Big Bus Company

The guide was absolutely disgraceful. Rude, insulting and ignorant. Paid £25 stayed on for 15 minutes and left. Boarded at Green Park on a Friday afternoon

We took the Big Bus Tour Hop on and off tour in London to get oriented to the city and to learn more about the monuments while at it. Our main goal was to ensure we had a live guided tour (not a recorded one) and to take the 9 am bus so that we could make it to Buckingham Palace in time for the changing of the guard. When we purchased the 25 GBP tickets from the vendor, he assured us that most of their buses were guided - hence our greater surprise when we found the first bus we got on was recorded only and to get a guided tour, we had to jump off and wait at least 15 minutes for one with a guide. When we did get one, he was great - Phill Harris - was one of the few redeeming qualities of the tour. He was engaging and provided off-the-cuff information about the attractions which we all appreciated. Since we were delayed in getting a guide, we had to jump off of the tour and take the tube back to Victoria to try to catch the changing of the guard. Not that big of a deal. Later in the day, after taking some side trips here and there, we decided to jump back on the bus and finish the tour. This time, ironically, we wanted a blue tour (unguided) as it covers a greater area including much of Hyde Park. When we bought the tickets, we were told that buses run every 20 minutes so we were very surprised to find ourselves waiting 45 minutes and watching, literally, 10 Original Bus tours pass us before any kind of Big Bus tour went by. When it did, it was packed to the brim and there was no seating because they just seriously do not operate enough buses. Instead of wrangling a seat and being frustrated, we decided instead to jump on the included river cruise with City Cruises and found it to be a nice diversion. We considered jumping back on the Bus but decided to avoid the frustration and took the tube instead. Perhaps the Original Bus tour is better - it sure seemed like they ran a better operation -- so maybe check that out instead.

I've done the hop on/off bus tours in other cities so I had a benchmark. It wasn't just my experience but also the experience of others on the same tour. Poorly organized, signage lacking, headsets that simply didn't work, time between buses is not as advertised. Toward the end of the day, about 10 of us were told to disembark and get the next bus as our bus was done for the day. Waited for 35 minutes and ended up taking a taxi. Others were simply stuck due to language barriers (no tube for them) and a few members of the group simply started walking as they were close enough to their final destination. There were only a few things I wanted to see and ended up using the tube to get to the sights I wanted. I took the hop on/off bus to be able to hear the commentary and learn more, but alas, the only thing I learned was that this was not a worthwhile experience.