Big Bus Paris Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

We loved this bus tour. We got to see everything in Paris! We never got off. We just wanted to ride and see all the beautiful scenery. We did this tour on our last day of our trip. It was the perfect way to end. Highly recommend this tour!

An enjoyable if bumpy ride, and while it is the height of touristy, it is also an excellent way to get one’s bearings on arrival in Paris. I would suggest doing this bus ride first before selecting individual sites to see up close. You can also use the bus during the two days that your ticket is active as a sort of taxi service between the major sites, but this may not always be convenient depending on the number of intervening stops. We, however, used the BigBus to travel between our hotel near the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. I only have one slightly negative comment, which is that the musical soundtrack that accompanies the spoken word audio tour of the bus ride sometimes has nothing to do with Paris or France. For example, one song that played in between the spoken word snippets was an American rhythm and blues or soul song from the 1960s or so. I looked up the singer on Google to see if they did not have some sort of connection to Paris or France in general, and they did not. Thus, it’s selection seemed odd. Another song that was used quite a bit was a Frank Sinatra-type tune, again sung in English, which while it did mention Paris, was used so repetitively that it became tiring. My suggestion would be to use classical music or a selection of Edith Piaf tunes.

It's a big bus that drives around the city with recorded descriptions of important locations. Pretty simple, but Big Bus stood out among the rest because the sites were well marked and for every competitor's bus, we saw 2 - 3 Big Buses which means no waiting. Their app is also well done. Highly recommended if you have limited time in Paris.

The commentary and places do not match many times. This seems to be due to the fact that the driver triggers the commentary and it seems that our driver was either busy with driving in traffic or something else, the commentary was either triggered early or very late corresponding to the actual view outside.

The buses are so old and rattle - the whole way round - all the ear phones to listen to the tour guide are the cheapest quality I have ever seen. The tartly bus and frequent breaking in Parisian traffic actually hurt parts of the body. Never again. Also the invite Marion centre staff were extremely unhelpful - I left one of my trips QR code in a hotel that as over an hour away and on our last day there, They could see that these hadn’t been used and still wouldn’t help or suggest any other way to get round this. Ruined out last day.

Big bus London was great and drivers were awesome. However in Paris we bought tickets with Arc de Triomphe was a hassle and we were short of time. Had to redeem tickets at the main office and that would’ve taken most of our day. Nobody told us about this. We should be refunded the 15 euros pp. Some of the drivers were rough driving through the city of Paris.

Only one line was running and that had only 10 stops. We could (and did) walk the route. Very disappointed. Also the last bus was advertised as being 1800 but we were unceremoniously ejected at 1700 in the middle of the tour without any explanation except to say the tour had now ended for the day.

We rode for the entire 2 hours listening to the audio provided. It was really nice as my parents are older and can’t do all the walking. Only thing we wished was different was the frequency of the buses that came bc we missed buses and then had to wait 30 minutes for the next ones to arrive and that’s a VERY long time with seniors who don’t have a place to sit.

Pretty basic trip of Paris. Too much music on the earphones. I'd have preferred a person commentating, like the San Francisco Big Bus tour. The tour did show lovely scenery though, and, as usual, a good view of a city.

Seeing the eiffel Tower and arc de triumph so up close and personal and giving my legs a rest from all the walking