Bernadette Kaczmarczyk

Review of Big Bus Tours - London

Great as a hop on experience if you manage to get ...

Great as a hop on experience if you manage to get a seat and just stay on and do the circuit. Once you hop off that is when the disaster begins! Obviously this company needs to invest in more buses for the number of tickets they sell. We only had one full day in London so we thought a hop on hop off would be the best way to maximize our time since we have done this in other countries and it was a great experience. We were wrong, taking the Big Bus ruined most of our day and became an added expense.
We managed to complete a portion of the red line early in the day, but once we got off at the pier it was impossible to get on a bus that was jammed packed with people. We finally did get on an over crowded bus; for this experience we could have taken the local transit! After our stop at the palace we got onto another bus, well this one stopped part way through the route and we sat there for approx. 10-15 min. Guess it was their shift change? Oh but it gets worse!! After taking a break to walk around we had hoped to do one more loop and do the evening tour. We waited for over an hour and not a single bus came by! It is handy to have an app. only if it is accurate, according to their schedule several buses should have come by. As others have complained there is no way of getting current information on the status of the buses. Frustrated at this point, and with our luck, the line for the tube was also temporarily shut down, we resorted to taking a cab back to our hotel, an added expense, and a ruined evening, due to the unreliability of the Big Bus.