Big Bus New York: Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tour by Open-top Bus

Posted By : 935regisd
It's a scam. The website in French advertises the NYC Essential ticket for 2 days. I purchased that for USD 87 yet were told on board it is actually for one day only. The web ad is misleading and the only solution offered by the personnel for a second day was to buy a new ticket !
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Posted On : 2024-05-02

Posted By : ChrisH327
We have been on city bus tours around the world and this one must rate as the worst by far. It was very expensive, $68 each for a two day hop on hop off ticket, but that’s not the reason for the low rating. The red route purports to take in circa 12 places of interest, but some of them you can’t even see, like the statue of liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. The prerecorded tour guide tries to make up for the lack of things to see by trying, unsuccessfully, to be funny. They mentioned China Town and Little Italy, but again, the bus didn’t drive through them and you couldn’t see anything. The end of the red route is a long drive along the west side highway, with little of interest, and lots of traffic jams. The blue route is shorter, but still takes ages, with little of interest to see. We did this on a different day, but jumped off at the MET as it was so boring.
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Posted On : 2024-04-30

Posted By : Bilyana_E
Great way to see the city in a day. Unfortunately the bus was dirt, the audio system wasn’t working and the staff on the street were rude.
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Posted On : 2024-04-30

Posted By : AndyKos
We got the big bus tour tickets as part of the New York Pass, which was good value for money as we wanted to do lots of the attractions on offer. The Big Bus ticket itself, had we bought it separately I would not have considered to be particularly worthwhile. The Downtown Loop takes you to all the sights, but its basically a 90-120 minute loop depending on traffic. It does get you close to most of the major sights, so from that perspective its OK - but there are a few drawbacks. Many places you might want to explore can be a bit of a walk from the nearest stop, you could access them equally easily (and cheaper) using the subway. The buses are BUSY - we went in April - not peak season, and on some buses struggled to get a seat, and on one journey they were refusing to let passengers on as it was too full, and we we second to last bus of the day. Peak season would potentially be a nightmare. The App is good, allows you to track bus locations, and know how long till the next bus, and the buses do run every 15 minutes on the downtown loop. We didnt make use of the uptown loop, as it doesnt start until 10am, and we wanted to get going earlier in the day, so we got the subway thinking we would get bus back, but with buses running only every half hour, and limited stops, it didnt fit in well for us, so were unable to make use of the uptown loop. Overall - it was average- I've had better value bus tickets in other cities.
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Posted On : 2024-04-29

Posted By : 363darceyd
A great way to see the city! Really loved the commentary as you go around the city. Jimmy was a great guide! He would give extra nuggets of information throughout the route and added a few jokes to spice it up too! Made the trip around NY much easier
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Posted On : 2024-04-29

Posted By : monaetravels
We enjoyed it. Great way to explore the city for the day. There was a lot of traffic but it wasn’t traffic throughout the entire trip. I recommend doing this first during the day so you can see things clearly then again at night.
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Posted On : 2024-04-28

Posted By : Mike M
Had high expectations on learning a lot more about New York City and its history but since the traffic in New York City is so bad we mostly listened to music playing on our ear buds. Wasn’t worth the money we paid to sit in traffic! If you visit NYC I don’t recommend this tour as you can cover more ground and get more culture simply walking or taking the subway for a few bucks! Suggestion for Big Bus… hire some docents to ride the bus and supply an audio tour to fill in all the time with architecture and history as you travel past the various highlights since so many items are not shared or included in the “canned” bus tour audio. Kudos to our bus driver for reaching back to her dispatcher and allowing her to take a detour however it didn’t help much but I do appreciate the attempt.
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Posted On : 2024-04-27

Posted By : london_kiki26
We started our week long holiday in NYC with a 2 day bus tour on this hop on hop off service. Sadly it was a waste of time and money. The 2 routes miss out many of the iconic landmarks that tourists want to see. The bus moves slowly and the commentary is terrible. It would be nice to hear interesting facts and stories rather than “interviews” with an animal from Central Park zoo and music, which is what is playing most of the time. The commentary is also often behind, so would mention things to look for that were nowhere to be seen. The buses are infrequent and don’t really follow a hop on hop off concept. We had planned to do just that but every time we got the bus it would stop at the last stop and tell us to get off and get another one rather than run continuous loops. Buses were often too full to get on because of this. One saving grace is that we had a driver called Santana on one of our buses - she was amazing and just what we needed. We were on the lower deck and she pointed out additional sights and gave insider tips about NYC. This driver should be given a microphone so everyone on the bus can hear her - a 30 min ride with her was more informative than any of the recorded commentary was. Sadly aside from Santana this was a disappointing experience. We feel like we wasted a lot of our time because of this.
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Posted On : 2024-04-27

Posted By : marsh1106
When I was in NYC in past I have used another hop on hop off bus line. This one was not as good mainly because the tour guide talking was not on the bus so the talk was not coordinated
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Posted On : 2024-04-27

Posted By : badweather
Thought this would be a fun excursion but was very disappointed. Purchased the 1 day. The sound system wasn't working so we couldn't hear the audio part of the tour (on 2 different buses). Confusing schedules. It only runs 9-4 and sometimes 5. Sounds like a lot of time but it isn't. Not their fault but we didn't get a full tour because of an incident going on. We got rerouted and not able to see all the landmarks.
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Posted On : 2024-04-26