Hop-on hop-off bus companies
Most sightseeing buses belong to a handful of brands. Here is who owns each one, where it runs, how travellers rate it and what happens when a trip goes wrong.
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Big Bus Tours
Yes, Big Bus Tours is a real and long-established company, and the bus you paid for will be there. How good it is depends on the city: the service is frequent in Edinburgh and London and thin in New York and Dublin, and getting money back after you activate a ticket is hard.
London · Paris · New York · Edinburgh · Vienna · Budapest · Dublin
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City Sightseeing
The brand is genuine and has been around since 1999, but City Sightseeing does not run your bus. A local company does, so quality, refund rules and the place to complain change from city to city.
Rome · Amsterdam · Berlin · Florence · Milan · Porto · Seville
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Madrid City Tour
Yes. Madrid City Tour is the city's official tour bus, run by two of Spain's largest coach and tour companies, and its cancellation terms are better than most. Route 1 is frequent, while Routes 2 and 3 can leave you waiting 35 minutes.
Madrid
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Barcelona Bus Turístic
Yes. Barcelona Bus Turístic is run by TMB, the public company behind the city's metro and buses, and it is the most frequent tour bus we cover in Spain. The catch is a strict rule: once you buy a ticket there is no refund.
Barcelona
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Sights of Athens
Yes. Sights of Athens is a licensed Greek tour company that runs its own blue buses, and its cancellation rule is clear: free up to 24 hours before. The city loop is frequent, while the Piraeus and beach lines run only six times a day.
Athens
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Yellow Bus
Yes. Yellow Bus belongs to Carris, the public company that runs Lisbon's buses and trams, so you are dealing with a transport operator and not a reseller. The weak point is frequency: in Lisbon a bus comes every 40 minutes.
Lisbon
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Tootbus
Yes. Tootbus belongs to RATP Dev, part of the group that runs the Paris metro, and its refund rule is one of the clearer ones: free up to 24 hours before the tour date. In Brussels the weak point is frequency, above all on the Atomium shuttle.
Brussels
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Gray Line Münchener Stadtrundfahrten
Yes. Münchener Stadtrundfahrten is an old Munich company that runs the buses itself, and the same buses are sold under the Gray Line and Big Bus names. Check the cancellation terms before you book, because its published terms charge a fee that rises as the date gets closer.
Munich