WiFi in London - Stratford area

A lot of pubs, cafes and coffee shops have free wifi, yes. Coffee shops very often do, McDonald's does I think. You won't ever be too far from somewhere you can log in. There's also wifi on many tube stations.

If you see a network called "The Cloud" it's worth registering with them - it's free, all over the place in London, and fairly easy to set up.

What I'd say about the BT Openzone service is that some you have to pay for and some you don't. If you get, say, a 'Heineken Hub' hotspot in a pub - which is operated by BTO - that's free for an hour. If you get one of their premium hotspots, you have to buy time and log in and out etc.

BT Openzone, in my experience, is slow as hell. Better off nipping into a coffee shop. Buy a couple of teas or whatever your drink and you can access their wifi. Most independent shops will have their own wifi too.

You can access wifi on the Tube now, I'm told, but it never works for me.

Yep, there's Wifi everywhere. Starbucks and McDonalds are the big names for free Wifi.

The iPass hotspot finder lists a lot of free Wifi spots.

BT OpenZone is...well, whenever I ran across it, it hijacked my iPhone then tried to insist I pay for wifi. And slow? Yeah. Slow to load the part of the page where you could tell it to go away, anyhow.

crunchyblanket said:

You can access wifi on the Tube now, I'm told, but it never works for me.

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It works at quite a few stations but not all, so if you're on the platform in a wified-up station you can get on ok. If you're on a train, it's a race when you get to a station to see if it can get a connection before the doors close and you end up in a tunnel again.

It's not free any more, either, unless you're with one of the mobile networks partnered with Virgin, or unless you pay for access (to which I say, I don't need wifi on the tube that badly, thanks.)

Myrealana said:

Excellent. Our cell carrier doesn't have good international coverage for calls and texts, but if we have our WiFi enabled smartphones, my husband and I will at least be able to check train schedules, look for restaurants, and such while we're out and about.

The flat we've rented has WiFi, but it's nice to know we can check in when we're away from home.

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If your smartphones are unlocked for use on other networks, you ought to be able to buy a Pay-As-You-Go SIM card from a local provider, with 3G data allowance, and just use that for your stay. But you should be fine with Wifi.

Let me know if you want any restaurant recommendations?

You might want to consider a second mortgage for the three train tickets to Cardiff! There are plenty of less 'museumy' attractions in London like the London Dungeon and Madame Tussaud's.

Train tickets are a lot cheaper if you buy them far enough in advance - try National Rail Enquiries - but you have to decide what time you're going to travel.

For another food experience, what's more British than curry? I don't have any particular restaurant recommendations though.

If you're interested in Doctor Who, you could visit some filming locations. One that's easy to find, though not terribly picturesque, is St Thomas's Hospital in central London on the south bank of the Thames, where they filmed some exteriors for the episode where the hospital got sent to the moon.

Oxford is nice for a visit and not very far from London. I appreciate you probably aren't interested in the museums, but maybe you'd like to go punting on the river?

It would be smart to organise visitor travel cards or Oyster cards for getting around London using the tube, overground train & buses. Paying for single journeys is d#mn expensive.
Take a look here http://visitorshop.tfl.gov.uk/

Definitely get Oystercards! Individual fares will just suck money out of your pocket.

*running past really quickly*

London/Cardiff train fare is extortionate but London/Cardiff coach fare is a mere tenner (or something around that price). National Express London Victoria to Cardiff Central is your route. The Train and bus stations are next to each other in Cardiff, right in the city centre.

If it's a nice day in Cardiff, I love St Fagans which is ten minutes out of the city. They've filmed Doctor Who there. In fact, they've filmed Doctor Who everywhere.

The Norwegian Church just around the corner from the Doctor Who Experience is nice if you want a light meal/tea and cake. You may also like Craft in the Bay, which is the shop for the Makers Guild of Wales, a three minute walk from the Church. I don't know if it's gone now, but there used to be a shrine to Ianto from Torchwood down by the door to the Torchwood offices.

I was once waiting for a bus outside the Millennium Centre in the bay when a taxi drew up and a dozen Japanese businessmen jumped out, photographed each other in front of the silver fountain thing the Torchwood office is supposed to be beneath, then jumped back into their taxi and sped off.

In the center, Cardiff Castle (which you do have to pay for) is amazing, while the museum lobby and exterior has featured in *many* DW episodes (as well as Sherlock, and Upstairs Downstairs, and anything made by BBC Wales which needed columns and a marble floor).

And, if your son knows London through the media, take a bus, whether an actual bus tour, or just a ride past the great landmarks: Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, British Museum, Tower of London (although you should see inside the Tower and the British Museum, really).
All the iconic 'establishing shots' that indicate 'set in London' for a TV show or a movie.
Walk down Downing Street to see Number 10 (also on Dr. Who, I believe) which is used as shorthand for the Prime Minister, in movies, on shows and the news.

What are your son's interests, aside from Doctor Who? Does he talk about anything in particular that he would have liked to see if he could go?

And, you are wonderful parents to do this for your son, I hope the experience is as fulfilling as mine was. I was about the same age, last year in high school, not a family trip but the school organized tours, and I saved from my part-time job, for two years, to go.
It was life changing, in that I went several times afterwards by myself. Sometimes it's just the little stuff that you see on the way to the other stuff that makes you think "This is real, and this is different from home".

I second the bus tour. They are good for taking you around the obvious sites. Hampton Court Palace is great, but needs a whole day. It is on the edge of London and will take a good while to get to from Stratford.