Big Bus Company

I am from Newcastle and i visited London with my daughter for the first time at the begining of November, we made our way to The London eye and happened to be asked if we wanted to buy a ticket to see the sites of London. It was the best thing we ever did we would never have seen as much as we did under our own steam. The two gentlemen staff who helped us where really nice , even the staff we encountered on the journey where really helpful and friendly. It made our visit to London great, thank you.

I was a little worried about choosing any bus tour given the completely mixed reviews on both this and the original bus tour. I chose the Big bus tour as it was clear that I could pay at most stops using a credit card or debit card.

I chose the green park stop as it was only a few stops from st pancreas station on the victoria line. Buying a ticket from the conductor was very easy, she had a variety of automated card readers on her person and was very pleasant. You end up with a small yellow/white receipt, prebooked customers exchange a brownish ticket for the same receipt.

We went the day after the tube strike so they made it clear that the roads were still busy and it would take 2hrs 40 on the red route. We got back to victoria the last stop at just under that time. Very early in the tour there were longish waits at some stops and the bus was full and only room for singles at some places.

The tour guide was very professional and took time to talk to everyone on the tour, pointing out special photo ops and including history that I didn't know. We saw all we wanted to see in london and for that reason I would recommend the tour. We had a 3 and 5 year old who would have been exhausted if we did the same by tube or walk/regular bus.

The only disappoint for all tours like this is you will not drive in front of buckingham palace but will only park to the side

If you want to do london in half a day this is the way to do it.

The good: lots of stops, you can buy a ticket at most stops, you see a lot, the staff is nice, and the audio is pretty good.

The bad: buses spend long amounts of time sitting at certain stops with no explanation; it takes way longer than the suggested two hours; and they don't make it clear that even though the brochure says the buses stop running at 6:30, you need to be on the last bus way before that at most of the stops.