Big Bus Company

I think the Big Bus is great. My wife and I used our tickets to the max, we went on two of the walking tours (guard change and the pub one) used the bus to hop and off and even went on a boat trip. Now I am not saying we did not have any difficulties (like traffic and hard to understand Russian guide) but it was the best £48 I have spent in a long time.

p.s. to all the people who said it was bad, give them a second chance

I brought my visitors on the big bus tour thinking it would be great for children. Well, they made us get on and off at several stops with much waiting time between buses. We had 5 children with us who were not happy. At Hyde Park, we were told to get off the bus, get in a queue and then they tried to sell us other tickets to tourist attractions. We waited quite a while for the bus with the live tour guide. When it came, it was a stampede to get on the bus with much pushing and shoving. It was difficult to keep track of five children. The tour guide was okay although overall I did not feel like I learned much about London because of this tour. Also, at some of the stops, the ticket sellers would get on the bus and complain to the driver about other ticket sellers. At one point I complained as she was using many four letter words in front of my three and six year old!

The best part about paying for this ticket was the boat tour. We did have a little trouble finding where the boat left from but once we did, it was no problem. The "tour guide" on the boat was the best, very animated and interesting. The kids enjoyed this the most.

Date: Fri 23rd May 2008

Review: Having looked at both the "Big Bus Co." and "Original Bus Tours", we chose the "Big Bus Co.". At £24 per person it was a huge mistake, although I do wonder if the alternative would have been any better? The staff were friendly enough at the sales centre (naturally) but when we got to the bus stop and were waiting for the right one to come along, we witnessed scenes between members of staff from each of the companies pushing and shoving each other as they fought over customers as they tried to board their relevant bus. I'm quite sure these scenes were largely in jest, however it looked very bad to the waiting tourists and right from the outset was very offputting. Our tour was the blue route and I must say the buses were very frequent and the staff were friendly enough but when we boarded the bus we were left to figure out where the ear phones were to enable us to listen to the recorded commentary. The commentary itself was pathetic. The quality in the main was so poor, you couldn't make out what the narrator was saying half the time. The commentary, when it was audible, was pretty rubbish and not very interesting. It would stop and start in the wrong places. The majority of the time there was no commentary at all and throughout the tour you were left wondering what places of interest etc you were passing. In all it was a huge waste of money. I came off the bus having learnt very little and could have made the same journey for pennies on normal public transport. I have advised friends due to visit London shortly to give it a miss and would advise anyone else the same.