Big Bus Hop On — Local services in New York

This would have been a 5 star review but the blue line experience was dreadful.

We got this included with our GoCity Pass and it offers some great transport to the big sights to see in New York which is excellent! The first day we went on the red route and it was an amazing experience, the red route buses were every 3-10 minutes in May, not packed full or had big queues at the stops. The first day we went to Flatiron Building, Harry Potter store, around Little Italy, Brooklyn Bridge & Dumbo, Battery Park for our Liberty Ferry and the World Trade Centre memorial. Aside from the rain, the first day using this bus went perfectly, regular buses at every stop and the app was great for tracking the next bus in real-time on the route! I really liked the onboard tourist info audio as you drive through and the drivers were friendly and helpful.

The second day was a disaster with Big Bus! We wanted to go to the central park flower gardens, we hopped on the red line at stop one to stop two and got off where there was a fairly big queue for the blue line, we waited for around 25 minutes before the blue bus came...BUT we couldn't get on it for whatever reason which wasn't even made clear to us and the bus only had like 10 people on it! We weren't very happy at all 😑 we had to wait a further 30-40 minutes for the next one to arrive so we wasted over an hour of our day waiting for that blue bus. I understand that the blue line isn't as popular but there could have been more communication from the staff and drivers as to why we couldn't board the first one or why they couldn't convert a red bus to the blue line for the 20+ people that had been waiting for over an hour! There were 10 buses on the red route at the time and just 3 on the blue route.

When we finally got on the bus it took use at least 1 hour 30 to even get to stop 16 which was the Art Museum next to central park because Madison Avenue was literally packed and moving at a snail's pace 🙄 it easily took us over an hour just to get from the start of Madison to turn onto East 86th Street. We couldn't even go to the Gardens because we'd wasted so much time at stop 2 and getting through Madison Avenue our Harbour lights cruise was in just two hours.

When we'd reached the last stop, the driver didn't even come and tell us the bus had finished, we sat there for 10 minutes with other people, they went down first and as I was looking down the street I saw those people trying to get my attention and they told me it had finished its day 🙄 when I went down there were 4 of the staff just sitting at the back of the bus on their phones 😒 the blue bus was easily the worst experience with Big Bus and I won't bother doing that one again, I'd rather take a cab up to the north of Central Park than sit through that again. It ruined the Big Bus experience for me and my mum 😤 we almost missed the last red bus which we'd planned to take up to stop 13 for our harbour lights cruise because the driver didn't tell us.

If you want my advice, don't bother with the blue bus, it's a waste of time, just get a taxi to the upper part of central park for any attractions around stops 16 or 17!

Other than the blue bus, the rest of the experience on the red bus was excellent and gives people an affordable, stress free way to travel to the top attractions around midtown and lower...

After having seen double decker tour busses in the times I’ve visited NYC, I thought perhaps I should see what the adventure was about.

I got a pretty good deal on tickets, so we opted for the 3 day plus Brooklyn tour for our visit.

We started our first visit by getting on the wrong bus that was headed to Chinatown instead of uptown. We learned then that some of the stops shared routes! We ended up embracing being lost and saw more of the city than we would have otherwise. We never had a problem finding seats on the bus, but the top tends to fill up fast. The bus goes everywhere you need to go- friendly drivers and they tried hard to accommodate us while we scrambled up the street to catch it (whoops).

We took our Brooklyn tour on day 2 of our pass, and it was probably the highlight of our whole visit. Our guide Jen was AMAZING!!! She shared incredible insights into history, things to see and do (while on a budget!), hidden tips and tricks and was just a wealth of knowledge- she was so lovely and just a joy to be around. We had so many incredible photos we took with her help- and we will have these wonderful memories for a lifetime. We loved Jen!! Thank you Jen!!

Our driver Carlos was also amazing and saved the day when he could tell the bus was struggling on the way to Brooklyn. Without missing a beat, he ordered us a new bus and we were picked up right on time. What an awesome guy!

There really is nothing like traveling over the Manhattan bridge in a double decker bus with no obstructions. Also riding around the city in the same fashion. Totally underrated! I loved...

Avoid BigBus NYC - Big Bus Hop On Hop Off NYC service is pathetic. Availed their service on 30-June for NYC sight seeing. The buses are old, broken, ill maintained. Lower deck Air conditioning is out of order in most buses. Tried multiple buses, but all buses are same - ill maintained. At one point the bus passengers had to be off loaded as the bus broke down in middle of the route. Company mgmt. and CEO/VPs is minting money by cutting corners. Felt bad for poor conductors on the bus and the queue conductors on the streets who were doing their best to keep the customers moving, that too with a cheer. Reviews on all forums are doctored. BigBus NYC might have most buses and more hours, but you will spend most time waiting in queue for the bus as they oversell their tickets and end up creating a crowd - all buses are full. They cannot take more passengers. The NYC subway was less crowded. Giving 3 Stars for the minimally compensated cheerful drivers and conductors of this pathetically managed organization’s NYC operations.

Best solution for NYC sight seeing: Take the hop on hop off map, identify the attractions you want to visit, take the unlimited NYC subway train pass (metro card) and visit all attractions. For liberty cruise take the Staten Island ferry if you dont have plans to get down on Liberty island instead of spending big bucks on...