TransAtlantic Cruise 2010: London Sights

Big Red Bus and Original Bus Tours

What’s Here

Big Bus Tour Co.

The Big Bus Company offers open-top sightseeing tours with live guides, or with a digitally-recorded commentary. The Big Bus Company has won Visit London sightseeing tour of the year three times. Central departure points at Marble Arch, Green Park, Victoria Station, Paddington Station and Trafalgar Square.

What time are your first and last buses? Generally, our first buses depart at 08:30 in the morning. Last bus times vary depending on the time of year. They are usually 18:00 April to September.

How long does the tour last? Your ticket is valid for 24 hours from the time you join one of the bus routes. As a reference, completing a full circuit of the Red tour would take approximately 2 hours 10 minutes and a full circuit of the Blue tour would take approximately 3 hours 15 mins.

Where can I join the tour? You may start the tour at any of our stops. You are welcome to buy tickets on the day, though buying in advance will enable you to benefit from our on-line discount.

Where can I buy tickets? All-inclusive hop-on, hop-off tickets are valid for 24 hours at ~$36USD for adults and ~$15USD for children. A ticket also entitles you to a free river cruise and free guided walking tours. You are welcome to buy tickets on the day, though buying in advance will enable you to benefit from our on-line discount

You can buy tickets on this site, on our buses and with our on street representatives, by telephone on 00 44 (0)20 7233 9533, or from the Big Bus Information Centre at 48 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1. (El’s note: Approx $36.USD)

The Red Tour

Discover the wondrous history of London as you learn and laugh with live commentary provided by our professional guides. The tour takes in all the Tower Bridge at Duskkey sights of central London with great views and interesting facts at every turn. Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral and The Tower of London are just some of the fabulous attractions on the Red Tour.

River cruise

Enjoy a leisurely cruise on the River Thames with entertaining commentary and superb views of London’s riverside. Take a short trip through central London, or travel to Greenwich to visit the National Maritime Museum and the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

Included in your Big Bus tour ticket, the River Cruise Pass entitles you to hop-on and hop-off any of the river boat services operated by our partners, City Cruises. The River Cruise includes live commentary and enables you to see London and its attractions from a different perspective. Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, Shakespeare’s Globe and the Tate Modern Art Gallery are just some of the sightseeing highlights. Our free River Cruise also offers the chance to travel to Greenwich and explore the National Maritime Museum and the Greenwich Royal Observatory. No matter how many times you tour the river, you’ll be amazed by the sights and will appreciate this unique and distinctive perspective on London.

How often does the River Cruise depart? Approximately every 20 minutes.

Where does the River Cruise depart from and how long does the trip take? The Cruise departs from Tower Pier, Waterloo Pier or Westminster Pier, and takes approximately 30 minutes.

Can I take the river cruise before getting on the Bus? No. You will need to buy your ticket or exchange your voucher from one of our representatives upon boarding the bus. They will then provide you with your ticket that includes your pass for the cruise.

The Blue Tour

This most extensive sightseeing route through London takes you to all the top attractions and features an informative recorded commentary in 8 languages on all buses. The tour takes in all of central London as well as Kensington and Hyde Park. On board the Blue Tour, you will be able to discover the shopping havens of Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Kensington High Street, taking in elegant Kensington Palace and fashionable Notting Hill en route.

The Green Link

A link to popular London hotels offering the chance to visit the Dickens Museum and the world famous British Museum.

Three Walking Tours

Join any or all of our entertaining walking tours lead by experienced guides. There are three walks to choose from, enabling you to discover even more of London.

Buckingham PalaceBig Bus Bonus Card

Enabling you to enjoy a range of restaurants and shops in London at discounted prices; either during your day or over the rest of your stay in London.

Big Bus Reviews

Sitting up top is the way to go if it’s a nice day. Even if you don’t have time to get on and off on all 3 routes, it’s worth taking the tour around (like 2 hrs) just to get an overview & their great narration.

We did a few hop on/off tours in many cities, some were worth it but London was definitely not one. Honestly, their metro train system is so convenient. Each station is marked with a big round circle that everyone can see from a far distance, and its easy and cheaper to use then the tour bus. Another disappointment is that they only had the tour for one day, every other city we went to had a two day cheaper option. Also it took forever to get around the busy city. I got quite frustrated when we only wanted to get 3 stops away and it took us over an hour to get there because of congestion. If you’re worried about missing things if you go on the metro then don’t be. It is more cost effective, just as informative, easy to use (you if you’re worried it is hard then all you have to do is ask friendly staff who are always at every station), is much MUCH quicker, and doesn’t stop running at 1830.

At about 2:00p.m. we took the 24 hour Big Bus (hop off/hop on) tour to check out where stuff was, and used it again (before 2:00) the next day to get to Trafalgar Square for the National Gallery and St. Martin’s-in-the-Field church next door. Took a tube back to the hotel. Took the tube the next day to the Victoria tube stop and picked up tickets that we had booked online to tour Buckingham Palace. On the Big Bus tour, we saw where the Palace was and also the Palace shop where our tickets would be waiting for us, so that turned out to be easy.

Initially the £25 ticket price for 24 hours seemed very expensive (£21 is pre-booked on internet) but in retrospect we had excellent value for money and would never have seen all the sights we did, had we not bought these tickets. We bought the ticket at say 4pm on Friday and so it expired at 4pm the next day. We jumped on an off the bus at different sights on many occasions and the ticket price also included free city boat cruises down the Thames, which really made our day.

My wife and I loved the bus line, and thought that it was a great way to see London. We had both been to London several times before, and were able to learn about things that we were previously not aware of. The live tours are totally worth while as you are able to ask the guide all of the questions that you would like. We also enjoyed taking the boat to Greenwich. The boat ride is included with the bus tour. You can save money if you book in advance with their web site.

They have headsets that plug into the seat in front of yours and this provides an excellent commentary on the sites of London as you pass them by on the bus. Also there are commentaries in many different languages and you just plug the earphones into the Country flag for the one you wish to hear.
If it rains then for the people on the top deck they provide plastic capes with hoods so that you do not get soaked. These are flimsy and will only protect you in a light shower.
You can get on and off the bus at any of the stops and the tickets are valid for 24 hours to hop on and off at any time as you wish.
Be warned however that the staff are not helpful bearing in mind that they are dealing with tourists who are in a strange and very big City.I was assured that I would be returned to the same stop that I got on at so that I would know where I was. In fact they stop the bus around 5.0pm and everyone has to get off. In my case I had no idea where I was and the driver did not help at all but just closed his door and walked off. I had to ask help from a mobile cafe owner who told me that he is sick of giving help to passengers left there by that Company.

Hey folks, we are American Expats living in London and we take all our visitors on the Big Red Bus Tour – I’ve done it MANY times. We usually start at the Victoria Station Location. No particular reason, just like that starting point. If you speak English, make sure you get on a LIVE GUIDED tour. The live guides are very good. If you have to listen through headphones – you will be dissappointed – just skip the tour if you have to do headphones. I recommend that you do the whole tour route – the main line that goes by Buckingham, St Pauls, Tower of London. Later you go explore any interesting site separately using the Tube to move around. The top of the bus gives you a great feel of the city and you can see a little of it all while at the same time hearing some of the local history.

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.

It was the perfect way to kill time until our room was ready and to get our bearings around the city. Being the 1st bus of the day, it was initially slow going as the driver and the sales people at each stops tried to muster business and trying to sell their add-on sightseeing tickets. We were forced to change buses once at the Marble Arch stop, obviously their hub stop. If you are running on a tight schedule, this is not for you. But we had the whole day to kill, so it worked wonders for us. We managed to go on the River Cruise(free with Big Bus Co ticket) from Tower of London Pier to Westminster Pier and even rode the London Eye. We did hop off and on several times and never had to wait too long for the next bus.Views from the top deck is great. Yes, there are some earphone jacks that don’t work, we just unplugged and looked for another seat. (yes,easier to do when the bus is not full)

Recommendation: Request their route map from their website before you leave home – you can then plan a fabulous day and maximize your 24 hour ticket.

One word of advice though, the buses with a red sign on the front come with an English speaking tour guide, the buses with blue signs come with an earphone system with which you can select the automated tour guide info in various languages. Check when you get on the bus, which direction it is going in, as we did get confused by this. Being English speaking, we actually preferred the English tour guide on the mic, as he added a bit of humour but were less impressed with the American tour guide who appeared to think her audience was American and kept cross referrencing and comparing things to the States. On the City Cruises the guides were fantastic, using real British irony and sarcastic humour to brighten up their repartie whilst being very informative at the same time – but then maybe you have to appreciate the British humour to get it – nonetheless a good deal of the audience seemed to enjoy it too.

All in all, if you just sit on the bus as we did the first time, the round trip took about 3 hours, we saw all the major sites and ticked off what we wanted to get off and see the next day – well worth the money and wouldn’t hesitate to use it next time I go to London.

Big Bus is a great way to see the city without being committed to a tour! You get on and off at your own pace and just catch the next bus when you are ready to move on. They also offer tickets on attractions. Not always a discount, but you don’t have to wait on line!!
Tip: Sit by the tour guide if you want to pay attention to his stories. People like to talk on their own and you will miss the commentary if you are too far away from the speaker!!

Therefore my advise to anyone reading this is:

A. Better use the hop-on hop-off bus service when you are already staying in the city. You will spend too much time and money coming in before you start the tour.
B. Start as early as possible and make absolutely sure you ask for the end of service hours for each particular line.
C. You won’t be able to combine full tour with many stops to the museums and other attractions, they will take too much out of your time. Perhaps you could do one or two along the way if you start early, plus you’ll need some time to eat too.
D. 24 hour ticket? Not quite. Next time we’ll be using the tube.

The tour is about 2 hours long, if you run the whole thing. I actually ended up sitting up there for almost the entire ride, because the guide was funny, and once I sat down, I realized I was more tired than I thought. Do make sure you get a bus whose upper level is open to the outside... and go on a not-rainy day. It makes an enormous difference... if you’re looking through glass windows, you can’t help but remember you are on a bus the entire ride.

Stuff to check with company

We did the Original Tour and not the other one, because there is a free Thames cruise with your Tour ticket.
Only when we wanted to go with the boat, the boat was full, because paying customers for the cruise went first and when there where seates left, the people with a Original Tour ticket where allowed. Only on a busy they, there are NO seats left, after the paying customers enter the boat.
We tried to enter the cruise 4 times from different locations. Everytime the same story. Conclusion: The Free Thames Cruise is FAKE FAKE and FAKE. Don’t go with the Original Tour when you think it’s cool because you get a free Thames Cruise with it. You only get access when there are no paying customers.

The only plus was the free river cruise included – we used it to get to Greenwich. However this is one-way only. You either pay 5 pounds to get back by boat or take the Docklands Light Railway to downtown London which goes through the new Canary Wharf Business district – with lots of interesting views into the fabulous architecture there.

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 live guide (i.e., the Red Bus) was better than the recorded tour (i.e., the Blue Bus).

The Original Bus Tour

http://www.theoriginaltour.com/

In addition to our tour routes and panoramic excursions we operate several local bus routes, offering the best value fares in London.

T3 – (Green Route) Serving:

Leicester Square – London Eye – Westminster – Piccadilly Circus – Leicester Square
This circular service provides a handy link in central London across the Thames.
It operates DAILY between 09.15 and 15.45.
Adult single fares range from 80p to £2.00.
Holders of London Boroughs’ Freedom Passes may travel at half the adult fare.
Holders of our 24-hour Tour tickets may travel at no extra charge.

Can we use our tickets all day long? Yes. Tickets are valid until the same time the following day for use during our operational hours. Ask our staff when you should board your last bus of the day as times vary seasonally throughout the year.

Can we join the tour at any stop? Yes. But we strongly recommend that first timers board at one of our main departure points where our staff can provide advice about traffic conditions on the day and final departure times. You may then choose to stay on the bus for a complete tour to get fully orientated or hop-on and hop-off at your leisure.

Original Bus Tour Reviews

Christine on our Icy Jewels thread wrote:
We just did a HOHO for 2 days in May – absolutely no problem – tickets were good for 24 hours and they even honored them for almost 2 more hours beyond cut off. We saw NO differentiation in boarding the Boat – type of ticket was no issue.

One tip--the ‘Original’ bus offers a free walking tour to the Changing of the Guard. DON'T!!!!!!!! Too many people, couldn’t see a thing, too much ego of the tour guide and too little information. She didn’t care that many could not keep up and she kept taking us to places that had no visual of anything. total waste of time and energy. Many parties were split up with no chance to rendevous. That is the only negative of the HOHO experience in London.

Although I actually live in London, there’s a lot of places I’ve never seen so I got together with a group of friends and we decided to take a tour with The Original Bus Company. Firstly, I have to say how much more professional this company was than the Big Bus Company. When we arrived at the bus stop to start our tour, the staff of the Big Bus Co were hassling us to buy tickets with them, although we had clearly shown them that we already had tickets for The Original Bus Co. Then , everytime anyone else came to the bus stop they were booed if they did not want to buy tickets for the Big Bus Co and their staff booed everytime an Original bus came along. I am SO glad we did not choose to use The Big Bus Co!
With The Original Bus Co you have a choice of routes and our tickets also included a trip on the River Thames. We had a great tour on the top deck of the bus (it’a AMAZING what you miss walking at street level), then caught the boat down to Greenwich Market (highly recommended). We caught the boat back to Westminster, and continued our bus tour. It’s a great way to go sightseeing around London and I would highly recommend a tour with The Original Bus Company.

We could not fault the original tour, frequency of buses and the routes. The tour guides on board were very informative in their commentry, we learnt so much about London. We were also able to buy tickets for local attractions at a slightly discounted price and they were also fast track. The staff also gave us information and the best ways to walk to get to certain areas we wanted to visit.
We did not experience any of the negatives that other people have written and one of the things that stood out was that there were far more of the original tour buses than any other operator.
I would definately use them again on my next visit as we didn’t get time to see all of the routes as we spent the day hopping on and off at places of interest.

Recently bought tickets for the original tours in London and omg! it couldn’t be anymore of a shambles. The buses were 55 mins late whilst the burgandy buses had 4 in the same time. Also you appear to spend most of your tour time waiting for buses due to the fact that the routes are so little you have to keep changing just to get a decent bus tour. Eventully got on a bus and although the tour guide was lovely (a blonde white lady) there is only 1 bus out of 6 that actually has a tour guide.

I have to agree with the negative reviews on this bus tour. I agree though touristy an open air bus tour is a good thing to do to orient oneself...but not this one in London! Very slow, and the guide was rather self-absorbed and the information he shared was not very interesting. Also where we hopped on at Tower of London, the tour was almost finished, and we had to change which would be OK except then again we got caught at Trafalgar Square traffic circle, where the traffic lights are extremely short. Also the air pollution from the traffic was most unpleasant. The second bus we went on did not have any covered areas and as it was cold you had to sit downstairs and t he fumes from the bus were rather nauseating.
Would NOT RECOMMEND this at all. I had just been to Rome and taken an open air bus tour the first day which was great...very efficiently run, and the traffic in Rome though very heavy moved quickly. London could do better. The boat trip was nice but the commentary was useless as the sound system was very poor quality. Do more research and perhaps try another bus tour. Taking the tube and red double decker bus is fun, and efficient, but needs a bit of planning. Take one black cab for the experience...fun too.

This was our first visit to London for six of us. We were lucky and had nice weather to begin with so the open double decker bus was perfect for seeing the sights of London. We hopped on and off and had an opportunity to listen to different tour guides. The tour guide makes the difference. Like a previous writer stated "if the guide is not good jump off and grab the next bus." All that being said, The Original Tour Bus is a good way to see London but do not use it as your main transportation. In the evening we thought we were taking a bus back to our hotel only to find out that it’s tour ended near Trafalgar Square. We were staying near Victoria Station.

Booked this to orientate ourselves with the city after a long flight into London and found it a perfect way to spend the afternoon. Booked online and for 5 y.o. and myself was about 25 quid, including riverboat trip, and walking tours (never got to the walking tours)
Met up with bus at Piccadilly starting point though they’re everywhere and I’m sure you could get on at the closest point to your accommodation. Was a very average autumnal overcast day but we’d wrapped up warm and sat up on uncovered top deck. Had a tour guide pointing out key sights and monuments – very top line but to me the trip was more to see the sights than to hear a clichéd spiel. You’d get more benefit from the guide if you weren’t familiar with the British way of life (Yes that’s you, America!) but he did have some good tips on things to do
Ended up jumping off at Westminster Bridge and did the London Eye followed by using up the riverboat cruise ticket. Riverboat was a great way to see some of the city, particularly the redevelopment of the old dock areas
When getting about the city under our own steam the next day found that we had a far better grasp of proximities of attractions after having done the bus tour . Some reviews on here have complained about lack of value but I can’t complain at all. Even kept my son engaged after a 24 hour flight so that alone made it worthwhile!

This tour is such a waste of money. You could get on a city bus easier than this. The commentary with the headphones repeated itself many times. We got off the bus many times, but had a very hard time getting back on a bus. The buses were so packed with people that you couldn’t find a seat. Maybe they should only sell enough tickets to fit everyone on a bus that is running. IT WAS A MADHOUSE!!!!! Not impressed with the tour one bit.

This was the worst tour I have ever experienced. It was a waste of money. The commentary didn’t work and the drivers missed several stops along the yellow and red routes. Believe me, you can see more and learn more taking the regular double decker buses with your travel/oyster card and talking to the locals. This was a waste of 24 pounds. They also do not honor the 2-4-1 deals.

We got on the bus at around 1045. It took over an hour to get from Baker St to Piccadilly. It became obvious that we would not be able to travel further on the ho/ho tour. So we had to hang around for two hours waiting for the show to start when I went off on foot. It is very very slow due to congestion. Much like our experience in Paris. It simply takes too long to do the tours. Our plan to do a lap then get off as we pleased was simply unfeasible. My advice to anyone who wants to tour London; if you can understand English signs, catch the tube and be prepared to do a lot of walking. We missed out on quite a bit because of the original tour.

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