Gray Line London Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour With Optional Cruise

Sadly our experience was horrible with this company. First of all we saved for a lifetime to come to Scotland the UK for our 54th wedding anniversary.We decided we wanted to see the sites of London for a day. What a disappointment. First thing,the bus driver was terribly rude.My husband wanted to ask a question and bus driver raised his hands in the air and said loudy 'WHAT DO YOU WANT!! The bus was filthy and had used cups,paper, trash ect".aLso our ear pieces didn't work..yes we tried new ones,We were unable to see anything that we passed ,because there was always another bus on the side of us blocking the view. The topper was when we went to get back on the tour bus and was met by another rude driver, who informed us that the bus was done for the day ,that it needed to be serviced...Now this was the middle of a hot afternoon,In the middle of downtown London.We asked how we were supposed to get back to your hotel and he told us that was our problem not his and we would have to pay for transportation out of our pockets or just walk. We are 73 and 74 and our friends are also in their 70"s..Needless to say we were taken aback by his rudeness . . We are requesting to be refunded our money asap. We never received a review to fill out and We had to call to request one. So ,we had to pay for an uber to get us back to the hotel.Very disappointing trip to London that we flew from Scotland which wasn't cheap!. People were rude,the town was dirty ,and hotel tried to deny us our FREE breakfast.. OUR BOOKING NUMBER IS BR-1445402833..We would like to be compensated with a full refund due to such a horrible experience. I would like to say we made a great memory,but in fact the exact opposite happened.We are letting our travel agent know what a bad experience we had, and to not recommend your company to customers.

Wonderful experience. Friendly tour guide . Much of historical information in a thrilling and engaging manner. Highly recommended

Did Hop on Hop off bus. It was cold and we get stuck in traffic. But it was OK. Later we get on Blue tour and had a live speaker. Marc was fun and had great knowledge. We stopped longer to enjoy him.

Cruise was great, but at mid afternnon, driver was off for lunch, replacement driver was 10-15 minutes, which impacted our other plans.

Great time, Emma was fantastic guide very informative and friendly

Emma was an excellent interactive guide. Great to do this bus tour to get insights around. Couldn’t get off the bus her stories were so entertaining. Highly recommend

Everything was good. All of the drop-off spots were close by major tourist spots. attendance on the route were very helpful. They showed you where to go and how to get there.

Overall a good service except for having a 1.5 hour wait at the Eye [stop 20] for the red route bus.

Andy the guide was really knowledgeable

Horrible experience with hop on hop off grey line bus tours in London this week. Waited over 15 minutes for a bus that never came.Drivers lied to us saying that it was right behind them when it wasn’t buses just driving past us in the pouring rain and not picking up. Customer is complaining paying for Ubers instead of using the bus. One of their buses crashed in downtown London this week and caused a huge They advertise live commentary half the time they didn’t even turn on the speaker for a canned tour. Greyhound we booked four months ago a bus tour of London they canceled without any chance to reschedule a reason why if I were you I would use the big bus company. Their buses came three times faster than ours.

We tried this hop on hop off, however on two occasions we had get off one bus to get another bus, as we told there 20min wait for the blue line tour, latter in day we tried to wait for gold or orange route tour, after waiting 40mins and being told by two members of staff its only 5 mins away it never turn up and we decided to pack it in and get the tube. Not something I would recommend.

I would not recommend Golden Tours. We took the London Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour on Saturday, October 17, 2026. At around 5:30 pm, our Red Route bus terminated at Marble Arch, and the driver assured us another bus would arrive in 10 minutes. After waiting 30 minutes in the cold and rain with our three small children, I called Golden Tours and spoke with Charlie, who again assured us another bus was coming. When the next bus finally arrived, the driver told us that all remaining buses were terminating at Marble Arch and advised us to walk! We had no choice but to walk approximately 30 minutes back to our hotel in the cold and rain with our three young children. What makes this even more frustrating is that Golden Tours' published timetable shows buses continuing from Marble Arch towards Paddington well after 5:30 pm. A deeply disappointing and unacceptable experience. We paid for a sightseeing bus service, not to be stranded and left to find our own way back. It felt like a scam to us. Avoid them!

We had Emma as our tour guide. She was very knowledgeable, engaging and entertaining. She made the whole experience enjoyable and fun. Thankyou Emma.

Robin is very knowledgeable and speaks in a wonderful pace to really understand and take in everything he’s saying. Takes time to answer questions and is full of interesting anecdotes. Highly recommend!

Robin was a really good guide, his stories are amazing!

Our family’s Hop-On Hop-Off day was ruined when multiple bus stops closed because of a protest. Golden Tours gave us no warning, even though the police had published the protest conditions in advance and other operators were still running. They offered a date change, which was useless because our family had already left the UK, and then only a 20% refund. They admitted the lack of communication but still refused a full refund. Save yourself the hassle and choose another operator.

Great tour. Robin, our tour guide was amazing. Had a wealth of knowledge in history. Highly recommend

Excellent tour especially robin our guide.

Attar was so helpful booking our trip!! Such a good deal!!

GOLDEN TOURS: WORST HOP ON/HOP OFF BUS TOUR EVER! Buses are FILTHY! Windows are so dirty you can’t see well or take pictures through them. The audio is sophomoric. No real substance and certainly no history of what you’re looking at. And most of the plug in boxes for audio have been vandalized! Golden tours have fewer buses on the streets, so if you get off, thinking you’ll connect with another bus on a different route, good luck!! We spent nearly an hour waiting, and saw several buses from all the other tours go by. Incredibly maddening. BIG BUS AND the ORIGINAL TOUR (Red White and Blue buses) are MUCH better options!!!

Robin was a great tour guide. My family & I learned a lot.

Bus passed us two times on red stop #41. And then a ray of sunshine found us. Emma saw me looking at a map and stopped to make sure I was okay. Told her my story and she said blue line was better and would get us where we wanted to go. Thank you Emma, you are the best.

Emma was wonderful, I learnt so much about the history of my home city that I didn’t know. A lovely way to spend the day!

The Royal London walking tour was a wonderful experience. Our guide Robin was very kind, knowledgeable and brought the city’s history to life. A great way to walk through London’s history — highly recommended!

Bucket list check, yes. But not worth the cost. The conversion rate to Canadian dollar is nearly double (1.6) and this was certainly not an investment in our eyes. Not what we were expecting at all. Moreover, our line stopped at one place without any warning or awareness. They turned the bus off and told us to exit, that the line stopped here (though we were not halfway through the loop). We had to find our way back by ourselves (thank God i had purchased an eSim to check maps and regular bus service or walking distance to something). The bus just stopped and said "you can take the blue line, it's coming" (we were on the orange line, wanting to see the museums). You are also stuck in the crazy traffic during the "tour". No bus lanes. We wasted valuable time waiting to see landmarks that we never made it to because we were told to get off without any warning. Very dissapointed with this one. :(

Easy to hop on and off the buses. There are 3 different routes that overlap a bit so make sure to look at the map and follow the color coding. The app makes it easy to find stops. There are a few different companies that do these tours so you have to look for your specific Golden Tours buses. Take your time and factor in traffic and wait time for buses. The app will show you where the next bus is.

This tour was excellent, very organized as we knew exactly where to wait to catch the bus once we got off. There was a lot to see, really value for your money. There was another route as well but happy one route still felt quite complete. I would take it again and happy There were additives like cruising on River Thames and the option of doing the tour Jack the Ripper tour. Unfortunately we never had the time to fit that part in, but yes, real value for the money.

Fantastic visit and good Guide

Robin took us on the Royal Walking Tour. We attended as a family. The adults and children loved it alike. Thoroughly recommend it to everyone.

Once booked for your nominated day, just find any stop on a bus route and the guide will help you with your journey, its easy.

This Golden Tours tour was a great value for the cost. I especially want to call out the GT customer service. There was a bit of confusion and they were prompt and generous answering my email questions so I could get on the tour.

We waited at wrong stop to get on the bus for the first pick up even though the sign said Golden Bus Tour ,The boat cruise is definitely well worth it

Emmma was a delight!! She was very nice and was very knowledgeable of all the sights.

We paid for a whole day of journeys but ended up with a single trip to the museum area when the orange route buses stopped running without any notice in the afternoon to allow us to return into the centre of the city. We had to pay for an unpleasant crowded tube journey with 3 small children. There was then no availability of a blue route bus to return us to Waterloo despite calls to the office to check that there would be a service. After waiting for over an hour the office finally admitted there would be no bus. 3 tired, disappointed children had to get back on the tube. Appalling service - do not use! There was plenty of availability of other open top buses from different companies which passed us as we waited at the bus stop. The children did not understand why we couldn’t hop on one of those! Avoid Golden Tours who are totally unreliable.

Great fantastic day great company weather superb food great

Good survey drive around London. Hop on/off is handy for a few key stops you want to make. Drivers were courteous and helpful with questions.

We did this on a Thursday getting on at Buckingham Palace area. There is so much traffic and construction in London that we sat in traffic at stop lights most of the day and the narrative was either ahead or behind the sites so we never were sure where to look. The constant stop/start/jerking of the bus made the whole day miserable. One driver was very short with us when asking questions although the staff at the stops was helpful. I would never do such a tour again. The cost is too much for what we got out of it. I would suggest taking the tube to wherever you want to go to see the sites. Don’t waste your day sitting in traffic.

It was a good way to see the sights in London although sometimes it seemed the wait to get on a bus was longer than advertised. Once on board the provided headsets allowed you to hear interesting factoids about the places we were passing. The bus drivers are excellent - the way they maneuvered through heavy traffic with a friendly attitude was impressive. The guides standing on the street were helpful however, there is competition with the bus tours offered, and I noticed some of the other tour guides were slightly more enthusiastic and their busses seemed to come around more frequently. All in all, it was fine.

Halfway through the tour the driver pulls over to side of the road, stops the bus and tells us another driver is on his way, then leaves. We were all looking at each other wondering what's going on. We waited for like 20 minutes until another driver showed up. As the tour proceeds we were just trying to get back to our hotel area when the bus pulls over again and driver stops the bus and gets out. We came down from the top level to see what's going on, he said "Oh I didn't know you were up there". We said we need to get back to Soho area, he literally stopped the bus in Notting Hill the farthest stop from our hotel. He then tried to flag down another bus to give us a ride but that driver ignored us, so driver says " I can show you where the underground is". Excuse me, I payed $98 for this all day bus tour, which we didn't get, then also had to pay to get on the underground to get back to Soho area. Very poor customer service!

We took the train from Paris for a one-day adventure in London. It was my first time visiting the city so we decided ahead that a hop-on/hop-off tour would provide the best overview (it does!) but hadn’t booked in advance. As we were walking to the area where it seemed the tours could be purchased, we were approached by a man in the standard red outfit and the fun began. While we worried slightly we were being hustled, he was so sincere and passionate about this tour line and the benefit of their live guide that we decided to book with him. (It helped that there was a rep from another line there as well and it was obvious there was a camaraderie between them and that it was safe and legit.) There seem be at least 3 tour companies and while you probably can’t go wrong with any, the live guide adds a whole other dimension to the experience. Mohammed took the time to show us where we wanted to go based on our needs, and how to navigate back to the Eurostar in time for the evening train. He chatted while we waited and kept us advised of when the bus was arriving. He promised us we were getting the best guide and he did not disappoint! Our guide was Emma and if you can find her, you want her. She possesses a wealth of knowledge about London history and popular references and delivers it all in a fun and engaging manner. She shared some personal stories and travel tips during long traffic delays (where there’s nothing new to see because you’re not moving) and even sang for us on a dare of sorts. Her love of the city is evident and she genuinely wants all her guests to share in it. Emma made the experience special. This became even more evident later in the day when we hoped back on a different route after visiting the palace and parks and encountered a pre-recorded ‘guide.’ There is absolutely no comparison. Bland facts delivered sporadically as the bus inched through traffic; no one was even listening to it. This line seems to have fewer buses running than some of the others, but the quality of the experience is worth waiting a bit longer at a stop. If you are doing a hop-on tour; try to find Emma and tell her the Canadians from Sasquatch-ewan sent you to remind her to un-der-stand New-found-land; and have the best tour.

Emma was amazing and very engaging. She had so much information and was very enthusiastic about London!! Great and entertaining guide that made the trip a lot more fun. Highly recommend you get her bus and not the pre-recording.

Our tour guide Emma was amazing! So personable and knowledgeable- she really added to the tour. She also answered separate questions and gave great advice for visiting London. One of the best guides I’ve experienced.

Emma is an amazing guide. Extremely knowledgeable, funny and kind. Highly recommended!

Bus came frequently. Live guide on the river tour was good.

The walking tour guides and river cruise guides (Robin, Mark, Alfie) were fantastic. If it were not for them, overall rating would be much lower. The buses were less than good. Fewer buses running than the hop on / hop off bus and just a recording- not live! They seem to have some deal with hotel concierge’s who may get a kickback for recommending Golden Tours, but if you take the Red Hop on Hop off you won’t waste your vacation time: waiting for buses / taking other transport just to get to the bus stop / or having to walk long distances where there are no bus stops. Go with the Red Hop on Hop off for greater frequency/ more buses.

The bus didn't come as frequently as other companies. We were on the bus multiple times when the bus drive stopped for a 1hr break and we just sat. One time the bus driver took a 1 hour break 1 hour and 30 mins before the Hop on Hop off bus shut down for the night. While watch other buses go by is very frustrating.

I had a bit of trouble finding the pick up spot near London Bridge however, when I found the bus, it was great. This bus is a great alternative to Uber if you do a little bit of planning ahead. I was able to get very close to the National Gallery and to my hotel using the bus during the daytime.

We only had time to ride the red line. It was definitely worthwhile for an overview of some of the main sites perfect if your time in London is short. We did wish that we could hear the audio better it seemed it was turned low. We enjoyed it very much mych

Emma was the best tour guide! So glad we caught her bus! She even sang :)