Booked online the two day deluxe bus tour that included three bus tour routes, a night tour, either a cruise around Manhattan or a visit to the Empire State Building and a ticket to the NY Museum. Things didn't get off to the best of starts when we struggled to find the venue in Time Square to get our tickets printed out, which was hidden inside the Madam Tussauds foyer. There was a sizeable queue even early morning but the guy who served us eventually was very helpful. We hopped on the Downtown tour and the guide was rather poor. He mumbled on about banal things and had the annoying habit of giving a short laugh after every sentence. We then took the uptown bus and the guide was much better, he was informative and had a great sense of humour. Finally that day, we did the night tour and the lady guide, who said she was in her 70s, was tremendous with encyclopaedic knowledge and an engaging but relaxed style.
The following day we visited the Empire State building and our tickets worked fine and then took the Circle Line cruise around the island. After the cruise, our luck was in and just outside Pier 83 we caught the Midtown bus back to Time Square before boarding the Downtown bus in order to visit the 9/11 Memorial. The guide, an elderly gentleman from Witchita Kansas was so intent on showing off his knowledge of NY that he was failed to give warning about the stops, assuming that as this was the last departure that evening then no-one wanted to hop off the bus. So we missed our stop and had quite a walk to the Memorial.
The wait times were not too bad but the traffic was heavy all day long on both days. Having the UN General Assembly in town that week meant that many streets on the east side were closed and other routes became clogged as a result, which wasn't the fault of Big Bus, who had to amend some of their routes. The multi language commentaries were very brief and gave nowhere near as much information as the live English commentary.
At the start of the tour I would have scored the tour company 1 star and after the night tour I would have given it 5 stars. Overall it was good value but the quality of the tour guides varies considerably so there is an element of pot luck. We never experienced any undue pressure to tip whenever you left the bus.