City Sightseeing San Francisco Review

Always a good experience no matter where in the world you are.

Don t waste your money! They don t have enough busses and drivers to accommodate the amount of people they book. We had to wait over an hour twice at their bus stop on 2 different days and had to uber. We watched plenty of the other company busses drive by. The last bus we took we so packed that we had to stand up and an older lady fell because the driver jammed on the brakes. The guides are literally asking for tips every 10 minutes and most of them were awful. 1 of them was keep making R rated jokes with kids listening, the other one talked about the house paint colors for 30 mins, he was keep repeating himself. Last bus guide actually sang 3 times!!!!!... Last day the redline bus driver called in sick so they cancelled the tour and overcrowded the other busses. It was like the twilight zone.

The girls at the counter were snotty and rude. The website just said to meet at the locale at 9am. It did not say that despite buying tickets online you still needed to go in to their office and wait in a long line to get paper tickets. Almost missed our bus.

Bought a two day pass for a great price of $35 per person and took 4 different tours in 2 days. The guides knew the area and really helped us understand the history and decide what we wanted to do after the tours. Really a good deal and great use of time.

We did this in South Africa and really enjoyed the buses. The "real time" bus tracking is about as accurate as Donny Trump on Twitter.

The tour guides and bus drivers are great - as well as tours themselves; however, the office staff are terrible. The office itself is dimly lit and un-inviting and good luck getting them to answer the phone. We waited on hold for 10+ minutes and when we arrived to the office to turn our Groupon into tickets to board the bus there were no other customers and 3 employees.

We're unsure why not a single one of the three employees could pick up the phone within 10 minutes.

Again, we loved the tour, we loved the tour guides, we loved the drivers, but the overall experience because of the lack of responsiveness from the office staff really brought down the whole experience for us.

Terrible! Would not recommend. Busses either do not show up or do not show up in the times/increments they tell you. They even gave us another family's tickets to Alcatraz! Our tour bus that was going to take us from the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito did not show up after 2 hours. What a great way to spend a vacation! When we called customer service they did not answer. Terrible. Would love our money back. If you are looking for a hop on hop off tour of San Francisco, definitely try greyline. We heard great things about them and saw many of them pass us by while waiting for our tour busses that never showed up.

I had a very pleasant experience touring with this company. We started the tour later in the day so didn't get off on any of the stops. Therefore, I can't say anything about the regularity of buses coming in at each stop but it gave a tour of most of the must-see places in San Francisco and the tour guide told us interesting stories about those places along the way. Great customer service too.

If you are in San Francisco for the first time, I highly recommend taking a guided tour of the city. Especially to get an idea of where you are and what to see then specifically. The narrative voice in Italian will explain not only the most beautiful places you will see, but also details and curiosities that are not found in the tourist guides. AN IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION: Punctuality is sacred to Americans. If the appointment with the bus is at 9 in front of the hotel, be there even half an hour before. Knowing it, we have done so. The bus arrived at 8.45 am, picked us up and left. Other tourists should have gone upstairs, but they had lingered at Starbucks and, not being present, the driver left. If an American tells you a time, always calculate half an hour before.

I love these bus tours. They're a great way to get acclimated quickly. It also helps if you get a great tour guide. Grab this tour in San Francisco and make sure to ask for "Soda Pop!" He's a wonderful and knowledgeable guide with a quick wit. Easily worth every cent of the $45 that they charged.

Good tour for seeing the main attractions of the city and learning about it's history. But lines for the bus do get long at times and some of the drivers are quite rude and pushy. However, tour guides are nice people. The two day tour is the best option and you can probably get away with going more than two days as they hardly check your ticket.

This is a terrible service, I don't recommend this at all because of their frequency of the shuttles. We ended up waiting at each drop off point for over an hour while the rest of the carriers had 3 or 4 shuttles in that timespan. You end up more than half your time waiting for the shuttle :-(

Very long waits between the hop's (up to 45min). Stops are not visible at all, even the tour bus card does not help much. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun with the bus guide, which was very amusing.

They are very unprofessional and pathetic service. No one pick call . Staff is as rude as one can go to maximum. No one is taking responsibility.

The service is good. You can see most off the city in a short time. Very good for tourist.

On average, you wait three times for the buses that supposedly run every half hour (meanwhile you can see 3-4 vehicles from the other providers). If someone comes, it is so crowded that you have to stand narrowed down and see nothing at all. If you plan to get out somewhere, you can't go a whole round with a bus route in one day.

Better take another company or even better with public transport

Paid for a Muir Woods tour. Bus leaving Fisherman's Wharf and Golden Gate Bridge were on time. Bus leaving for Muir Woods from Sausalito was late and over booked. Some customers had to wait for the next one, two hours later. Bus going to Muir Woods did not have working air conditioning and the temperature outside was 100+ degrees. Tour guide provided no interesting information about the area. Ferry going back to San Francisco was overbooked. Ended up paying extra for Uber. Recommend using a different service to go to Muir Woods.

Very good round trip. Looks like most of san francisco. Unfortunately tourguide only in english but with little understanding to understand well

Comfortable ride. Our guide had lots if interesting things to share.

Not impressed,cancelled services due to traffic being busy on a holiday weekend,who would have expected that? Obviously not this company who happily took our money and that of many others without ever intending to provide any kind of service.... use big bus instead! Actually just get a muni card and dart around the city instead including the tram, definitely better value for money.

They are unprofessional and far from schedule. Customer service in visitor center is not polite. They took us in different rood than map showed.

The guide was so Rude. We wanted to get off , but he was not paying attention and when I stood up and start walking and finally noticed after I got close to him.

Literally the worst of these kinds of tours we have tried. The drivers in two different buses blew right past major stops while the guides yammered on and on. We waited at one stop for over an hour and then had to stand for the rest of the ride because so croded and people had been waiting so long. Don't do it!!

We love hop on hop off buses when we re only going to be in a city for a short time. We ve used this company in other places with no issues. However, this experience in SFO was sub par. It was confusing since they merged with another company, the waits were longer than usual and one tour guide was extremely rude to us. However, we happened upon an empty bus with Suzanne and Johnny and they were fantastic! Suzanne was so knowledgeable and captivating, we didn t even want to leave the bus. She was excellent. My rating would have been much lower had it not been for that duo.

Worst experience ever,rude drivers, especially James. I won't recommend for nobody

Few buses compared to the number of customers. 1 every hour for red and one every 30 "for blue and crowded buses.
Nobody gets off at the stops, for fear of not finding a place or the buses (the stops are not indicated on the sidewalks). No audio guide but a guide (which can be a plus if you speak super fluent English. Otherwise the guides speak at full speed without consideration for foreigners.)

BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!
We made hop on hop off tours all over the world, and this is the worst one out there When you buy the tickets they tell you they drive every half an hour. Actual wait time much longer. Do not use them if you intend to leave the bus!! Appears they operate only one bus for the entire route. Waste of money, better take Uber between the stops

Great time, they kept it lively and informative, well worth expense and time.

Very disappointed with this tour. I expected to hear about the history of SF and see the important locations and buildings of the city. Instead, I learned more about the tour guide's dog and boyfriend than I did about San Francisco. I asked for the recorded audio option, but was told it wasn't an option. Some of the site's promised were pointed to as the bus drove by. Until this service improves and offers a quality San Francisco historical experience, you're better-off to rent a car and visit the site's with a history book. The city is easy to navigate by car. It's not worth paying a lot of money for this tour because you walk away with no more knowledge of SF than when you got on the bus. Very disappointing.

Well ... but when I got off at a stop I never saw another bus again

Waiting forever for the buses to show up, confusing routes and stops. Expensive, would be more cheap to just take Uber around. The guides were OK, but still doesn't make up for the waiting time.

We really enjoyed this bus tour! They have many buses, great tours and best of all they have a guide on every bus!! No recorded tape! And they were very friendly and entertaining and gave us a lot of tips about our stay in the city!

WARNING DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE. We purchased the 2 Day Hop On and Hop Off with Alcatraz on line. We waited for an hour at stop 17 and the bus never came, we saw the Big Bus service but we could not get on. Why? Well we needded to exchange our voucher at the Sightseeing location in Taylor St. Guess what? They exchanged the voucher and gave me another voucher to exchange at BIG BUS TOURS. OMG . If we had not caught an Uber to take us to the office, we would have missed picking up our Alcatraz tickets, which per the phone message system, that needed to be picked up between 9 and 10 am.

At first I thought about which company to choose, as I already had good experiences with both. I then decided on this tour and have regretted it. First, I searched for the stop because there were no signs where the bus should stop. Then I waited a relatively long time over 30 minutes. That's why I decided to go to the next stop (Union Square), because it would certainly be easier to find it. Then the snake was so long that it was time to wait again. All in all, I could not do half the tour because I spent most of my time waiting. In addition, the information is very sparse so that it was not worth it. There are great drivers and guides but still I would not book this tour anymore.

rip off - be careful of what you select. There's a huge difference between Blue Line and Red Line. Also, to save time, our drive skipped the Persidio and took a faster route to save time. When asked, his reply: "no we won't go through the Persidio".I have written a note to the Tour group and have not received a response from them.

Worst ever company. Told lies the whole time. Apparently every bus broke down. Waited over an hour and a half at one stop past the pick up time and then an additional hour at the next stop.
Would never recommend booking with this company and if you do, dont bother trying to plan your holiday around the bus hours!

Truly terrible service. Waited an entire hour for a bus to be met by an extremely rude bus driver. Not a single positive thing to say about this company. If there was a zero star would give it.

Hop in Hop off through 40 different point of San Francisco with a guided tour (they have a night tour too)

it was great to see the site's, to help fine my way around

A group of us got abandoned at Sausalito today. It's well past 5:15. 4:30 and 5 pm buses never arrived at the C3 stop. No one was at the office to pick up the call, and it's still office hour!! There's no other emergency contact number to call either. Thank God... The last Big Bus tour bus arrived at the same stop, and the driver got okay from the boss to take the whole group back to the City. Future travelers beware!

We decided to use City Sightseeing Buses to take us to Muir Woods. We had planned to get to the woods early in order to see everything. We should have expected trouble from the minute we met the rude clerk at reception. Service was rather slow also.

We literally had five minutes to cross a couple of streets to join a huge queue. Worse still there was not even enough seats for us. We were a group of seven and had spent a couple of hundred pounds on transport to Muir Woods. We were told to go on a bus and had to get three different buses to get to Muir Woods.

We arrived at Muir Woods at 12.00 which was 3 hours before we originally intended. I have never experienced such poor service. 0/5

Such a pity that City Sightseeing decided to green light having full side bus advertisements that cause very limited viewing through windows on rainy days. I understand the need for income from Activision but it totally spoilt the tour.We couldn't go upstairs due to rain and could barely see through the windows. A total disappointment compared to their other great city tours I have been on. An awful experience on an otherwise great trip to the city.

I purchased the Cityshightseeing Hop On Hop Off tickets as per order below. Unfortunately, the tour was horrible. Firstly, there were lines of more than one hour for the bus to arrive. When the bus arrived, the attendant from CitySightSeeing would not let us in for a long time because the people on the top did not want to get off. The people on the top were right and the staff was wrong but he was very rude.

We got off at Golden Gate to take the Sausalito tour. When we returned, the City tour bus did not arrive for more than an hour. All other buses (local buses, Grayline tour) were arriving but not the CitySightSeeing bus. We had to take a local bus to come back to Ghirardelli Square and as a result, did not manage to complete more than 50% of the City tour that we paid for. Even some other people on the bus did the same.

Poor. Long waits between busses, rude personnel. The reps don't give you consistent answers about times, routes, etc. At one point, when asked were a pickup point was, the answer was "Union Square". Well, in SF, what is that? About 6 square blocks? One of the guides thought Ben Franklin was a president. Not sure what school he went to, but it makes you wonder what other misinformation they include. I'd recommend looking elsewhere for a city tour.

It was one of the worst experiences I've had with a tour bus:( not on time or scheduled, left on the stops for long period of time! We were never picked up by golden gate and the last bus never showed up. Had to ask all other tour companies to give us a courtesy rides back to town and use city bus to get back to the union square to get back to our hotel! I had a 2 days pass with all different sights and only was able to get on the right bus 3 times on the red line and blue lines never a available. If it wasn't for all the other nice drivers in different tours to give us lifts and using uber in between, we would have been stranded many times. If I could get my money back I would! Great waste of $115 spent:((

We stood on the corner of Lombard and Columbus waiting for your red line for over an hour and a half. The bus tracker says there was a red bus a block away, but it remained that way for the whole time we were there. Our second call to the company, the first of which I was on hold for 30 minutes, said it was running on time and would be here in a minute. 10 minutes later we called again which was never answered so we walked down to the office. That is where I expressed my frustration which they could have not shown less concern about.
The only reason why I would even consider giving it one star is because of the tour guides. They were very entertaining.

Jeff was literally the best wine tour guide we have ever had. It was incredible! His knowledge of wine was amazing! He was courteous, helpful, and knew everything we wanted to know about the wines we were tasting, the region, etc. We highly recommend City Sightseeing!

These guys get a bad wrap but on a 3 day it was unfaultable. Sure a bit of wait but so much to see and do it's beyond worth it.

Terrific! Very entertaining. Santa hats and hot chocolate helped with the cold night air

Just had a great day with City Sightseeing. Guides are very informative and was able to take all the pictures I wanted. Couldn't have been better. Thank you!

Absolutely terrible service and incompetence. Do not waste your time or money.

HORRIBLE!!! They booked too many customers for the amount of buses. 2 hour wait at stops; busses got too full and had to drive by angry lines of waiting customers. Try another service! Their competitors were on time and had seats for people.

Appalling service. No Alcatraz tickets despite booking months ahead, paying and receiving a voucher for the date that we arrived. We went to the office before the stated time and only found disgruntled ticket holders who were dating back 3 days. This company oversells, beware! The Pier that deals with Alcatraz departures is sick of this company and their tactics.

Completely disorganized, the staff is not even aware of what is going on

Don t do it!! I usually ignore reviews because people are hard to please but I d really like my $ back on this one. Rude, unorganized & frustrating. Not my idea of a fun vacation tour.

Excellent service and tour. Quick way to get to know important City sites.

Over all enjoyed my time on the tour. All the guides and drivers were very good. The company needs to put more buses on the road. I have done Hop on Hop off in many cities and never had to wait more than 15 minutes to get on a bus. The buses were all full and I needed to wait for the next bus more than once. Bus stops are not clearly marked. Was waiting at pier 1.5 with 8 other people and watched the bus drive right by. Had to get an Uber to pier 39. Ticket was not clear that the Muir Woods were not included in the 48 hour ticket.

I was burned by yellow bus. They went out of business but Groupon is still selling tickets. I thought, we were going to buy tickets from city sightseeing tour bus. I explained what happened and they told me that they had been giving discounts to people that were burned by yellow bus. We got our 3 tickets for free and never had to wait more than 10 minutes for another bus. My friend from New York enjoyed the tour very much, the tour guide was funny and knowledgable. I would really recommend them.

we had 3 days only in San Francisco - bought a 2 day City Sightseeing bus pass - loved the info from our guides and felt this was a great way of seeing the sights and city in a short space of time. the guides were funny and friendly - really helpful team. loved the info gleaned on our tours of where to shop , where to eat, and tourist traps to avoid ! Great fun service :-)

Pick another provider. Stranded us at the Golden Gate Bridge instead of taking us on our Sausalito tour. And calling them didn't work since they don't answer the phone.

Useless tour operator. They never come back were they drop you for hours.

Only good thing with this tour is to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nice tour but it was record breaking temperatures today and my ass melted to the seat. Not bad but not sure it was worth $90 for 2 people?

buses do not stop where indicated - had to uber after waiting in hot sun for over an hour - first bus had bad audio - after using uber to get to next destination, the 2nd bus had good audio and guide - better to check reviews from the other hop-on hop-off before spending $$

Can't rely on them to get somewhere on a specific timeframe. Not enough busses, can't sit on deck so no views. There are a lot more 'big bus'ses riding around so I suggest go with them.

Don't book, customer service is awful and not enough buses.

Horrible Experience. It was a Sunday and the buses were not running on time with wait time 45 mins to an hour. Unprofessional driver screaming at customers to grab head phones and stay seated. Afraid to get off at some stops given the seedy areas near various stops and long wait times for next bus. Condition of most of the buses was poor. Rain came on our final adventure of the day with water leaking into the covered area on the lower level. We eventually had to be transferred to another bus. This was a total rip off and not worth the money.

There was no communication that the City Sightseeing had fused with the Big Bus company, so we spent almost an hour looking for a bus that didn't existed. When we finally we entered the buses, they were old, hot and super full... These guys are milking the cow and provide no comfort. The employees were really friendly, but it didn't compensate the $100 dollars for a few rides. Driving my rented car would have costed the same but a lot more comfortable.

This was hands down the worse tour I've ever been on. DO NOT DO THIS. The speakers in the first bus were blown out, so we missed all the information. We got off at Union square and we're told in half an hour that aother bus would be by. 45 minutes later a bus on the opposite line stopped, and we were told that our bus would be by in 15 minutes. Another 45 minutes passed before the bus came, and the tour guide in that was telling racist jokes so we got off and walked the rest of the way back to our hotel. Complete waste of money.

Awful experience. Absolutely advise against this company. Incredibly rude, and had to change buses three times within an hour. Didn't deliver anything they promised. Terrible. Would love a refund.

It makes a good route but it never starts on time because it hopes to fill people and it seemed to me that at some point it cut the route, however I will not deny that it was pleasant to visit San Francisco from the top of the bus. I would recommend it as long as you are not on time or without slack.

It's a little cold on the second floor, so wear it tightly. There are cases where the current state of the bus does not fit well, so be careful to schedule and ride.

Was overall reasonably pleased with the quality of this tour until came the end. The tour guide 'Beth' advised us that for our 90 minute tour which cost us $23 each, it was customary to tip $20 EACH. As someone who has been in the US for five months I know for a fact that a tip that size is grossly excessive. I am disgusted that they would prey on tourist's ignorance in this way. They are operating a scam. Avoid.

Extremely rude customer service and very prejudiced! Initially, I was looking into booking a tour with this company because I assumed they would be reputable & accommodating to our needs, as they are international.

My daughter is Deaf and therefore needs an American Sign Language Interpreter in order to fully access and benefit from the tour. There was no information about this on the website, so I called them to inquire. The first time I phoned the woman just nonchalantly said that they have tours in other languages, but not in ASL. Being from Canada, I am not too familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, so I thanked her, hung up and decided to do my research first.

I found out that businesses providing a public service are legally obligated to provide access, as per the ADA, and a phone call to a local ASL Interpreting company confirmed this. The woman from the interpreting company told me to have someone from City Sightseeing phone her so she could explain the procedure in providing an interpreter, and what the law requires.

I phoned City Sightseeing back to tell them about this, and gave them the information for the interpreting company. The man I spoke with again suggested the multi-lingual tour, and I explained that it did not matter what spoken language tour they suggested, my daughter will still not be able to HEAR it and that she needed an ASL interpreter. He put me on hold while he called them. When he came back on the line, his exact words were, "It's $90/hr for an interpreter and there's no way we would pay for that because if we do, you're practically gonna be going on the tour for free."

I questioned him with regards to how it was their LEGAL obligation to provide one for us. His response was, "Not at that price. We don't have to provide anything for you. We're not gonna pay for the interpreter's ticket AND the interpreters fee. If you want to go on the tour, it's your responsibility to arrange for what you need...... I don't have time for this." He hung up.

Please familiarize yourself with the law, City Sightseeing San Francisco. Also, please train your staff in proper customer service. Based on the reviews here, I am not the only one who has experience such appalling behaviour.

We deliberately added San Francisco as one of our stops during our trip because it is so rich in culture and history, and my daughter has a deep appreciation for that. I felt like a bus tour with a knowledgeable tour guide would be the best way to experience the city.

I will not be touring with this company, and will ensure that it is publicly known they are not abiding by the law.

Having booked in February we were not informed ticket office had been moved, being disabled walking to and from to find new address was disgraceful. Very disappointed customer s.

Utterly disorganized, rude drivers and guides that don't seem like they want to be there. Not worth the exorbitant rates these guys charge.

Racism in the bay area! Wow, warm welcome if your the "right" skin color in their eyes.
Paid for a tour, got a racist tour guide constantly telling me and my boyfriend to shut up while conversing between ourselves. And yes he said SHUT UP a million times. Others on the tour joined in. Group mentality is strong among the white folk.
Anyway, got stranded in an area OUTSIDE of the city with NO refund and NO way back home. Unfortunately, all went silent once I started recording for proof. The tour driver even slammed the door against me when I was asking about our refund. Cant even file a report due to his supporters defending his actions.
Called "customer service" and was yelled at and hung up on me.
POC BEWARE!!! Non POC dont spend your money for THIS racism.

Avoid this Sight Seeing Bus Tour at all costs. Go with the Big Bus Tour instead. We waited over an hour for the bus at Pier 39. I called their main office twice and it went into VM. Left a message and no return call back.

I then called the San Francisco Police Dept and filed a complaint.

Finally on the bus our tour guide was a tatood, chain smoking women. She was actually solicitation grandmother for tips!

This is a very unprofessional company! Please stay away. I'm not kidding you!

Go for Big Bus .. They are way better than this company ..

Its was a horrible experience rude customer service I waited for a 1 and half just for a bus and when I ask when the next bus coming they didnt have an answer for me don't waste your time just take uber

Horrible experience. They didn't respond to our confirmation emails and we lost our Alcatraz tour because of it. The customer service was unprofessional and rude. There are a bunch of other tour companies to pick from so choose one of those!

Guides were knowledgeable, but the buses were very old and not well maintained (my picture shows a seat that's not even fully bolted to the floor). Also, buses fill up super quick and you should really start from stop 1 (their office) if you want to get the best seats and a full ride around the routes without transferring buses.

Beware! I might as well have dumped my money in the bay. I bought tickets under the recommendation of our hotel concierge. The company obviously over sells tickets. Not enough busses, long waits, personnel that hate their jobs and the list goes on and on. "Hop on- Hop Off" is false advertising. It is a shame because this a beautiful city.

For me its was the best way to see the city on my really short visit at San Francisco.

Rated a 1 only due to previous experiences for City Sightseeing tours. San Francisco service was the worst that I have ever experienced. Overcrowded buses, extra long waiting times, poor drop off and on identification points. Not enough buses for the sheer mass of people that were purchasing tickets. To give you an idea people who owned tickets were left at stops waiting for hours only to be removed from the buses due to it being overweight, only to miss the next bus because there were no seats available.
Thankfully the drivers and the tour guides were fantastic, but it still didnt make up for the points mentioned above. We will be requesting a refund.

Good route and knowledgeable tour guides on the bus.
Bad, long waits at times for bus with no idea of proper schedule to know if you missed it or still to wait. Other companies (Big bus tour) have more busses that turn up more frequently.
The last evening bus is at 5pm ensure you are at the right stop to get a return journey or would have to get an uber like we did at 5pm. The bus turned up but would not let anyone on.

Frequent buses and awesome app. I dont know what the rest of these reviewers are talking about lmao. The commentary was 4/5 too

Nice buses and competent Guide "Dave the Tourguide"