Bigbustours/sydney Reviews 323

TrustScore 3 out of 5

3.2

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Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Great program. Sometimes the buses don't stick to the scheduled time of arrival. Big 5 a terrific deal. The service we received from Bo was just fantastic - I wish everyone operated like this. Thanks,... See more

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Major roadworks in Sydney meant tours taking longer than usual. This plus the amount of time spent at some of the stops curtailed the amount of time we had to spend on detailed sightseeing during our... See more

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

An OK tour. But for a better view of Sydney’s icons take a river taxi trip between Darling Harbour and Circular Quay - it is very good (we kept all the photos from that trip and none from the bus... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Lost our paper ticket near end of tour and despite having an online ticket confirmation was refused entry for last leg home. Staff member Peter was extremely rude and the customer experience appalling... See more

Company details

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As Australia’s largest city, there’s a huge amount to see and do in Sydney – visit the iconic Opera House, make a splash at Bondi Beach and live it up in Darling Harbour. Hop on and off to explore it all at your own pace with a Sydney bus tour.


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3.2

Average

TrustScore 3 out of 5

323 reviews

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Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Take the bus your first day

Take the bus your first day. It takes you all around the city as well as to Bondi Beach. You get a great overview of where everything is and you can see it all in a few hours and plan where you want to go. Only need it for ONE DAY! Take the bus or ferries and get an OPAL card the rest of your trip!

May 20, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Great way to see the city!

I enjoyed the City tour my very first day in Sydney. All staff that I interacted with were helpful and kind. One of the commentaries on one bus I was on was not quite in sync with the stops or sights so that was confusing, but for the most part it all made sense. It would be helpful if the commentator named the bus stop numbers so it matched with the map!

May 14, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Could be better

Could be better.
Commentary wasn't working on return from Bondi. When I mentioned it to staff they acknowledged that they knew but didn't even apologise for the failure to deliver the service that was advertised. If I had just wanted to get from A to B in silence I would not have paid over the odds for a non-existent commentary service but would have used another service instead.
On the city route the commentary was out of sync in places so had the commentary but no sign of the sight it was referring to!
There was no reference to the bus stop number on the commentary so it was tricky to keep an eye on the route and the sights at the same time. Spent a lot of time trying to track the route on the map (by counting stops) to avoid missing our stop instead of enjoying the sights. Not supposed to stand up while bus is moving but didn't feel much time was given to get up and disembark safely. It would be much better if it announced bus stop number prior to stopping.

At times felt rushed and missed sights because bus moved too quickly. One stop it announced that this is where you need to get off for .... but bus had already pulled away from the stop. Last circuit felt that the driver just wanted to get it over and done with.

May 14, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Well worth it!

We had the best time on this bus. The drivers super helpful...even pointing out a great lunch spot. We used it for 2 days so also managed a trip to Bondi. Well worth it!!

May 12, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Good way to get a flavour of Sydney.

Pretty good tours although if you are stuck inside on an aisle seat the views are a bit limited......recommend if that's the case get off and get on a different bus.
The legroom was a bit tight for me....6'er.
Overall i'd recommend.

May 3, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Good way to see the city

Very pleasant ride at frequent intervals. Recording is available in several languages. Only thing is: not all the recording system work when we plug in the headphones. At some seats, the system was spoiled.

May 1, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

The only thing that ruined I was we…

The only thing that ruined I was we bought 2 days with ferry and tower the bus days were full on days but we had to squeeze in the tower and boat as well. Realized just in time that all had to be used in 48 hours which isn’t enough time

April 30, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

The Red line route is way too long

The tour audio was of poor quality and very difficult to understand. There wasn't enough information to fill the time, so they play some very annoying music between stops. Also, our audio got out of sync with the stops once or twice, so we just stopped listening to it. It wasn't nearly as informative and entertaining as we've encountered on other hop-on-hop-off tour providers.

More importantly.... The routes are too long and unusable for a day out. We tried getting off at one point and running a few blocks to catch an earlier bus to cut off a large section of the tour, but there weren't enough buses and we ended up waiting 20 minutes for our first bus to catch up.

They would do much better by shortening the red line. That would increase the frequency of buses and make it more useful for a whole day or two. There is no need to to the far side of darling harbour or to the other side of the botanic garden or to overlap so much with the blue line.

The red line could do a smaller loop that includes the rocks, the opera house, down one side of the botanic garden, to the Australian museum, the Anzac memorial, The Chinese garden, (the convention center whenever there's a conference in town), Darling harbour, and back to the rocks. That overlaps enough with the blue line and would make the trip short enough to be useful for people who want to use the big bus to get around the city. Also, the Anzac memorial really should be on your main tour (it's not right now, and it's a gem of a museum).

April 25, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

We had a great day

We had a great day, but should have started earlier than 11am. We ended changing buses at Central Station and went to Bondi Beach for lunch and coming back on sunset was just beautiful. We will use the Big Bus tours when we go to Europe later in the year. Staff were very good too🤗

April 22, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

Loved London, Copenhagen & San Fran BBs, looked forward to this one but disappointed d/t combination of road construction (they are building a tram through city for next few years; very noisy up top & long waits on hot sunny roads) and less detailed & interesting commentary. Sightseeing we did from harbour (via reg transit ferries) & tower was more enjoyable.

April 18, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

You do your country a disservice......

Lost our paper ticket near end of tour and despite having an online ticket confirmation was refused entry for last leg home. Staff member Peter was extremely rude and the customer experience appalling. There was another international couple that had the exact same poor service at the time. There must be s better way ..... follow the lead from other countries’ big bus tours! Would not recommend you to anyone. You do your country a disservice in the eyes of tourists.

April 14, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

Worth doing

Overall it served purpose we needed it to, to get us to Bondi beach. But, if you're going to use it for that, that's all you're going to get out of it.

We left early, only spent two hours at the beach, and made it back to our hotel just as the routes were finishing. I didn't look at cost of an Uber or taxi v the bus, next visit I would.

Tour audio was nice. Staff was nice. We used the next day and went to Kings Cross. From there we walked back as the 24 hours of the ticket expired.

The route covers all of Sydney. If there were different places you wanted to see and wanted to make brief stops it's a good plan. But if you want to move at a more causal pace, might not be for you.

Overall I am happy we did it. Won't do it again I don't think. But nice people and it did allow us to see a lot of Sydney.

April 13, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Good tour but overpriced and not enough buses running

The stops around the city and Bondi are good, the map is helpful and I liked the running commentary, what I found to be problematic is that you advertise that the buses come every 20 minutes, then on the bus the running commentary says it’s every 15 to 30 min BUT in reality it was every 45 minutes, and I do mean the city bus tour not the Bondi. For the price wr pay there should be more buses going around, as it was the buses were packed up and lower deck, overall although it is a good tour of the city I would not recommend it as it is greatly overpriced for what it is.

April 12, 2018
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Don’t bother with this

We take this tour at every new city we visit but We wouldn’t take this in Sydney again if we visited. We bought a 48 hour pass and ended up only using one day because of the service. They told us to expect about every 15 minutes for the city tour and about 30 minutes for the Bondi tour but we needed up waiting almost an hour an a half on both. With that slow of service it really interrupted our experience and we ended up taking cabs instead which defeats the purpose of a hop on hop off bus. In addition, the live tracking they advertised worked intermittently through so it was really difficult and unreliable to try and facilitate the pick ups. The commentary was subpar and mostly a bunch of music that talked about Australia and not history and interesting things. Not a good experience and less than average based on all the other hop on hop off bus experiences we’ve taken all over the world!

April 8, 2018
Unprompted review

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