TripAdvisor, you don't even want to know. We arrived 5 minutes early, but the bus was already fully packed up. The literature suggested 10 minutes, but I never guessed those extra 5 minutes would make such a huge difference. Because we were *late*, the only seats left were in the very rear. Sitting in the very last seats of this trolley had some pronounced disadvantages:
1. Even though we're both tall, we couldn't even see over the other seats/head rests to appreciate sights that the (fantastic!) driver was pointing out. He would talk about a feature as the bus neared it, but by the time we could see it from the back end of the trolley, he was on to the next thing. So we were always confused, swiveling our heads about desperately to figure out what was going on. We finally gave up because of the lag.
2. The leg room was atrocious. I don't know if this is specific to the last seats, but we had to sit cock-eyed to even fit into our row, which, when you're frequently instructed to turn left and right to see the points of interest, made the tour extra impossible. We probably would have been better off standing the entire time, except the windows are too low. Worse than coach class airline seating.
3. The shaking, rattling, jostling, jouncing back there was just too much. Felt like we were dangling off the end of a diving board, with an energetic kid bouncing on it, while trapped in a small box. (The wheel base of the trolley must be designed to support the front 1/3 of passengers only!)
4. This is a comment for all the seats, not just the last row- they're padded, but somehow it makes the experience worse, like you're stuck in one of those rubbery pool floats or something.
5. By the end of the tour, we were so rattled, discombobulated and thrashed that we despondently ate lunch and drove back to our hotel, completely skipping our planned mansion tours. We were simply too exhausted.
On a brighter note, the lunch spot the driver pointed out was convenient, with a great waterfront feel and decent food, but it was expensive and slooooww.
The bottom line is that we've crossed Newport off our list entirely, to say nothing of trolley rides. Never again.
Trolley tour buyers beware: arrive as early as humanly possible to get the front seats- I suspect our experience would have been much different if we had done so. To be fair, we were visiting on a busy September weekend, but still, months later, the memory of this horrid adventure stings a little bit.