Hurry up to book Ceremony of the Keys in London
I am going on the Italia Bella tour with two grandkids on June 10th. We are visiting London on our own the week before and just booked tickets for the Ceremony of the Keys. This event takes place every night at 9:30 as it has for the past 900 years. While I have not done this tour, it has been highly recommended to me by many friends who have attended this ceremony. They don't publicize this much as it sells out almost instantly. It is only 5 pounds per ticket. I went online at 3:00 this morning as this was the first day available for June. With three devices trying to sign in I gave up after an hour and went to sleep at 4:00, quite disappointed as I was following this for a year. At 6:15 I tried again and fortunately got in without an issue and was able to grab 4 tickets for June 7th. Just before I started to type this post, about 10 days are already filled and another 10 days have limited availability, so if you want a date in June, do it NOW. The URL is
**tickets.hrp.org.uk **or google Ceremony of the Keys and follow the link there. If you want tickets for July or August, you need to try as early as possible on June 1st or July 1st, from 3:00 AM to whenever. There is a reason this sells out so fast, so I wanted to share with you London Tauck guests for a late nite event on a non-Tauck night. I will post again after we take the tour, but if you want June, try NOW. Sandman
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Update, the link I posted takes you to a site for all Historic Palaces. Just google Ceremony of the Keys and follow the links on this page to buy tickets.
You are talking about the Tower of London?
Yes, the Ceremony of the Keys takes place at the Tower of London. Checked this morning and much of June has sold out already and this is only the 2nd day to request tickets.
This is just a half hour visit to the Tower. It does not make sense to me to visit just to see this. Tou enter at 9-30pm and are escort out at 10-05 pm. The Tower of London takes hours to go around. If you want to see it, I recommend getting tickets for as soon as the Tower opens in the morning and head straight to the Crown Jewels to see them before the line gets very long. We did this a couple of years ago and there were only a handful of people in the room. after that, you can join any guided walk with a Beefeater, see the famous Ravens and hear a very interesting talk about them. Then stroll around the many other areas.
An acting friend in England became a Beefeater there. To qualify, you have to have been in the forces for I believe it is 25 years. I think he was a tailor in the army. He came to the amateur acting group my husband belonged to on retirement and then turned to on stage in a show called Blitz by Lionel Bart who wrote Oliver. The show is a musical about the Blitz in London and includes soldier uniforms which is why he was so involved. My husband was in the show and so were our two children, dressed in grey 1940’s uniforms. All the children had a blast. My son looked particularly cute in his knee length woolen pants and had one line which brought the house down. Years later, when we moved to the US, there was a high school trip to London including the Tower. Imagine how impressed my son’s friends were when he was able to find our friend and remind him who he was. I have a get photo of the towcof them. Great memories!
The above post is correct that attending the Ceremony of the Keys is not to be confused with touring the Tower of London. No visit inside the buildings and the Crown Jewels are certainly locked up for the night. I have attended the Ceremony twice as a guest of the Yeomen Warders, and it is impressive, but for the public you are ushered in and out quite quickly.
Unless, of course, you are invited for drinks at the Yeomen Warders' private club for drinks afterwards!
Our farewell dinner during England, Scotland, Wales in 2013 was held in one of the circular towers (Lanthorn or Wakefield Tower?) in the inner-wall near "Traitor's Gate." After dinner, as part of the evening, we were able to witness the Ceremony of the Keys which is fairly short- the history is more interesting than the actual ceremony. It was getting dark and I don't believe flash was allowed because I don't have any photos of the ceremony.
You have a great view of Tower Bridge from the Tower of London.
Our TD had important friends
As Alan said, dinner in the Wakefield Tower (where Henry VI was murdered) and the ceremony of the keys used to be the farewell dinner on the ESW tour. For me as a lover of British history and an anglophile it was one of the tour highlights. For the average Tauck traveler, it was probably viewed as a mediocre farewell dinner. It has now been replaced by dinner at the Savoy.
London in early June will be busy with the queen's jubilee celebration and the queen's birthday celebration both taking place in the first two weeks of June.
For more information on the platinum jubilee celebration see here:
https://royal.uk/platinumjubilee
For those interested in military ceremonies, check the website for household guard. They usually hold "beating retreat" on Horse Guards Parade on two nights in June, but not this year (probably because of the jubilee). They are having a musical event in July which looks to be much the same. A calendar of events is here:
https://householddivision.org.uk/events
More information on the household guard's regular ceremonial events (including the overhyped and overcrowded changing of the guard) can be found here:
https://householddivision.org.uk/ceremonial-events
Sorry British that this ceremony doesn't meet your standards. Having an event at 9:30 at night will give the kids an exciting end to the evening. I know it is not a long event, but for 5 pounds what do you expect? If anyone is interested I would suggest reading the reviews of this ceremony that has taken place for 900 years. I did and I am intrigued and know my grandkids will love the exclusivity of a small group at night with the guards. I suggested this for families on the Bridges tour, not older guests such as British. Today is only the second-day tickets are available and June is almost gone. I would think anyone on a July or August tour may want to take advantage of my suggestion to get online as early as possible on the 1st of the month when the ticket site opens.
We got a taxi to the Tower when we were staying at the Savoy hotel. I just wanted people to realize there are hours of things to do at the Tower. It closed quite early during the day so you can’t really hang around for the Keys ceremony. It’s not about my standards, it’s just information like your post Sandman.
British, the Castle and Kings tour is a Bridges Tour aimed at travelers with kids. The 1st stop on this tour is the Tower of London. My recommendation is for something special to do in the evening when you are on your own and not with Tauck. I am just trying to give anyone interested a head up that this Ceremony fills up quickly. This morning, day 3 since it went online for tickets, there are only a few days with only limited availability. You snooze you lose!
A final update (maybe!) So I just went to the Ceremony of the Keys ticket site and June is sold out. This is why I tried to give a heads-up to those interested in going. Unless something else comes up, I will comment again after we do this event on June 7th. I hope it is as good as I have read.
One last post for those on July tours. If you want to add the Ceremony of the Keys, you need to log onto their site as early as possible oh July 1st. Just a suggestion. Don't know why some previous posts were flagged as spam, I am not selling anything!
I have been writing about the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London for a few months. Finally did the tour last night and it was a great end to our day after watching several changing of the Guard events. The whole ceremony takes about 35 minutes, but there were less than 40 people there so it is like they are doing the ceremony for you. Tickets for the July days sold out by June 2nd so if anyone on an August trip is interested, they would have to get online on July 1st to secure tickets. Our granddaughters, tired from a long day, enjoyed this ceremony more than those they saw in the morning.