit on the lawn unlike when we visited for a summer picnic in Buckingham Palace gardens.

However, as you walk past the garden there is a large gift shop and toilets with the opportunity to refill water bottles at water fountains. This was the only place we saw during our visit that you could do this. If you want to extend your ticket to a 12-month one, then you need to do this before exiting the palace grounds. On the pathway to the exit here is a little stall where you can do this. The exit brings you out at Hyde Park Corner and it is a little bit disorientating because it is at the back of the palace. If you want to head back towards Victoria, then you need to turn left, turning right will take you into Hyde Park.

Conclusions

Aiming to see all three attractions with children in tow is quite a challenge, but one that is possible and it will help maximise the value of your tickets. We have stamped our tickets to return within 12 months and hope to do so when there is a new exhibition on at the Queen’s Gallery.

Two years ago, we had a picnic on the lawn in the Royal gardens. Drawing comparisons between the two, I would suggest that we probably enjoyed the beautiful gardens more. I think the kids enjoyed the nice cakes and sitting on the lawn in the sun more than going into the Buckingham Palace State Rooms. Although looking around the attractions is very interesting. And they do their best to make it engaging for the children.

When can you visit Buckingham Palace and how much does it cost?

Opening dates and times

Buckingham Palace State Rooms are open to visitors for 10 weeks in the Summer months. Dates for 2023 were from, Friday the 14th of July to Sunday the 24th of September. They are also open on selected times of the year for exclusive guided tours during Winter and Spring. More information on the private tours is available on the website.

Opening hours are from 9.30 am with the last entry at 5.15 pm and closing at 7.30 pm in July and August. While in September they close a little earlier with the last entry at 4.15 pm and closing at 6.30 pm.

Buckingham Palace Ticket prices

It is a good idea to book your tickets in advance via the Royal Collection Trust to guarantee the entry times you want and also save money on tickets purchased on the day. We booked a Royal Day Out ticket which gave us access to The Royal Mews, Queen’s Gallery and Buckingham Palace State Rooms.

In 2023 they cost £55.80 per adult, £31 for a child and under 5s are free. They run a special family offer for a Buckingham Palace visit. Which means that families booking a Royal Day Out can save up to £28.00 when booking directly. The family discount is automatically applied at checkout to bookings of at least 1 adult and 2 children, up to 2 Adults and 4 children.