Big Bus Vienna Reviews 545

Brilliant company. Well organised tours and easy to follow maps and details.

We bought the city light tour with lights at schonbrun.
The windows was dirty and with dew. Not possible to see out. The soundsystem in the bus terrible. Save the money and take a walk.

I had been on big bus tours before so knew what to expect but there are a few flaws in Vienna which they should correct and they have not which made our experience relatively poor…

1- The timetable for the red bus is very hard to read as the first bus is at 956 at stop 8, at 900 (before!) at stop 9, 905 (again before!) at stop 10 and 1051 (way after!) at stop 11 making it virtually impossible to plan a red route in the morning (I also note that if you look at the first route and the last route the time it takes to go from 8 to 11 is completely different implying there is something funny going on). When I asked the online help about it, they acknowledge the issue but were not able to help

2- when we went to take the planned 956 red line bus at stop 8, it actually left to go directly to stop 16 (without going to stops 9, 10, 11, 12, etc.) there we waited for 5 minutes before going to stop 1 where the bus stopped for another 20 minutes… so not only we did not go through the route we expected but we also had to wait for ages. We were not provided any explanation for this

3- at stop 1 you can walk to the bus from the other lines however the driver from the red line told us the wrong timing for the corresponding bus meaning we had to wait for half an hour at the other stop 1

Travelling with 2 young children these seriously impeded our ability to visit Vienna. I genuinely think these are easily avoidable things so I hope big bus Vienna will read this message and amend their process where needed

On our end, we wasted 2 hours+ each day because of these so this was not great

Terrible attitude for people with young children. We waited 15 minutes, got on a red bus. Moved one stop to the told we would sit for 15 minutes. Got off to walk to the blue bus, just arrived as driver was closing the door. He stopped, opened the door to refuse entry and said to wait 20 mins for the next one.

We booked the 90 minute round trip evening tour - 70 Euro for two of us. The online map shows the wrong stop!! We got to that stop 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time and waited at it for 20 mins as we wanted top deck seat. A driver did appear but said he was off duty, I asked him if he evening tour started from here (where it said it did on the app) and he said no and pointed to a stop around 500 metres away. I said to him the app says it goes from here he shrugged and said 'speak to the supervisor'. we had to run to correct stop to avoid missing bus. 2 other couples who like us went to the wrong stop because of the app, were not as fit as us and missed the tour. Staff didn't care. Had to sit below deck as well as the top deck was full when we eventually arrived. The tour was spoiled being below we only saw 1/2 the things on offer. The Audio upstairs partially failed leading the guide to stop giving commentary for about 10 mins while he sorted it out. Tour is a waste of money - download a free walking tour instead is my advice

This is the worst’s experience of my life!, these people are complete sharks!
You buy a ticket that says 24hrs, the moment you pay for the ticket your time is available only to midnight of that day!
Their staff is rude and no help at all! Some of The drop off points are km’s away from the actual place you want to see!!! Their app works like a toaster from the 19th century!!
Rather buy a normal bus ticket and help yourself than using people that take your money and give nothing in return!!!!!

Do not use this in the summer! Absolutely terrible experience, borderline torture. No a/c despite the hefty price, makes top deck literally a torture chamber. Atrocious, terrible, worst experience from any tour bus in any city. Whoever runs this company should really be ashamed of themselves.

We purchased the 48hr pass which included a river cruise or skip the queue ferris wheel ride plus guided walking tour. Cost over €100 for two people. We came from a stay in Bratislava so only had two full days in Vienna, we opted for the hop on and off having done little research as it seemed like a effective way to see the city/ get some information on the history and where to go what to see etc. Massive mistake, you honestly spend hours on these buses stuck in traffic on the back streets. The audio guide is vague and mainly plays music. The buses only seem to go in one circular direction so if you pick up the blue route at the wrong stop you’re stuck on it for an hour if not more. It’s really badly planned. You get dropped off in vague locations with no direction so you still have to get Google maps out. We wanted to do the ferris wheel, on booking it said once you have purchased you ticket you can log in to choose your option, it would only let us choose the river cruise which we didn’t really want to do as we had come via boat from Bratislava to Vienna, having no choice we ‘hopped on’ the red line to do the cruise, we got off the bus with absolutely no guidance of where to catch the boat from, so we wandered up and down the canal until we spotted the boat 1/4 mile away docking up along the other side of the river to where we were dropped, don’t get me wrong the staff on the boat were lovely but you basically go up and down the canal and there is nothing to see, just graffiti walls and grass banks. When we got off the boat back to the bus stop we waited 20mins for the next bus, only to get on it to spend another hour returning back to the city, the second to last stop took 29mins with no option to get off, there are no toilets on the bus so that part of the journey was especially uncomfortable for my Husband who considered getting off but thought it was only one more stop! The guided walking tour only took place once a day at 11pm (in English) so by the time we caught the first bus and sat in traffic for over an hour we missed it - on both days. Honestly the biggest waste of money I have ever spent and that’s saying something! I actually think in booking this it ruined my experience of Vienna. We saw very little. The public transport system in Vienna is absolutely amazing, your never to far from an underground stop and it’s really easy to navigate and not super busy. I’d definitely recommend using that instead this tourist trap. Even if like us it was a last minute thing and you haven’t researched it just google top things to do in Vienna and then google map how to get there. We found the people of Vienna to be so friendly and helpful so if you are lost there are 100’s of places to stop for a drink and get your bearings and we found they will happily point you in the right direction/give advise on what to see.

First bus, the driver told us to wait for next bus even though the bus was about empty.
When next bus came was only standing space downstairs. Over crowded. There was a school tour occupying the upstairs section.
Standing in the middle, no where to plug in headset or even see through windows. It was also very hot, no Aircon. This lasted for about 30 minutes until school kids got off.
Was not a pleasant day. Not impressed with Big bus tours.

"Danube River Cruise" Canal only
Took 2 hours from Train Station to Palace. Their ticket not good until 3 hour wait. They took off before we could get down at one stop and had to walk back from next stop. Yet just stopped and waited 16 minutes at another. If they told us we could have gotten ioff. Both days ended at 5:30 and had to taxi back to Hotel.

There is nothing about this bus that's worth the time or the money.

Dirty roof so you can't see up. Horrible music playing the same songs over and over again. Infantile commentary. Slow slow slow.

I've been a block away from the state opera got thirty minutes.

They don't have an helper for tickets and onboarding so we sit and sit

The concept is good, the way it's carried out leaves much to be desired. The blue line is better than the red line. The red line had wifi problems - no wifi - on two buses and the drivers shrug their shoulders. They say they do not know anything about wifi! They should know there is a sign in the bus about wifi being provided, and if it does not work it could be annoying and they should get involved to fix the problem. The BigBus guy in the street (stop in front of Maria Therezia's statue) also did not know the bus had no wifi, just like the guy in the street at stop 1. Also the same bus today with no wifi had loud commentary in German throughout the bus which was very annoying and interfered with hearing properly the English guide as the ear piece does not seal out the German commentary on the bus. Why is there loud commentary when there are ear buds for this? I think two stars is generous when the company does not train its employees to be more helpful in getting certain problems addressed.

I was traveling with my wife and my children, 6 and 8 years-old. We paid 96 euros and lost our ticket before taking the Blue Route.
Although I had the proof of payment on my debit card, I was not allowed to enter the bus. The staff attendant did not allow me to speak to the supervisor either - when I said it was not fair, he even answered “life is not fair” - that’s outrageous! And I only wanted to take the bus to go to a place 4 stops from where we were. I appreciate they always tell us to look after our tickets, but that sometimes can be really tough when you are traveling with kids. This company had 0 understanding about my situation and showed no consideration. They should have a way to reprint tickets in situations like that or at least to provide some sort of authorisation. I’m very disappointed.

Great way to see the city and get a guided tour at the same time!

It was good time in my short visit to Vienna and I used Big Bus to manage my time effectively and see the places much as possible. I hope I have covered almost the places and thank you for everything. I will choose big bus in my next tour as well.

Very good commentary, very helpful staff.
Regular buses.

The best comprehensive, crystal-clear audio system ever ! It made it so much easier & fun !
Moreover the top area was heated & warm. The windows were clean & none greasy. More clear to observe & see signs. Bus schedule was on time (5-10 mins late ; quite forgivable). Bus drivers were friendly ( no bad attitude such as " Je déteste touristes .. non !).

Only visited Vienna for 1 day, apart from the very centre ( because it was lively weather we decided to walk that part) it would have been impossible to see so much of the city without Big Bus. First class service!!

The service ran late from a few stops and since I was only there for one day it affected my time. On the last leg while trying to make my way back to the main train station in Vienna the Big Bus driver gave me wrong information causing me to miss the last bus. This was very frustrating, I then had to find my own way back to the station by the local tube and because I got there later than planned my train ticket home was way more expensive. Overall it was a very inconveniencing experience.