Big Bad Big Bus Tours London

Yesterday we bought 24 hour tickets for one of the double decker hop-on hop-off bus tours - the ones that take you all over the city, give you some information about what you're looking at, drop you at the main tourist attraction and then deliver you to the next one of your choosing...

Yes, we thought we'd done it right. As it happens, the company neglected to tell us that they would be altering the route in the morning - and failed to post notices at the stops they were avoiding. We waited, just outside our hotel at a most convenient stop, for well over an hour for a service that should have been stopping by every 10 minutes or so... after getting fed up, and unable to reach any one by phone, we walked to another stop.... where we waited for another 30 minutes - we could see our bus-line in the distance, but they kept turning away. So we walked to where they were picking up, and hopped on - finally.

It was cold, there wasn't a live tour guide, the plug-in audio guide was full of static, and in some seats not working - which prevented us from sitting as a family - and our tickets had lost their true value to us as we'd spent over 2 hours of tour time trying to find a bus stop that was functioning, without advice or indication from the company.

They do have a disclaimer for circumstances beyond their control... the frustrating thing was, the other touristy double-decker hop-on hop-off bus lines operating kept on stopping at all the stops our service skipped - we were passed up well over 20 times by competing agencies while we waited and wandered aimlessly around trying to find some service.

As part of our purchase we'd bought tickets for the Tower of London and a river cruise - by the time we actually got to the tower our 24 hours tickets were about to expire - we didn't get to take advantage of the river cruise, nor we were entitled to get back on the bus to come back to our hotel, and we didn't get to finish the rest of the route.

Altogether, while I enjoyed the time on the bus after we found seats with functioning static free audio, I know the next time I come, and I'll be back and do another bus tour as I didn't get the full overview, I'll use a different company. Boo on your poor communication in a situation where it would have cost you nothing, boo on you, big bad Big Bus Tours.