Hmmm!
This is a difficult review to write because, although my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the Big Bus experience, we can empathise with some of the negative comments given by other reviewers too.
Firstly, it's important to decide what you want to do because big savings can be made by booking ‘combos’. For example, the Big Bus 2-day deluxe ticket is priced at $80 and the Circle Line Best of NYC circumnavigation of Manhatten costs $42. But we obtained both via a Circle Line ‘combo’ at just $62 – virtually a 50% saving.
The down side to our combo is that we had to go to the Circle Line pier to change our Circle Line reservations into Big Bus vouchers and then go to the Big Bus office (inside Madam Tussauds, Times Square) to change these into a Big Bus tickets. We were based near Times Square, so this was not too bad for us, but if your hotel's not there, this could present a problem. We walked the 5 blocks from Times Square to the pier and back and, by the time we had queued to get our tickets, two hours had passed.
Next, don’t under-estimate how long these loops take and don’t over-estimate how much you can do in a day. Both the uptown and downtown loops take a good 2 hours to complete so, theoretically you could complete both in a day. But, in practice, this won’t happen. You need to obtain your ticket and you need to queue for the bus. After 2 hours of sight-seeing you need to spend time to eat, drink and unwind. And you may want to re-visit some of the sites you saw on the tour. So, realistically, one of the big tours per day is enough.
That also begs the question about what you’re buying in your combo. Including the ubiquitous queuing, a trip up and down the Empire State Building takes 2 hours and the Liberty Island cruise takes a similar 2 hours. A fleeting visit to any museum would take 3 or 4 hours. So, in 48 hours there are only so many sites and tours that you can take in. We did the two big loops, the Liberty Island cruise and the Night Tour and, quite honestly, we were worn out.
The Big Bus is advertised as ‘hop on, hop off’. In theory it is but, in practice, most passengers do a full loop before deciding where to hop off the bus. So, if you want to join the bus at one of the less popular stops where virtually no one gets off, then it’s quite possible that the bus will be full.
Incidentally, the queue for the Night Tour was 200 yards long when we joined it at 19:30. A bus was leaving Times Square every 10 minutes and we got on ours at about 20:15. Everyone was guaranteed and upstairs seat and the organisers said that anyone who joined the queue before 21:00 was guaranteed a tour.
During our 48 hours we experienced four Big Bus Tour Guides. They were all very knowledgeable and I would rate one as good, two as very good and ‘Cruz’ on the night bus as excellent. They were all willing and able to answer questions. And, yes, they all mentioned the ‘tipping box’ by the driver’s door, but I didn’t feel that they over-played this issue.
Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our 48 hours pass and I would recommend the Big Bus tour to anyone wanting to obtain an overview of the city. Before purchasing your combo ticket, plan what you really want to do and be realistic about how long each tour is going to take so that you don’t waste money on combos that are physically un-realistic.
Oh! And be prepared for a lot of queuing.