Big Bus Tours London Reviews 11,160

The London tour was OK. Sid, the person who sorted our tickets on the bus, was lovely and helpful and the saving grace for the tour. The recorded commentary was not the best and mentioned the Queen a few times and her being at home. Bearing in mind, London is preparing for the King's coronation, I really think you need ro update this commentary!! We kept missing the bus stops because it was not clear where they were. Also my main gripe with this company, and the reason I most definitely will not be using again, is the fact that the customer service (or lack of it!) is appalling! I emailed, messaged using the online form and Facebook messages several weeks before our trip to ask a question about my disabled son but no one bothered to respond. The only reason I still used this tour company was because of the offer price but I won't be again.

Big bus has always been the best for the range of buses and the drivers, however, the recorded audio is atrocious! You used to have the best live commentary from your staff members but haven't bothered to bring them back since COVID. Now we have to listen to that God awful recording with those "comedians" who are trying to be funny. And I agree with everyone else, 75% of the tour just has music playing instead of anything actually useful to listen to.

The audio commentary is awful! 90% is just pop songs, hardly any relevance to the location. London is teeming with history and detail, the tour just skips over almost everything, very disappointing

Horrible ! The worst bus tour ever.
Always waiting more than 30min in every station meanwhile bus from other companies are very frequent.
Audio comment ( In french) is poor
Can't understand why Bigbus is the most expensive and at the same time delivering the poorest service.

A fantastic day out in London, got to see all the sites, easy to hop on and off, amusing and informative commentary, staff friendly and helpful, would definitely recommend.

Just awful and a complete waste of ALOT of money! No queuing system so took us 3 attempts to get on one at one stop. Packed in like sardines. Missed stops out and didn't stop at our requested stop despite us pressing the button in plenty of time. We eventually got off and used taxis, it was all too stressful and we had no confidence or idea where our driver would go next or when he'd stop next. Wish we'd gone with the much cheaper Toot bus.

Expensive, overcrowded and overcrowded again! Drivers will let people in until the only thing you see is forehead of a guy standing next to you, oh and, you can’t stand on the second deck or stairs.
You would think that for £49 ticket you can at least sit on a bus instead of standing!

Strictly avoid Big Bus tours.

We had planned for 3-days london tour and booked for the BigBus hop on hop off inspite of such poor ratings in trust pilot and online forums due to our prior good experience with the tour company in San Francisco. But sad to see such mean practices adopted by the Big Bus team. Firstly, they informed that Christmas day wont be included in the tour and have to buy seperate ticket for it, which was not informed to us when we purchased the ticket. Then they informed that 72-hours window will not include 25th but our ticket still got printed that the tour would end on 27th w/o taking into account of 25th. When we requested support team to modify our booking from 3-day to 1-day instead so that we can utilize for 25th tour (different one), they declined any refund or modifications to our tour. Never again purchasing any tour from such unfriendly, dishonest tour operators like Big Bus for myself or any member from my family and would suggest my friends as well to refrain from their service.

Absolutely terrible customer service, and unreliable buses. Total waste of money. Do not use.

We booked 3 tickets on the Big Bus tour today and it was a total Waste of money. We got on the bus with no guidance or instructions- no headphones were provided and the tour comprised of us sitting on the bus with no engagement from anyone whatsoever. In the end we got off after 3 stops and took public transport for a fraction of the price.
I would highly recommend that instead of the ridiculous £35 charge, so some reeeach and take the local double decker bus. For about a £10 day travelcard you can hop on and off busses, trains and tubes around the capital!
Honestly - todays experience made me feel like I was mugged. Over £100 and ended up having to abandon - would have been cheaper to hire a limo. Avoid.

We lost our ticket today after purchasing a 3-day ticket. They wouldn’t do anything to help us or give a refund. If you lose the printed tix ur just screwed. I’m very upset.

Today I did the red bus route. I cannot believe that a company that has had so many bad reviews does not appear to have done anything to improve their service. The recorded commentary is very poor. The queen died nearly 2 months ago but the commentary has not been updated to reflect this. I experienced all the previous complaints. I am just very angry with myself that I didn’t read the reviews before I chose The Big Bus over its several competitors. Avoid.

Unbelievably bad commentary. Spent £92 for me and my two kids today and what a waste of money that was. I love London, lived and worked there for 16 years and was telling my kids about all the wonders we’d see. There is no excuse for driving for 20 minutes on a so called bus tour with no commentary in one of the most interesting cities in the world. If I wanted to drive around London listening to British pop music I’d prefer to do it in my own car listening to Virgin. The voice guide was utter sh*te, at one point we drove past, a section of Roman wall, old billingsgate market, numerous churches etc etc etc, nothing but music or childish jokes. I was pissed off and my kids so bored that we got off at Hyde park and walked about instead. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!

Julia was an amazing animated tour guide.

I'm British, and I used to live in London, so I thought the bus tour would be a fun way for my 8yr old son to see the sights on the way to HMS Belfast. We arrived at our tour departure point (King's Cross) at 10:20am, and reached our destination (Tower Bridge) at 13:20pm. In short, we spent those THREE awful hours mainly waiting on the street, plus standing on overcrowded buses with neither view nor commentary, retracing our steps after the bus was too crowded to exit, and even being called a liar by a bus driver, which required my son to spend 10 mins crying out his trauma on the pavement. We had around 20 minutes of actual bus 'tour'.

Detailed version: at King's Cross there are no staff from this company, nor info on bus times; a lovely chap from another company (Golden Tours?) kept growing numbers of Big Bus customers entertained while waiting around 35mins for the Green Route bus.
The bus arrived, we plugged in headsets and found... no tour! The headset only played music and self-promotion by the company. So we passed iconic sights of St Pancras, the British Library, Tavistock and Russell Square with no info at all. It turns out the Green Route is just a connecting service, not a tour at all, but this is not clear online. We would have been far better off on public transport.
Approaching Aldwych, we went downstairs ready for our stop, but the driver said he had to cross the river and retrace the route, before we could get off. We tried to go back to our seats but the bus was so packed our seats had been taken so my son and I sat downstairs - where the company had sold off its window space for advertising so we could barely see anything of the stunning view across Waterloo Bridge! My son was gutted.
The bus emptied at Aldwych. We waited and waited for the Red Route bus, watching other company tour buses trundle by half empty. After 10mins a Big Bus arrived. It was packed. Four lucky people got on.
My son and I were among the 30ish who were not lucky. Staff on the pavement tired to reassure everyone. When a bus arrived after another 10 mins we got onto the bottom deck - after another stop one seat became available upstairs; my son sat on my knee to make space for others. The less fortunate were standing on the top deck - with no socket for their tour commentary.
Rammed together on the back row, sharing the ear pieces, we did enjoy 15-20mins of tour. The recording was interspersed with a lot of music, but it was OK.
Our stop was announced and we lept up, and, with others, tried to get downstairs. But the driver had opened the doors and people were pouring up the steps. The bus moved off. I rang the 'stop' button and called down that there were still people wanting to get off, but to no avail.
My son and I, and another group, got downstairs and begged the driver to let us off, including when we were literally stationary in traffic at a bus stop. I can understand why he would not let us out between official stops, but what really floored me was that he blamed us for not getting off sooner. When I said we had headed to the stairs as soon as the stop was announced, but the way was blocked by people coming up, he told me I was 'making things up' as he had a camera to see the top deck (perhaps it was so crowded with standing passengers that he could not see us trying to leave). I reiterated that two family groups had attempted to get off, not just me, at which point he began repeatedly saying I was lying, and my son started crying.
While the bus crawled over Tower Bridge (another view we could barely see, crammed in with the standing passengers downstairs), I focused on trying to soothe my son. The furious way the driver repeatedly shouted 'no standing on the top deck' all the way across just made him cry more (and convinced none of those standing to come down). We finally got off at the Tower of London.
At this point, a very kind staff member on the roadside was clearly concerned about my sobbing son, and my shaken demeanor. She offered to extend our ticket times (we declined, as the last thing we wanted was to get back on a Big Bus, ever). She tried her best to at least give us info on the timings of the river cruises back into Westminster - which are not online, so I literally had to write them down.
Then we sat down by the road while my son cried and cried.
Once he recovered, we retraced the journey over Tower Bridge on foot, towards our missed stop, three awful hours after leaving Kings Cross. What should have been a fun pleasant introduction to London for my son was completely ruined. He knew as well as I did that the driver had called me a liar when I was being truthful. This is not the sort of experience an 8 yr old forgets.
A few hours later we did take the river cruise: fabulous - pleasant staff, live commentary by a real, funny human, great views, and a much-needed G&T. That is the only reason this tour gets any stars at all.

The worst sight seing I’ve ever had !!!!! We’ve been dropped off, the whole bus, twice in less than 1h, the only explanation from the staff being that the drivers are crazy. Add to that the childish audio guide, de-synchronized from the itinerary, the fuzzy explanation from the rude staff about the red/blue supposed loops and the 50€ to pay the disgust. I am so sad that coming home I’ll send a courier to their CEO and ask him to take a ride. Horrible expérience, worth no star. AVOID!!!

To be honest I don't even know how they've got 2.5 stars as an average. The worst most stressful not to mention costly experience we've had. Dirty buses, unwelcoming and rude staff who couldn't be bothered to do their job well. Bus didn't stop at stop to pick us up. Spent most of the day waiting for the bus to turn up. Music was killing us slowly. It was all in all a really bad experience. Avoid it at all costs.

One of the worst bus tours I've been on. Myself and my partner were standing on an overpacked bus with no ability to listen to the commentary. There was no control over the number of people entering the bus with more and more people being wedged together. When we finally did get a seat we spent 1 hour listening to the Beatles while driving around London with minimal factual information about the sites. Whatever information we did hear was an extremely poor attempt at comedy with no substance whatsoever. Avoid this tour at all costs!!! Literally did not learn a thing about the city. What an incredible waste of money.

We had a good experience in big bus tour. Timing was managed well. Narration was also good. Just one feed back about soho street. There is Shri Radha Londonishwar temple and Govinda s restaurant( vegetarian) in soho street. It would be great if you can add this in your narration as it was a bliss when we visited after the trip. Thanks again.

The buses are impossible to get on unless you push your way through the crowd, which is not possible with small children. There is no order and no staff to help control this problem. I brought 2 adult and 2 children’s tickets for a 2 day pass, with walking tour, night bus and boat trip. I managed to get on the lower part of one bus standing up, then tried another bus. The boat and evening bus was impossible. This was a huge wast of money. Take my advice save some money and get a taxi instead of using this terrible service, there isn’t even a tour guide on the bus.
Very bad tour and should not be sold this way.
I have already contacted your live chat help and been waiting 4 hours so far, but they don’t want to know and will not offer a refund so no customer service at all.
This is what I was told:
We will escalate this case. For that we will need the time and day, the bus stop, the number of the bus, the name of the bus driver, all the details you can provide about this tour.
About a much help as none really. Do Not Buy this service