Big Bus Tours San Francisco Reviews 2,444

Busses and drivers were good although some earphine ports faulty, and my biggest issue was the lack of live guides. I ended up hoing on 4 different busses and only 1 had a live guide.

We had a great time on the San Francisco Hop On Hop Off tour. Our guides on the first part were Tony and Chen. We got off in Chinatown, almost at the end, and when we got back on, we had no talk or explanations about where we were the rest of the way. Luckily we only had a couple of stops before returning to Fisherman's wharf.

Excellent Service.. Thanks for the wonderful road trip in SFO. Just a suggestion that it is better for the guide to be aware of the opening and closing of the various attractions. We bought a ticket for $100 for academy of sciences and found that it was closed.. Though we have been promised a refund, we could have easily avoided all these hassels had the guide been aware.

Bought the 2-day pass. Morning first day did the full circuit (red route) to get acquainted with the main sites. Note that if you board the bus at a point after the start of the route you need to get off bus at stop 1 and reboard another bus (at stop 1). I get the rationale for this but wasn’t expecting to have to change. Luckily there wasn’t a queue and we were able to board bus#2 and continue without waiting. Only disappointment was that we only had the pre-recorded commentary rather than a ‘live’ person, which is usually much more entertaining and informative (and up to date). And the quality of the audio was pretty poor (crackly and broken up lots of the time)

After lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf got the bus again, this time with the intention of hopping on-and-off at places of interest. This time we did have a ‘live’ commentary on the first hop and he was very good - can’t remember his name (but he had lip piercings if that helps!) Entertaining and informative. Excellent. On the down side, don’t rely too much on the bus every 15-20 mins claim. We had that sometimes; but on others had to wait 30+ mins.

Second day we did both the Sausalito tour and the night tour. The guy on the Sausalito tram was a bit of a character- good fun as well as informative. And takes a mean photo of you and yours with Golden Gate Bridge in background from the Sausalito side!

The night tour was disappointing. It was cold in early May (don’t sit upstairs in early May is my advice!!) and the stop point to take photos across the bay to SF pretty uninspiring, but the biggest disappointment was the ‘live’ commentary. OK, I know I said earlier that live is better than pre-recorded- well, this is the exception to the rule- the young lady in this case (again, can’t remember the name) seemed more interested in polishing her improv act than imparting much of interest to us tourists from around the world. English is my first language so I ‘got it’ - but ‘it’ wasn’t very good and heaven knows what non native English speakers made of it all.

So, a mixed bag really- get a good live commentary and it’s a 5 star; get the crackly pre-recorded one and have to wait 30 mins for a bus and it’s a 1. Get someone practicing for the Comedy Club when you’re upstairs on a cold SF May night and it’s 0.

Bus was comfortable, and easy to use. No live tour guide immediately in the morning- but I was happy to have one join us when we arrived at Embarcadero.

The best way to explore SF. Hop on and off with regular service made me explore the city the way i wanted to.
I recommend this to everybody.

It was great! Super easy app!

We had the night and day tour and it was great. The staffs that gave the tour was very knowledgable and very cheerful. We had alot of fun. All of the staffs on Big Bus Tours were super friendly and welcoming. The bus condition was also great. Comfy ;)

Really great tour. The guide for the night tour on Monday May 7th was aswome!

We had a great time. The guides were very knowledgeable. The bus was clean and comfortable..

let. to joint travel part tour

to go to golden gate took long time

to all the bus have on board guide

My friend and I waited 40 minutes for the first bus. No live guide for three bus experiences. Drivers unfriendly and unhelpful. They sped to each destination. The one bus we did have a live guide (for 4 stops) was wonderful. Not only disappointing but angry that more than three bus's were in play without a live guide.

Tour guide talks very fast the intercom system does not work very well .. fades in and out

Our tour guide Blake and driver Dave were awesome and full of energy. Very informative and fun experience. Highly recommend this tour as a great way to explore the city.

Wish I had done this years ago! You don't need to be a tourist to learn the interesting history of SF via entertaining BIGBUS tour guides!

Great tour, though missed having a live guide

Our tour guide, Charlie, was exceptional. He gave lots of insight and information. The only reason we didn't give 5 stars was that we felt the tour went too fast. We passed by places before we had time to really see them.
I wanted to see the houses where they filmed Mrs. Doubtfire and Full House but we never saw them.

We have been on your Big Bus tours in New York and had a great experience...repeatedly. So, we thought we'd do the same thing in San Francisco as we only had a few days in the city and it's a great way to get a good overview. That was not to be...initially.
We hopped on our first red line tour only to be driven around. There was no guide and no audio except for an endless loop of 30-second music over and over. The tour was a complete waste of time. We were so annoyed (as were the people in front of us) that we got off.
We'd bought for the evening tour as well, but it was not clear that it had to be used within the same 24-hour period, which was not the case in NYC. When we inquired the next day, we were told that we could pay another $10 to extend our period by a further 24 hours, which we did as the previous day's tour was a waste of time and, now, we were potentially losing out on the night tour too. Given this, we redid the red line tour and had a guide this time. Greg was informative, but very dry and told French tourist kids on the bus to stop talking. Again, not like our previous experiences. Finally, that evening, we took the night tour and had a guide, Morgan, who was fantastic. He was informative, funny and very friendly. So, thanks to Morgan, we were left with a better feeling, but the other two tours were dismal at best.

All though their are several Hop-On Hop-Off bus companies in San Francisco The Big Bus company is the only one with an app that give's live locations of the buses. Also the live tour guides on the buses are very informative and entertaining. My wife and I were very satisfied with our decision of the purchase of the deluxe two day pass.