Lyon Hop-on Hop-off Tour With Audio Commentary

We just , It's a beautiful city and we like to hop on and hop off buses, because you are not just seeing, you also listen to explanations about architecture, history and more. After we bought tickets and asked for the handphones he explained that we need to download applications and listen on your phone with your handphones. And if you have one of the new phones the company handphones could not be connected. On the question so how to listen? He told us on the speaker. So in a bus full of people with different languages everyone is on speaker. It's disturbing, you can't hear anything. If Lyon City Tour wants to be advanced, they need to have disposable handphones for the customers, not everyone walking around with handphones. I am very disappointed.

Tickets were not available for pickup due to marathon. We were not refunded our money. Thank you and please advise.

Fantastic way to see the sights and find out about Lyon. Some great stops along the way. Be aware that it doesn’t always run to a tight schedule and there could be long breaks between buses

My husband and I tried the hop-on hop-off bus. It was a decent experience, and the audio tour was quite amusing — the narrator kept calling Lyon a lion! Still, it provided a helpful overview of the city.

You need to get the Rewrite app on your phone so as to hear the running commentary as the tour progresses.

The hop on bus does a thorough overview of Lyons but schedule for pick up needs improvement. No service between 1-2 pm then a very long wait to get picked up. I wanted to start and go around a second time but driver decided to take an hour break!

Thought could just get on bus at any stop. Now I find I have to travel to redeem voucher. Should have bought from Big Bus directly. Very disappointed

We went twice and had two different drivers. The first driver gave no narrative, didn’t stop at the noted bus stops, and was clearly not proficient at his job. The second driver was great! He stopped appropriately, announced stops and was pleasant. We were glad we had a two-day pass.

Google search offered out of date schedule causing us to not take up tour on Day 1. Interesting as a comparison to other "hop on/off buses" the tour is only the 1 day of booking and not as seems fairly universal - 24 hours. Operator was very helpful and allowed us to use our ticket for a full day the following morning. Friendly staff. New way of navigating via mobile app and play out loud or use own ear buds/headphones. No headphones available on tour. Well worth doing the loop and then repeating with stop. Beware no 1300 start (break for operator) last round trip 1800 - around 90 minutes complete

Great way to see and learn about Lyon’s history. The app was easy to download and use, just be sure to bring your own headphones/earbuds. If I were here longer I would consider a two day pass. We did get stuck in late afternoon traffic, but that can happen in any big city.

There is a single.place where Viator vouchers can be turned in for the actual ticket - not any meeting point. That site is essentially close from 12:00-14:00, something only advertised at the site. Besides that pickup point, there are only 8 others. Bring your own earbuds/headphones to hear the audio tour

A great way to see Lyon. Enjoyed the open air top of the bus with the roof covering as it was very hot and this provided protection from the sun.

Good way to get a lay of the land. I road a lap around then walked back to the places I wanted to see more of. It’s a good way to figure out what you want to see.

Good service which wasn't crowded when we were there in May. Not sure how busy it would be in summer so always a risk with these types of service that there might not be space and you could be left queuing when you try to rejoin. Fine if you just want to do a circuit to see the city.

Bring your own Apple or Android compatible earbuds. The pre-recorded tour is available in many languages, all of which are played at extreme levels by apparently hearing impaired fellow travelers resulting in an unintelligible din. The on- board tour rep reeked of tobaco smoke.

We paid to the driver and started at Bellcour place at noon. We got off by Notre Dame de Fourvier at 13.05pm . When bus left we saw the notice that it is a lunch time until 15.35 pm . Understand, but bus never came back ( it was a last week on very rainy day) , we were waiting for almost an hour and got a taxi to get home.

The app needs to have clearer instructions on downloading the audio app. The dialog kept switching between “Lion” and “Lyon”, that was annoying.

The tour left on time. The driver helped me access the audio on my phone. Take your own ear buds, they have gone all digital! Lyon has a lot of history.

Lack of explanations, missing places. Les Halle’s Paul Bocuse, La Croix Rousse. Pretty fast for pictures and commentary was week

VERY confused as to how to access the audio for the tour. You have to download an app then download the tour. There were signs saying that wifi was available but we could not get it to work. So after 15 minutes of shear frustration and no tour audio, I asked the bus driver for help and he said "Sorry the wifi is not working on this bus". In the end, it was a beautiful 1.5 hour drive around the city with no idea at all as to what we were supposed to be looking at. Nice drive, maybe, but no tour.

I was surprised I had to use a QR program which my i phone resisted but I finally got it working but I thought the narration was really bad and insulting. The narration in English couldn’t even pronounce Lyon correctly and tried making lame jokes and there was long periods of just music. I finally just turned it off. It wasn’t my 1st time using this tour in other countries but this was also before the QR code use and the first time I was disappointed in the tour.

We book this experience for our elderly parents and my brother with his wife. Their bus broke and they had to wait for 1hr 20min outside waiting for the next bus to come in order to complete their tour. They were not given an estimate of when the bus would pick them up and had to stay outside instead of potentially using an opportunity to look around. It was windy and cold that day and was not an enjoyable experience at all

It was a great way to see Lyon France. Friendly driver was very accommodating to everyone on the bus

Not the best experience since we took the tour expecting a round trip. We were specifically told what time of 4pm to be at the last stop at the church on the hill. We were there before time and waited an hour in the freezing cold to then have no choice but to take the tram. I saw another couple who were on the departing bus as well waiting too but they gave up and left. I recommend not taking the last bus as they may be a no show.

I’m glad I read all the information before we went, and that made the experience perfect. You do need to download the audio and bring your earbuds.

So disappointing. I love these tours all over the world, but this one is terrible. You have to bring your own headphones and download an app to hear the commentary about the city. They give you very little information. Most of the time you are just listening to jazz music.

Save your money. Avoid this at all costs. All I can say is total joke. We have done many of these Hop on Hop off tours and this one is horrible

You need to bring your own headphones and download the Rewind App to hear the tour dialogue. There is a QR code on the bus to download that app. I wish there was more commentary and less music on the tour. There could have been more information provided about the city rather than playing music. There seemed to be a lot of “dead-air” time.

I highly recommend this tour for anyone who has a short time to spend in Lyon. We saw so many sites and the audio commentary along the way — and the wonderful music — gave us a great overview of this beautiful city within a few hours. We hopped off at the Basilica and had plenty of time to spend there before the next hop on bus arrived. My only advice is to make sure you show up at the correct location in time for your tour. And have your virtual ticket ready on your phone.

I had to wait with a crowd of frustrated people at the designated starting point for over an hour Only time in my long travel history have I ever made negative comments The sites and commentary were fine

Take your own head set and power pack as they provide commentary via an app using up battery life and your international roaming data Also as you need to use your phone you need to be strategic using taking you photos with your phone Commentary was minimal

Genuinely disappointed. Was struggligng to find exact location. Timetable on the bus stop advertised at 5/6pm. Waited 30mins past 6 in the rain to find out last b us was canceled. Only have one day in Lion. Worst experience

Bus tour of city very interesting. However didn’t know earphones were not available as they had been on other city tours we’d been on. Had to download an app so we could listen to the commentary. We didn’t have our own earphones so had to listen to commentary via phone. This meant other travellers could hear it as well!

The view and friendly atmosphere is awesome. Everyone is friendly and welcoming and I will definitely recommend this place to everyone who wants a good place to stay

My phone kept resetting so I did not have much of the commentary as I just got a lot of downloading signals. Also the route did not seem to have many drivers so if you hopped off, it was a long time and until the next hop on opportunity.

Nice place to stay.Room clean comfortable. Staff friendly and helpful. Had dinner in the restaurant which was very good, albeit a bit rushed. Very difficult to find the place and access to the car park is difficult. Only a short metro trip to the city centre. Will stay here again.

We visited Lyon as a group of 6 and always struggled to fit all the sights on a long weekend trip, so given the reviews on this tour thought we would give it a try. We purchased tickets at the main pick up point, the driver never offered any maps or earphones. We subsequently only realised that they were available just before leaving and had to returned to collect an extra map and earphones before. It was only after setting off and travelling 30 minutes that we realised the bus was not stopping at the designated stops. There was also no indication on the audio which number stop we were approaching, so it just felt like we had no idea where we were on the map. We ended up trying to track the position of the bus on the interactive map and ultimately pressed the stop button frantically to get off at the ruins near Basillica Notre Dame. On getting off we realised there was no indication that where we were dropped off was a hop on hop off designated stop, there were no signs whatsoever that it was a pick up and drop off point for the bus company. Consequently, we were not sure where we could get back on the bus and when the next bus would arrive. We ultimately ended up making our own way back down the hilly pathways and never actually saw another hop on hop off bus during our stay. The tour cost us approximately £20 each and was a complete waste of money. Had the bus stopped when it was supposed to, and the audio indicated the stop numbers then it would have been fine but this company is clearly not operating a ‘Hop on Hop off’ bus, it was a hop on and only get off until the end bus. I would avoid this if going to Lyon and it seems only one company operates this type of tour.

This was simply a very bad experience. First, the driver could not open the Viator voucher from the phone so it took quite a while to get that resolved. The audio did not work at all and there was no communication the entire tour; no announcements on what the stops were, nothing. DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR!

The bus never showed up! Waited over an hour. The timetable and bus location are completely useless. Other people were waiting also.

We were supposed to travel on this activity on the bank holiday in Lyon. No buses were running. It says hop on and hop off but it only does 4 circuits in the day. They stop for lunch. So we downloaded the timetable and chose the 2 nd bus of the day, got to the first stop 15mins before the time and waited more than 30 minutes at the stop. We saw no buses that day and thought it might be because of the bank holiday. Requested a refund and were told we’d cancelled the trip so no refund. The tour company said they were running that day. Disappointed

Good Hop on Hop off bus tour. The pick up location was s bit off but the customer service number to call was picked up promptly and the location clarified.

The audio portion did not work which was disappointing and half of the reason to take the hop on/off

I’m sure the actual bus tour is good but unfortunately we found it really difficult to actually find the stops in order to go on the bus tour so this is purely a review of the website and signage in case useful for others. We were staying close to the Hotel de Ville so planned to get on at stop 2. We’d checked the map on the website in advance but it didn’t have all roads marked and hardly any roads named so we were making a bit of a guess as to where the stop was but thought it’d be clearly marked once we got there. After wandering round the area for about 20 minutes we gave up on finding that stop and decided to head to stop 3 which seemed like it’d be easier to locate than stop 2. Unfortunately we’d then landed on the lunch break where no busses ran so waited a while until the busses resumed at 1:30 and were able to find stop 3 much more easily. A bus did eventually arrive at about 2pm but said we couldn’t get on as they were about to stop for lunch and that the next bus wouldn’t be round until about 3pm. We were expecting the bus which set off from stop 1 at 1:30pm to get to this stop at about 1:50pm so either the lunch break timings on the website were wrong or the driver was wrong but we had to give up at this point as didn’t have long enough left to do any hopping on or off before our flight! More detailed information on stops and timings on the website is needed! Luckily we hadn’t paid in advance otherwise we’d have completely wasted the cost of the tickets.

This review is very late but may still be useful. Apparently traffic jams are notorious in Lyon, and affect this service, but it also seems to be inefficiently run. Ticketing was disorganised. Buses certainly don’t keep to the advertised frequency, and then because of the traffic you end up with two arriving in close succession and nothing for a long while after. It’s easy to get stranded. We did one full circuit first to see the sights (which are nice). Even then, we stopped and waited at the office for ages while a driver change happened, during the trip our driver leapt out of his seat to have a long and very heated argument with another driver who might or might not have got in his way, then he nearly sideswiped another bus on a tight corner. No wonder the buses were always behind schedule. The audio commentary wasn’t synched properly. Lyon is quite a spread-out city and suspiciously few of the credit card readers in taxis ever seem to work, but we still decided this hop-on hop-off bus service was not the transport option for us. We walked or took Ubers.

An excellent way to catch the sites of Lyon & decide what you want to explore further. Hassle free, friendly accomodating driver! It was sooooo hot the day we were there, we went around twice to save our poor legs!

Such a great way to see Lyons even on a rainy day like today. Bus was warm in the lower deck. It was easy to hop off and on while stopping to check out the 12 destinations.

We bought our tickets ahead of time through Viator but when we got to the bus they were selling them at a MUCH lower price, apparently because the route was partially unavailable that day. The tour itself was enjoyable. When we emailed both the Lyon bus company and Viator, neither were willing to refund us the difference in the ticket price. Kind of makes you wonder who to trust.

Tour recommends to book early. We did this on line. We then went to where we were supposed to go early. Then the “representative “ said that when it was our turn to board the bus, wait. We watched 20 people walk by us and board. When the next person to board, also bought an on-line ticket, he then allowed us to go. Of course the only seats were in the bottom facing the wrong way with very limited viewing. We did everything right, but this company did everything wrong. It was a two day ticket but we only had a few hours to do this tour. Lyon was nice and the tour could not help but be a good way to get around the city. But the website that recommends to buy tour tickets early, should be ignored. We think the “representative “ was there selling tickets for a commission and he wanted to make sure the tourists that he personally sold tickets to, were given the first and best seats.

We had limited time to see Lyon and this was a great way to get a feel for the city. We saw lots of interesting places. Worth the price.