Big Bus Tours Reviews

by Msparker

My husband and I have done a few big bus tours in other cities. Chicago’s tours were great and even more fantastic was the covered top so we were not cold(and with the midday sun we were actually hot). However we got off to have lunch and while we were waiting we watched BigBusTours to see when the next bus would come. All the busses showed they were far away and we had plenty of time. So we waited and looked at BigBusTours , figuring when the bus was as the stop in front of us we would go to the stop. Suddenly the bus was coming! Since the busses run every 30/45 minutes it would be a looooong wait for the next one so my husband had to run to catch the bus. I can not physically run right now, so he asked them to wait for me, oh boy! He was told they run on a schedule and that they are tracked and they couldn’t wait very long for me. The next time we waited for the bus we watched BigBusTours , and lo and behold the bus was tracking that it was in the river! And again never showed up until we heard the tour guide BEHIND us. So the moral of the story, great tour, crappy app.

by Peace1808

I booked a day pass for myself and my husband while in France, last week, that included a river cruise. Because the bus driver did not print out my ticket for the boat we were unable to board, even though I had proof that we had paid for it. What’s more when I contacted the company they informed me that I was ineligible for a refund (I asked for a refund for my boat tickets alone, not for the bus) because I should have known to ask the driver to print them out even though that is their job. I assumed that the eTicket I had been using all day long was would have sufficed, boy was I wrong! What’s more BigBusTours included no directions as to how to find the boat we ended up having to ask for instructions from random strangers because the bus driver was completely unhelpful. With so many options for hop-on and off buses I highly recommend you go with anyone else other than this company. Worst customer service.

by Skothmire

The only thing good about this bus service is the rides, which are still very much below par. My daughter and I got a three-day pass for DC and decided to explore on the first day. We got on and the bus was very empty, no AC and smelled of bad chemicals. We wanted to go one place, but ended up spending 40 min to go to suggested place. Second day was much worse. We wanted to go to Madame Tussaud’s was museum, but were told that the maps had changed THAT morning and we had to wait another 20 min to go to the second route. My daughter was very hot and began to feel ill. We just took Uber to go to the museum. Then we tried to go to a White House grounds tour run by Big Bus and we tried to complain to them. They were very apathetic and did not care. My daughter was not getting good feelings from the tour and we left soon after. Overall very bad service. Negligent and they are so unprepared. Future tours beware

by @@@@@555()899

I was very excited to spent about $70 a ticket for 5 people in my group to experience this big bus tour. This is about $350 that I spent to enjoy a nice tour of Washington DC. These were the deluxe tickets. I was unable to experience an enjoyable tour with my family because it rained. The buses were filthy and leaky. I literally sat in a seat where I smelled urine. The buses were overcrowded with wet and very uncomfortable people where some people had to stand because of perhaps overbooking. For the money that I paid, I did not get a chance to enjoy the experience of a good tour of the city with my family. When I called to get some type of compensation for the money that I spent on it, they did not offer compensation that I could use on my trip. The only things that my family were able to enjoy were 2 museums. I was very disappointed in how these tours were handled this weekend.

by Mom If My Three Sons

Originally this company to see my to be ok... and shortly after the 3rd stop the true paintings of big bus showed. We were left at madam toussant by the yellow line along with about 30 pax. We asked 2 other drivers that came along we were told the bus came, WOW!!! It took another bus to further take the time to care and it was pulled off the line this all took place on 2 July 2019.... we’ll sure enough again 3 July 2019 with a Big bus representative that wonderful yellow bus went missing again waited for about 1.5 hr from madam toussant just to get to Eddie’s cafe to walk to the zoo.. this was enough of a lesson for us and you may say foolish on our part.. after the zoo we DID NOT take big bus eventhough we purchased a premium package. Lesson learned not to use them.

by Rather Be Walking

We purchased a two day pass & good thing. BigBusTours worked great on Sunday; we could see when busses were arriving, how much time we had before it arrived etc but by Day 2 (Monday), BigBusTours was not working at all. We couldn’t even plan to utilize the other perks that came along with purchasing a deluxe pass b/c you never knew when your rude would show up?!
There was no way to know when the next bus would arrive. It was taking over an hour & a half for the next bus to arrive. For this reason we had to skip our next 2 desired stops b/c we didn’t want to get stranded & had made plans to meet up with friends later. In fact, once we arrived at Pier 39; we ended up taking a taxi to our hotel near Union square since we were told they needed to sanitize the bus which is understandable, but would have to wait 30 min before we could leave. Obviously it became apparent that they don’t run multiple busses on weekdays. Next time I’ll wait until the cable cars are operational or spend my $ on a taxi driver to take me around to see the sights.

by Paulitodc

We purchased Big Bus vouchers (turns out not a ticket) at the London Airport, mistake number one because there are other tours that stop outside our hotel. After walking a long way to the first stop, we couldn’t find it. There were no markings and nobody there. Fortunately, a competitor to Big Bus told us where to go.

BigBusTours doesn’t tell you much about the attractions. Also, we had our voucher but couldn’t input it into BigBusTours so as to have a ticket and get access to the bus. Instead, we had to give up our seats, get off the bus and see an attendant. No use of QR codes so the attendant had to painstakingly enter in the number and print the ticket.

The buses have WiFi, which is nice. But BigBusTours should leverage this with a default map and tracker and pop ups of the next attraction you will see. Also, why not provide the tour audio in BigBusTours ? Then I could use my own headphones and don’t need to be on the bus to learn about a site. These services could be verified/available by inputting ticket info into BigBusTours .

There is so much more that BigBusTours could do if the product managers actually got on a bus and used BigBusTours.

by FrustratedButExcited

Very disappointed- I loaded BigBusTours to get specific times for the buses and to see how much time a full circuit would take to get me to a specific location/stop, as BigBusTours description says it has a time table. Nope. All I can find is start and stop for each location, not the ongoing schedule. Trying to coordinate one of these tours with planned excursions in the area is not happening with BigBusTours, and I’m not willing to do the math to figure out three different activities, assuming 15-20 mins per bus pick up and calculating arrival time at a specific stop midday. Trying the other HOHO tours to see if they can do better with a real time table before I buy tickets. Please upgrade your app to true time tables as marketed in BigBusTours Store.

by Smsr3d

First and foremost don’t forget to keep your ticket because the phone is “just a voucher”. They won’t allow you to ride without the ticket even though my phone shows the date time and I can prove my identity. What a crock. We had to Uber home. If you are going to Bondi just Uber. It’s cheaper and less of a hassle.
As far as BigBusTours it was ok. It had trouble pin pointing the buses and if they were close. We would have missed the one because it shows it a few stops away even though we could see it down the street.

by Twinkletoes 63

I was only in San Francisco for 2 days and was looking forward to a great bus tour with a guide telling me all about the city. I paid $49 each for my daughter and myself because we were expecting an actual tour.
The first bus we got on was so packed, we had to stand and couldn’t see a thing out the windows. We got out at the first stop just to get off. We skipped the next bus because it was just as full, and got on a nearly empty one that came up behind it. There was no tour guide, and the driver did not tell us that we needed ear buds to hear the recorded tour. Thank goodness that after we went over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped, a guide got off another bus and gave us a choice to join him. FINALLY we got what we paid for and he was fabulous! Unfortunately, we had to get off after a few stops so we could get a different bus to the stop we needed to get to. Luckily we had a tour guide on that bus, too, but we missed so much of the tour beforehand. A crowded bus with no guide to explain the city was not what we paid for.

by Sweerpeas

Our Washington DC night tour was a great experience. We are a family of 5 and our teenage kids really enjoyed the tour. It helps that they take interest in our history and keep up with current events. The only reason I could not give this app 5 stars is because some of the audio was not working and 2 of their bus tour guides were not very good. One gentleman didn’t seem to be prepared and was not as informed about the sites we were going by. Another guide, a lady, was difficult to understand. Overall, we didn’t really get to visit every site but big bus tours serves its purpose. They are hop on/off type of tour so it is impossible to go through all the sites just using this resource because of their daily schedule. I would have like it if they had 3 day passes. That would have been better.

by Sherbet0923

We had a wonderful BBT SFO experience!! We did point to point - from the Wharf point to Golden Gate North vista. It was a like a 2 hour bus ride, waiting in line at Wharf was 30-40min, stayed like 20mins at Vista Point then waited in line for the bus again for 40min and we went down at Union Square. So more or less we spent 1/2 a day. It was hop on hop off but didnt get to do this as it was a peak season and getting a ride at a specific pick up point would take hours and hours of wait. Our drivers was okay and the team members who assisted the tourists while waiting were attentive. Overall we had a great experience even on a very cold winter day at the upper deck of the bus.

by Brian-Lisa

My family was visiting LA and had never been there. The cost of parking at all the different stops alone would cost more than the Big Bus tour. Being able to sit back and enjoy the guided tour, getting on and off the bus at 13 different stops and eliminating the driving part of our visit to LA again was well worth it. The guides are all knowledgeable and very courteous. Thanks Big Bus LA for marking our vacation enjoyable!

by Cleveland, OH On 6/29

Our guide “Craig from California” was excellent. Craig did not sound like a tour guide with set things to say about points of interest. He was so personable and made the tour feel as if he was talking directly to us. He asked questions as to where we were from and somehow had knowledge of where we live and made a connection. It was more like a friend giving us a tour of the city not a tour guide.

by Cp13cougar

My mom and I rode on the bus several times, as we kept getting on and off, and had a great experience with each driver/guide. “Big Bus Blake” and “Marvelous Mauricio” were definitely the best combo though. Tons of energy and made the ride memorable to say the least! (Love, Team Phoenix!) 😊 Learned a ton of history from the audio tour and a lot of local secrets from the guides. Worth the money 100% and we’ll be recommending it to anyone coming to San Fran!

by RickyZ12345

The drivers of the bus are salespeople and not very good at all. They hassle you, berate you for not buying more attractions and worst of all, they hold up the line while they oversell and oversell. They say it's hop on and hop off but every time you try to hop back on they try to sell you again and again. I tried to show my ticket and grab a seat but driver after driver tried to sell me more. And they are terrible at it. Just awful. I love sales but these guys need serious help. I was told to wait to the side (while trying to show my ticket) while others were pitched a sale and said no. It's obnoxious and we all deserve our money back

by Moms And Daughters

Highly recommend Big Bus Tour company. Pleasant staff, fun guides, Austin, Shea and (Matty Saturday night 7:30 tour), drivers one of which is Ricky night tour and awesome ticket sales person(Loraine in front of Navy Pier shopping center. There were four on our group. We laughed and was able totally relax. Loved the fact that one of our bus stops was in front of our hotel Chicago Hilton. Learned some history and went places would not have went if had been driving. Thanks!!!

by NYLois

We bought a multi day ticket for our first trip to London. It has been wonderful. Dave was a young funny commentator who shared stories as he pointed out the sites. Another day we had Emma who was witty and clever. Her history facts enriched the experience. We mix up our day with walking and then hop back on for the brilliant commentary. The only negative has been the multiple times the bus/driver changed and we have to get off and move to another. Each time we lost good seats. But overall this was a fantastic experience. PS the bus is on time and we tracked the routing on BigBusTours . Thanks for making this a great vacation!

by Sarge3107

I read some of the past negative reviews and I was hesitant to book our tour. But we had a very good experience. Wait times were not long at all. Some drivers were better than others with information. William Field was exceptional with a lot of architectural info and general knowledge of people and places. My phone fell out of my back pocket on one of the buses as we were getting off. I didn’t notice it until we were on the next bus. The drivers went above and beyond to figure out a way for me to get it back. I was beyond thankful!!

by Tougaloo Blue

Our last full day I got four tickets on line and then led my family to the nearby stop which had been moved due to a demonstration. Nevertheless we followed the route under a wilting sun until we came upon one of your buses which had stalled due to an engine overheat. The driver explained the service disruption, scanned our tickets, and hailed the next bus for us. His name was Ed and he confirmed for us that I will continue to take BigBus services wherever we travel. Thanks, Ed.