London during Olympics?

As a tourist, would you go near London during or immediately after the Summer games this year?

While there would be lots of energy, the place will be a zoo during. Have you looked at hotel rates during? [cry.gif] It’s already a hustling bustling place. After would be best.

By shear coincidence I’ve been to two places right before the Olympics and it was great. Locals were excited, everything was working, clean, and not very crowded.

Was in Vancouver during winter olympics - awesome
Had many family/friends in Beijing during summer - all positive… of course there are crowds, but if you go in with the right expectations it’s a good experience.

I wouldn’t hesitate going to London if i had the time…

No. Not on a bet.

I’m going in mid-June and Sept, which I think are the best times to visit. The weather is generally pretty good (for London) and those times are before and after summer vacations. London will be too overcrowded during the Olympics for my tastes.

Hard to tell whether London will be too crowded or possibly the complete opposite. Normally, it would be much quieter in London the first 2 weeks in August as loads of people go away on holiday then. This year, everyone is so afraid of the traffic chaos due to all the road closures for the olympics that there is a good chance so many people leave that the only people here are the tourists. Clearly, hotels will be a lot more expensive but I’m not sure the risk of it being busier than normal would put me off.

Beijing had traffic controls during the Olympics(odd and even car days based on license plates) and was a pleasure to move about during that time. People were very helpful and excited as well as the city being cleaned up. Cant say for London but would expect the londoners to put their best foot forward.

As I posted previously, London is a complete ghost town as far as the local working population is concerned. No traffic issues at all, plenty of hotel availability and very cheap rates. SHame the weather is just like it has been since April…cool, cloudy and wet.

My experience of the olympic venues has been excellent - incredilby friendly, polite crowds with loads of staff around to guide you to/from events.

According to a BBC news report yesterday, central London is quieter than normal.

I presume the Olympic visitors are in east London as opposed to central London.

Not really as venues spread all over the place - horse guards for beach volleyball, wimbledon for tennis, earls court for indoor volleyball etc etc. Plus, most tourists I would expect to be staying at hotels in central london. Reality is, all the locals have decamped.

The BBC news report yesterday include a s bit about a hotel discounting the rate for their top room from £500 to £100 if I recall correctly.

I think visitors who would normally visit London for the summer may have been put off by the possibility of excessive crowds due to the Olympics.

That’s correct. London normally gets over a million tourists in august. Doesn’t take that high a percentage of them to have been scared off to outweigh the olympic tourists coming.

Things might get busier this weekend and next week though as the athletics start.