visiting London - what should we do?

Hello-

We're going to be taking a trip down to London in a month - we'll only be there for 2-3 days and we've got 5 kids - ages 10, 9, 6, 4, and 2 years.  I've been doing quite a bit of research on good things to do there with the kids, but since neither my husband nor myself have ever been there, I'm looking for suggestions.  What are the places we should definitely see and what are the ones to avoid.  The kids are pretty excited about the London Eye - how will this be with kids?  Also, we'd kind of like to do one of those tour boats or buses - can anyone recommend one?

Thanks for the help! 

The one thing I would recommend is a London duck tour.  In case you didn't know the duck is a WW11 amphibious craft.  The website is www.londonducktours.co.uk 
You should pre-book.  I personally have not been on the London one but my English friend who lives in London went a couple years ago just for something to do and she said it was very good.  I have done two duck tours, one in Seattle and one in Queensland Australia and both were a lot of fun.  Your children would love it.

The London Eye is good, also I would pre-book.  The London aquarium is right there by the London Eye, we were very disappointed but then again we have seen some of the best aquariums in the world and the one is London isn't one of them.

We were also disappointed with the London aquarium. I think the kids will enjoy the london eye. The London Tower was a huge hit with us and with my daughter although she was older-- 14 at the time. I think the kids will enjoy it..the tours are entertaining.

I highly recomment the hop on and off bus tours most include a riverboat tour with the tickets. I don't think there is a huge difference between the tours, we have done the origninaltour bus tour and the big bus bus tour. If I remember correctly only one had a live tourguide the other was taped...I prefer the live guide personally, but I don't think it a huge difference. They are great because when the kids are tired you can just ride and listen and get off when you want. I think it is worth seeing the changing of the guards with kids; but it often is hard to get the timing right to catch it.

I am sure you will have a great time! You might want to look into the london pass if you are planning on many attractions...it allows you to jump the queue in a lot of places, well worth in my opinion, you could just get a one day pass and do the costly things like the london tower on the day with it.
http://www.londonpass.com/index.asp?aid=213&gclid=CIHX0cPI-JoCFcME3goddT-Eew

I am sure you will have a great time!

What about the Natural History Museum and/or the Science Museum (both are free entry)? I've never actually been to either, but I'm dying to visit them both .

Thanks so much for the replies - we had actually seen something on the duck tours and they looked pretty interesting - thanks for all the input!

http://londonelegance.com/transpondia/info/

We went to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden yesterday, and it is fantastic.  I'd really recommend it, and there is lots of stuff for children to do.

Vicky

Free Stuff:

 Natural History Museum: has a really good dinosaur exhibition.
 Science Museum: has lots of buttons to push and can entertain all ages.
 Tate Modern:  very, very child friendly, plus it's right next to the Millennium bridge and the Globe.  And the walk from the London Eye down the river to the Tate is nice.
China Town - is fascinating to kids and you can get a good meal there for not too much.

Stuff that costs but is really good:
London Zoo -very big on the ecology aspects, there is a new nice gorilla enclosure and the new monkey house is really cool (you can get really close to the tiny monkeys and the sloths. Plus you can go in the reptile house and see where Harry Potter talked to the snake -very cool if they've seen the movie.  Well worth a visit.
Transport museum -is pretty good with lots of buses and tube trains to climb on.  Plus the gift shop is good.
The London Eye: buy the guide, it's really cool to try to spot all the different things and if you don't know London well it helps to know what you're looking at.

If you're taking the train in at all make sure to check out the website for really good twoforone deals that you use with your train tickets but do it from home as you can't get the brochure from the station any more.
The Tower and the Globe are okay but not that interesting to little kids.