London Combo Tickets and Bus Tours
The best attraction tour in London costs nothing extra, and most visitors never realize it’s included in a ticket they already bought.
The Tower of London’s Yeoman Warder tours, the guides nicknamed Beefeaters, are free with the £37 standard adult admission and depart roughly every 30 to 45 minutes from just inside the main gate. They’re also the only way in to the Tower’s own chapel, St Peter ad Vincula, which isn’t otherwise open to visitors; details on times sit on hrp.org.uk . Time your entry around one of these departures rather than treating the tour as optional background noise. One warning worth repeating here: this has nothing to do with Beefeater Gin’s distillery in Kennington, a completely separate business that closed its own public visitor tours from 1 January 2026. The nickname is shared; the attraction is not.
Beyond the free tour, London’s paid attraction-tour scene splits into buses, boats and combo tickets. Big Bus London and Golden Tours both run double-decker hop-on-hop-off circuits with recorded commentary past the Zone 1 sights, and current routes and fares are worth checking on GetYourGuide before you buy, since this segment discounts and repromotes often. City Cruises runs the standard daytime Thames sightseeing route past Big Ben, the London Eye and Tower Bridge, a lower-stakes purchase you can usually decide on the day.
For families or anyone wanting three attractions on one ticket, the Madame Tussauds, SEA LIFE London Aquarium and London Dungeon combo runs £59 off-peak to £69 peak, valid across a 90-day window, with a “Great British Summer Savings” promotion trimming the price further from 25 June to 1 September 2026. Search combo ticket pricing on Viator before buying direct, since bundled prices shift with the season.
One more thing worth knowing before you book anything near the Tower, Westminster Abbey or the London Eye: third-party resellers and street touts mark up official prices or sell fake “skip-the-line” products around all three, usually from a clipboard or a folding table right outside the gate. Stick to official venue sites, like bigbustours.com for the bus circuit, or a recognized aggregator, and never hand over cash or card details to a street vendor no matter how official their lanyard looks.
Verdict: build your day around the free Yeoman Warder tour first, since it costs nothing and disappears if you miss the departure window, then decide on a bus, boat or combo ticket based on how much walking your group has left in it. For the free museums and paid monuments these tours orbit, see the sightseeing guide .