Big Bus Tours Shanghai Reviews 201

PLEASE SEE THE SPEAKER AND EAR PHONE ARE WORKING PROPERLY .
REST ALL WAS NICE.

I searched for over 30 minutes at two locations and found it impossible to locate the hop-on/hop-off points for Bigbustours in Pudong. Granted, the area around the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World FInancial Center are under construction--however, even searching around the Oriental Pearl Tower proved fruitless. (Despite there being several other Chinese-language bus tour companies with stops and reps in the area.)
I ended up on Gray Line City tour--twice the price but more than double the value.

They should make the seats dry as soon as the rain stops.

For a short trip it is the best opcion to meke tourism, had the especial and most interesting places on the city.

Would totally recommend the tour. Saw all that we needed to and makes life so much easier as not many people speak English and so this makes it less complicated.
Plenty of extras included in the price, and the cost of just them covers the entire ticket.
Did have to wait for some time for buses. Not sure if we kept getting our timing wrong, or they were late. Would have got full marks otherwise.
The helpers before you board all speak English and help out whenever required and very friendly.
Have family in Shaghai and they haven't been seen as much as we did in the year they have lived there. Thanks for the knowledge and safely.

Traveling on big bus was interesting. The top deck allowed in excellent view of building and other sites around. The commentary was also very helpful and interesting.
I believe there are few things which can be improved
Some of the stops are not prominently marked or identified
Post time table of bus at each stop.
Run buses at least till 9 pm to allow seeing the city at night.
Two day pass was very useful thing.
Do not bundle free entry. I could not use these. tickets would become cheaper and more people will come.

The map showing pickup locations was absolutely no help. I would strongly recommend that the names of the cross streets be shown for ALL the stops. Also, we waited almost an hour while a competitive company's bus went by FOUR times before a Big Bus stopped and we were at a major stop, Yuan Garden. It was the Green route and we wanted the Red route but the driver spoke no English so we got on. Ten minutes later, the bus stopped at People's Square and we got off. While they were checking our tickets, the Red route bus left even though they knew we were going to get on and we were told it was another thirty minutes until the next bus. We wasted so much of our limited time in Shanghai and even though we have tickets for tomorrow, don't know if we want to go through such a frustrating experience again.

Everything was correct according to the ticket so i dont have any problem with the tour.
My suggestion is include in the ticket the entry to TV tower

Good way to have a quick view of the city. I only have two complains: some audio device in the seats of the bus are damage, you can change to another one, but sometimes the bus is full. I had the same situation in Shanghai and HongKong. In Shanghai, sometimes you must wait a lot in first stop to the bus starts.

Big Bus Tour - Shanghai. Excellent value and a wonderful 2-day experience that included a River Trip (including refreshments), entrance to an important Temple, and a view from the top of one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai (probably one of the tallest in Asia ! ). Booking on line was a great advantage and saved queuing for tickets.
Strongly Recommended

signs of where bus stops could hardly be found. Impossible to find the right boat for the boat trip. Not the normal big bus tour experience.

It was very nice & excellent experience in Shanghai with Bigbus.
Treatment given was also great & fine...concerns are very much caretaker with all the guests & also advicing timely specially bigbus counter at People's square !!
Only follwing are some suggestions -
1. Timings can be extended from 8.30AM to till 6 PM.
2. Need some information to be provided about the days planning from bigbus side which can be very much hlpful to the forignors.
3. Time target can be provided about each location to plan the guest accordingly.
4. Bus stop identification/ board to be provided near jinmau tower & all locations.

We only had a full day in Shanghai which we were hoping to enjoy on the big bus and use the river cruise too, but we wasted half our morning waiting for a big bus that never stopped at the stop on the map of the green route in the French concession area. We waved our tickets and the driver even saw us but ignored us and refused to stop for us twice! He was too busy talking on his mobile while driving to even have the courtesy to help us. We phoned the Big Bus company and they told us to take a taxi to the People's square and get a bus from there and that we can claim the taxi money back, however by the time we had done all that we only had 2 hours left to use the bus and see Shanghai, we were very disappointed. The Big Bus worked better in Hong Kong but the driver drove dangerously fast in the Stanley Beach area, far too fast for tourists to be able to take photos or just enjoy the drive...why drive at such speeds in those turns? It is crazy. We will be writing to the company and requesting a full refund on our Big Bus tour as we felt we did not get our money's worth and were badly let down in Shanghai.

Good - well managed tour. Lots of good stuff included too.

Bad - Bus drivers did not speak English and appeared frustrated by any question.

In Sept 2011, my Mom had a good experience with Big Bus Tour. She took it on 1 day, covering the cruise and visit to Jin Mao. The price was USD33. So in Aug 2012, I booked my parents with Big Bus Tour again. But this time the price was USD44, although the website stated there is discount on selected dates, i could not find out which dates had the discount. I sent email queries for clarification and was told the price is determined by Head Office.

The wait in between bus changes were also longer e.g. up to 1 hour! Their starting point was Oriental Pearl Tower in Pudong at 9.45am, and they wanted to take the cruise at about 1030am, but when they reached the cruise centre, they found out the cruise does not start till the afternoon.

A suggestion is to provide the brochure for time schedule of pick up at bus stops or the cruise centre. So the trip can be planned more efficiently. I understand the timing is dependent on traffic conditions, but at least there is some approximate timings.

I wasn't able to take my bus tour. The location I chose to get on the bus was rather large and I could not find the bus stop. I wasn't sure what the bus stop sign looked like. I also wasn't sure how to turn in my voucher once I found the bus. I lost out on taking the tour and wasted $44.00.

This was a pretty good buy, as we had very limited time and really wanted to get a feel for the city. Some of the hookups for the audio did not work, but the bus was not so full that we couldn't move around and find one. It was very hot on top of the bus, but that's just the weather in Shanghai this time of year. Air con downstairs in the bus was good.
NEGATIVES:
-- The bus stops -- at least the first -- was very, very difficult to find...was more luck than anything that we found one to get on.
-- The boat tour -- also nearly impossible to find where to get our tickets, as we went to the late tour after the buses had stopped running. Seriously, so difficult to find, and everyone we stopped to ask for directions pointed us in a different direction...and the number for the tour company did not work (even earlier during business hours)....no one answered.

My family has been living in Qingdao and only had a few days to see Shanghai. We spent the first day walking around the city in horrendous heat and humidity, feeling horribly uncomfortable. We didn't want to go through another day like that, so we bought tickets for Big Bus Tours. We were very glad we did. We were able to get around far easier, and see far more than we would have done on our own. I would definitely recommend it to friends who are visiting the city.

We only had 2 days to explore and explore we did. Cruised the red and blue lines twice and the green once. Stopped and got off many times at terrific places. Highlight was the nite time river cruise. A very good value for the price.

Spent most of the time waiting for the bus, no timetable or schedule. The three loops did not match each other at the rendevous, hence spending 30 minutes or more waiting. The river cruise was long, without any commentary, Jade Buddha temple did not match the location on the audio commentary, ended up at another temple requiring Y30pp. The map location of our hotel (Yun's Paradise) was incorrect and ended up walking more than a 1km from stop 9 rather than a few blocks from stop 8.