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FANCY zooming across the streets of London taking in the Christmas lights like Kristen Scott Thomas? We’ve got just the ticket (literally).

But don’t worry, you won’t have to sit in one of the tuk tuks – instead, you’ll be getting the best view from the top of an open top bus.

Save 20% on The Original Tour’s Christmas Lights London Bus Tour + Thames sightseeing cruise included. Use code: FESTIVELONDON

You’ll cruise underneath the magical displays, avoiding the shopping crowds and get incredible views of London along the way.

What’s even better news is that The Original Tour has cut the price of its Christmas Lights Tour tickets by 20 per cent.

If you click here and enter the code FESTIVELONDON at checkout, adult tickets drop from £36 down to just £28.80.

Children’s tickets will drop from £22 to £17.60, and infants under two travel free.

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The tour kicks off on Coventry Street, where you’ll climb aboard one of the Christmas-themed double-decker buses and hunker down in a seat on the upper deck.

The bus will head past illuminated London spots while a tour guide sprinkles joy telling festive facts and jokes along the way.

From the top deck, you’ll be able to see the golden angels of Regent Street and the beautiful canopy across Oxford Street.

While Oxford Street has been recently pedestrianised, you’ll still be able to go down a section of it by Marble Arch.

For anyone who loves window shopping, gaze upon the shopfronts of stores in Bond Street, and take in the buzz of Piccadilly Circus from the comfort of the top deck.

Get your cameras at the ready for when you cruise past Trafalgar Square as it’s home to a huge Christmas tree, gifted to the UK from Norway.

Whether you’re after a family outing, a date night under the twinkling lights or a solo day to yourself, the tour is suitable for everyone.

It lasts up to 90 minutes and will run from November 14 to January 3.

There are lots of times to choose from too with the first bus departing at 4:30pm and the last at 9pm.

Make sure to wrap up warm, and why not pick up a hot chocolate to stay cosy onboard?

There’s more…

If you buy a Christmas Tour ticket, it includes a daytime River Thames cruise too.

So you can have a full sightseeing day in London, one from the road, and another from the water.

Cruises start at four points in London; Westminster Pier, Tower Pier, Greenwich Pier, or the London Eye Pier, so there’s flexibility in how you plan the day.

Along the Thames River cruise you’ll lots of London landmarks including Big Ben and the London Eye.

If you still haven’t had your city fix, the ticket allows for SIX free self-guided walking tours.

Whether you want to walk in the footsteps of Harry Potter or learn the spooky secrets of Jack the Ripper, you can listen to them all on The Original Tour’s partner app at your leisure.

You’ll be able to explore the city for under £30 – and at Christmas, every saving helps.

The FESTIVELONDON code is valid to use right now through to January 3, 2027, so now’s the time to lock in your dates.

Save 20% on The Original Tour’s Christmas Lights London Bus Tour + Thames sightseeing cruise included. Use code: FESTIVELONDON

FESTIVELONDON expires on 03/01/2027 11:59pm (BST).

Terms and Conditions:
The offer is available from 12 October 2026 until 3 January 2027, with tours running daily from 14 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, excluding Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The discount applies to adult and child tickets only, excludes family tickets and cannot be combined with other offers. Blackout dates apply and are from 21 December 2026 to 30 December 2026. Blackout dates are dates during which promotional offers cannot be used. More information can be found on the website at theoriginaltour.com.

*Prices correct at the time of publication.

The U.S. Justice Department expanded its efforts to intervene in California’s ongoing election Friday, sending letters to more than a dozen county elections offices statewide with demands that they segregate ballots from voters the Trump administration believes are noncitizens.

The letters — which give officials 48 hours to act and threaten them with criminal punishments if they refuse — follow similar correspondence the Justice Department sent last week to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar’s office, calling for some 20,000 ballots statewide be set aside and left uncounted until state and local officials can prove that the voters are citizens.

When Weber and Logan balked, the Justice Department promptly sued them and the state in a case currently pending in federal court. The California officials have contended the Justice Department’s efforts are illegal.

The new letters, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, follow previous threats from Justice Department officials and President Trump warning that local California elections officials could face criminal prosecution for being “aiders and abettors to a federal crime” if they tabulate votes from the “likely noncitizens” the administration has flagged.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles said 57 of California’s 58 counties were served the letters, with the exception of Los Angeles, which had already received a notice.

“The letters speak for themselves. Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Essayli wrote Friday evening on X that “California does not verify citizenship status. We did the work for them. We obtained the registered voter list and told them who we believe are noncitizens on their rolls.”

Essayli wrote that “knowingly processing noncitizen ballots is a federal crime,” and said authorities “will hold election officials accountable. No one is above the law.”

The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry from The Times. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office declined to comment.

Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, who is president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said, “From what I’ve been able to gather, most counties if not all of the counties are doing what I’m doing: Sat down with our counsel, went over everything,” Webber said.

Webber said two people with Justice Department credentials showed up at her office Friday and handed her a manila envelope with the letter inside demanding she comply within 48 hours to determine the citizenship of 81 people in her county.

“I can’t tell you anything other than I’m looking at it and doing my due diligence,” she said. “This is not normal protocol for us.”

Kristin Connelly, head of the Contra Costa County registrar’s office, said she was also among those who received a letter. She said she had not yet responded as of late Friday, but was in contact with her county counsel and “colleagues around the state who received similar letters today.”

“The non-partisan Contra Costa County Elections Division administers elections according to all state and federal election laws, as well as the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. Our work is observable,” Connelly said. “This threat is not helpful and is intended to intimidate.”

The letter she received, from U.S. Atty. Craig Missakian, was full of threats of criminal punishment for tabulating votes from individuals whom the county is “on actual notice” may not be U.S. citizens.

Missakian, the top federal prosecutor in the Northern District of California, wrote that he was providing Connelly with a “subset” of “407 likely aliens” from the broader statewide list of 20,000 voters, and demanded that Connelly commit within 48 hours to working with Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security officials to identify who among those 407 “is a citizen and who is not.”

“That means sending us the nonpublic information associated with each suspected alien’s registration, which includes everything in your possession from the following: a social security number, a copy of a state ID or driver’s license or the information that appears on it, a copy of the voter registration application supporting the registration, and a copy or list of documents that were presented by the registrant at the time the person registered to vote or obtained their driver’s license if registered as part of motor voter,” Missakian wrote.

He also wrote that he was reaching out by letter “to make unmistakably clear the legal implications of continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those people on the list or tabulating ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified.”

The Justice Department previously sued California for its voter records. A federal judge rejected the lawsuit, calling the demands a threat to democracy. The Justice Department has also lost similar cases demanding voter rolls in dozens of other states.

California Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement Friday that, “Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are trying to interfere in California elections.”

Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which has oversight over federal elections, added: No matter how many lawsuits they file or how many election officials they threaten, they do not have the authority to interfere.”

Padilla told local election officials, “We have your back.”

“The Trump administration is afraid and desperate,” he said. “Their attempts to take over our elections will fail.”

The Justice Department has received some records by subpoenaing state and county officials for the records of specific voters.

The letters were a topic of discussion among members of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials Friday, with officials working on how to respond.

Logan, L.A. County’s top elections official, sent an email to fellow association members saying he had seen a copy of the letter to some counties — which he condemned as misrepresenting facts and threatening elections officials “twelve days before the election” through a “posture of intimidation.”

Logan called the 48-hour deadline for responses “unenforceable,” and noted that the Justice Department was “demanding individual level data from the named counties similar to what it has previously only obtained through subpoenas.”

Logan’s office has also said that an initial review it conducted of a subset of the 20,000 voters the Justice Department initially flagged found many were born in the U.S., many weren’t actually registered and many had never voted.