Big Bus Tours London Reviews 

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

We booked a 3 day (72 hours) travel pass with Bus Bus Tours London and was very disappointed. I would not recommend it at all! The only positive thing is that there are many buses. Unfortunately it doesn’t help as the buses never go where they are supposed to go according to the routes. It was a very frustrating experience and we missed out on several attractions (like the changing of the guards ceremony) because of this. I do understand that routes can change due to construction /road work, but this was beyond any road work. It was chaotic. The map is provided with a number for each stop, but no names. The stops have no number, and this leads to more confusion especially since they do not stick to the routes. Twice we waited at stops but no bus came, only to find out that stops 6,7 and 8 was not in service. I used the app and could not see this info in the app. I later saw this info on the website, but more information from the staff/drivers would be helpful. Save the money and travel by public transportation!

Unlikely to recommend BigBus - 29.07.22 - Sat on the red route bus which was changed to the blue route bus for no reason. We waited a long time to get another bus - they don't follow their own route, completely missed the Buckingham Palace stop, and took us straight to Victoria. No proper signage for cruise tour -can't rate more than 2 stars. Very disappointed.

If I could, I will give -10 stars, the worse service ever. We keep waiting in bus stops for more than 30 min. Today, 29.07. We started with the tour at 13 hr and we just saw 5 ststions. I wish I could get my money back and wish I had taken the sightseeing tour from the red bus I used to buy. NOT RECOMMENDED!!!!! 😞
AMENDMENT: after placing my complain, the company got in touch with me, apologized abs refund the cost for one day tour, so I am satisfied with the service the provided after ny complain. This speaks got for the company. Thank you 🙏🏼

Horrible man giving the tour, started ranting about the Irish and the IRA 30 years ago when we passed certain streets. We weren't the only Irish people on the tour bus - it was cringe-worthy. Few if any insights from him, it spoiled one of our holiday days in London. I would not recommend this tour.

The bus didnt show on scheduled time and even the next one was late. Since the buses dont run after 5pm I lost all my afternoon planning, so the ticket was worthless.

The bus tour was fine, although the recorded commentary was sometimes irrelevant and annoying; I wish the busses had live commentary as it would have been more engaging. The best part though, was the walking tour of the changing of the guard with Julia, our guide. She took us to the best spots and it was very enjoyable!

BEWARE! There was a parody disaster movie called “Big Bus,” but unfortunately, our experience was NOT a comedy. Too bad negative stars isn't an option...

Big Bus continued to book tours when London was gridlocked and more than one of their buses were out of service. They "activated" our online purchase at what turned out to be a non-working bus at St. Pancras (we tried to board, but were told “no, this is just a ‘office;” the company now claims this bud doesn’t exist so I wish now I’d taken a photo); in retrospect this smacks of bad faith.

After wasting an hour (personnel walking us to alternate pickup locations while still selling tickets!) completely unable to get near a bus, we ended up taking the tube to other stops to try and "hop on;" unfortunately all were packed with no room to get on, as bad as the tube at rush hour. After wasting yet more time we ended up taking the tube, yet afterwards, they keep claiming NON-REFUNDABLE.

I'm filing a dispute with my credit card company, and contacting various UK and London authorities.

Also notable were other buses (e.g. Toots) were not over-capacity, and even seemed to have room on their open upper decks.

Had such a great tour - really enjoyed it and great service from the staff.

Booked this tour at 2.30pm and only wanted the bus tour as wouldn't benefit from river cruise. When paying had trouble seeing terminal and when got on the bus noticed we had been charged for river cruise. Also 24 hour ticket expired at midnight on same day. Driver wouldn't even listen to my query. Ticket bought at Victoria train station. Was misold this tour

Very bad customer service, just been informed 11 of the stops on Saturday will be out of use, no offer of a refund or partial refund at all, out of order selling a service at full price for that day when so many of the stops are unavailable that day.what about a refund ? Over a third of the stops where not in use ? Why not offer a refund or partial refund? Very greedy company, do not use.

We did not like the ear buds. One of us wears hearing aids so the buds were useless. One of us had a very sore ear by the end of the first day. The recorded information was out-dated and sometimes not in sinc with the location. Wish there were live guides on board as it was difficult to even know which stop number we were at. Very confusing. We did enjoy the walking tours with Julia and give her a 5-star rating. Her knowledge and information were outstanding! Please add guides to the buses!

The staff are amazing. Did not like ear pieces as I have hearing aids and they didn't fit very well. By the end of the tour, me ears are really sore. Would have been nice to have a person talking and saying what number stop was approaching as I kept missing my stops. Julie or Julia was awesome. Told us heaps of information about the walking tour I did. Watching og the guard's. Fantastic

Never got on the bus. Agent sold us a ticket and knew the route was closed the next day for the ride london. Buyer beware do not buy from an agent at the marble arch.