Big Bus Tours Istanbul Reviews 390

Excellent way to move around the city!
Will choose Big Bus Tours in another trips for sure

Poor quality. Headsets were not working properly. Kept losing connection to the audio tour. Tour buses have little to no time for me to signal that I wanted to get off at stops. Driving the tour bus operators was atrocious. Braking and high speeds were unacceptable especially when traveling with a small child.

It's a waste of money as it doesn't offer you any thing special.
All places you visit with them you can reach it by public transportation in a convenient and easy way, But it will only cost you less than 5 € instead of 33 €.
Also when you use public transportation you gonna reach see streets, shops you ain't gonna see with them

Paid 33 Euros for the ticket each. The bus ticket is valid for 48 hours and has a blue route and a red route. be careful which one you get on as they both take you to different places. reading some of the reviews it looks like people have gone on different routes and got confused. best way to do the tour is day 1 do the blue route and day 2 do the red route. personally i thought it was worth the money. as taxi's in istanbul rip you off where as the bus takes you most places and gives you a tour of the european side of istanbul and the asian side. The buses can sometimes be late but istanbul does have a lot of traffic so you have to be patient. 1 or 2 stops dont exists on the schedule hence a 4* REVIEW but if they updated this then it would be a 5* also when plugging your headphones in the bus you can change the language for the tour. English was number 4

We really enjoyed the Big Bus tour. It is a great way to Hop on and Hop off at the places of interest to have a good look around and then back on the bus to the next. Very good value. Good commentary too. Bus is comfy too.

The timetable on the application was totally wrong. We had to wait 1 1/2 hours to get the bus. Also in Istanbul the buses run every hour which is too long and because of that the buses are full from the first stop. Apart from that we enjoyed the tour

The biggest scam I encountered recently. Paid 40 usd for a days pass. Everything was OK untill I went down and looked to hop in again.
No stations marked, the map they provide is not corresponding to their actual stop.
Foe example I looked in to hop in at W hotel station. After asking 10 people around finally I learn that there is no stop a W, looked for another stop for 30 minutes but nothing.
Finally gaved up and hop in a taxi. Actually for a fraction of the 40 usd you can use the taxi to visit every place in Istanbul. Taxis are everywhere very convenient and always theee whenever you need it.

Stay away from BIG BUS!!!

Very thorough routes and good sites visited but with a bus coming by only every hour, you need to be sure you want to get off and you become very conscious of how long you're at a landmark.

Unclear or inexistent signs at stops. The app and the paper map were not always in synch adding to the general confusion. Buses take forever to show up.

bad services, the driver intently delay us so I can't catch the next bus to cont. my trip
costly for nothing
assistance only for ladies in sexy clothes

There was traffic so they went on a different route and we missed half the stops.

When we stopped at Sultanahmet Square they told us to get off the bus and that no more buses would be running for the day (2:30pm) while I can understand they had to cancel due to traffic/police request they werent willing to offer any partial refund and wouldn’t even provide advice on how I could get back to where I started in Taksim square. Customer service was very poor.

it was waste of money to take the bus tour. The audio didnt help at all.

I loved the tour! Great sites, easy to follow map with highlighted sites, awesome staff. My only concern was the visibility of bus stops. I got off and when it was time to get back on the stop wasn't clearly marked, and the bus stopped too far ahead of us. We ran after it, but ended up missing the pickup and had to wait another hour.
Also- Please plan ahead and warn us about the traffic. We did 2 days of the tour, and both times at the end of the day the bus was stuck in traffic and we had to get out and walk. turns out this happens a lot! Would have been nice to be prepared for that, as we ended up getting lost on the first day. It wasn't a far walk... if you knew where to go....

I was on a bus this morning (red tour) and I can say that you get a quick and good overview of the most famous tourist attractions. I just took the tour, I did not hop on and hop off, because I didn’t have time. I started the tour at Sultanahmed square and I suggest you are on your bus station early, since we started driving at 9.15 instead of 9.30 o’clock (which was written on the web page). Also have some additional clothes because it can be quite windy at the top of the bus. Try sitting on the right side of the bus, because you will get better view to most attractions. People working on the bus were very nice.

It is completely understandable if bus is late on a stop (traffic, people to get on/off, etc) but it is not acceptable that a bus arrives 10 minutes EARLY at a bus stop and DOES NOT wait to respect the schedule. We have been able to jump on it by miracle since we saw it from the opposite walkway, otherwise we would have waited for 70 minutes without understanding why

Great tour aound the city, highly recommend.

This tour in Istambul defenitely does not worth its value due to caotic traffic that led to the tour to take more than the double of the foreseen duration. Also due to the same reason its almost impossible to hopon hopoff once the waiting time mostly exceedes largely the foreseen 60 minutes.

We did not find them on time. Upstair sears are not comfortable. Windows plastic covers do not work. Cool air makes you very uncomfortable. We will not recommend this service for Istanbul.