Golden Tour Reviews

There are three main hop on hop off bus companies in London and each of them offer bus tours that cover all of London's major tourist sites. We've reviewed all three services to come up with the best Hop on Hop off London tour in terms of value for money, quality, and service. For this article, we'll be reviewing the three main companies – Big Bus, The Original Tour and Golden Tours.

1. Golden Circle Tour Iceland Reviews
2. Golden Tours Reviews London
3. Golden Tour Reviews

Article last update: 2018

Golden Tours around London. It's a machine guys! There are so many tourists taking this company and most don't check. I am a UK citizen and together with my wife and 3 people all the way from Australia we booked because the reviews stated OK. Review of: Golden Triangle Tour 6 Days ( Delhi - Agra - Jaipur - Delhi ) I found Golden Triangle tours of India on Trip advisor and contacted them. Gopal is very prompt to replay and we chatted on WhatsApp. The Golden Circle in Iceland is the most popular tour attraction in Iceland. If you need to find the perfect Golden Circle tour then we have carefully selected the best of the best from Golden Circle Classic Tours to more unique Golden Circle Tours.

Golden Tours is a Pennsylvania Domestic Fictitious Name filed on November 9, 1982. The company's filing status is listed as Active and its File Number is 2229638. The company's principal address is 404. The Golden Circle is widely known to be the most popular sightseeing route in Iceland, in large part due to the capital city's proximity to three of the country's most inspiring natural attractions; Þingvellir National Park, Geysir geothermal valley and the mighty waterfall, Gullfoss ('The Golden.

Summary:

All three tour operators include the following:

• Walking tours
• River cruise
• Audio guides on all routes & live commentary on the main route
• Free WIFI
• Online app with information about attractions
• E-tickets
• Access to all routes (both tour routes and hotel pickup routes)
• Tour representatives stationed outside major bus stops to guide you to the major attractions and also to sell you discounted attraction tickets.
• Double decker buses with both indoor and outdoor seating areas
• Free travel for children under the age of 5

Our conclusions:

The best hop on hop off London bus in terms of:

• Best sightseeing routes: There's no big difference (***unless you are staying in the Bayswater, Lancaster Gate or Paddington areas, where Big Bus is more convenient)
• Best for kids: The Original Tour or Golden Tour (because they offer a dedicated kid's channel)
• Best river cruises: The Original Tour (because you can take the cruise more than once on the same day)
• Best frequency of buses: They are the same … despite what might be advertised on the website there's no significant difference between the three. It's all the luck of traffic conditions on the day
• Best walking tours: Golden Tours (because you can take a walking tour on a different day to your bus ticket)
• Cheapest price for a family of 4, a student or a senior ticket: Original Tour
• Cheapest price for an adult or child ticket: There's very little difference between them but about 10% cheaper to buy online

best Hop on hop off bus london – detailed review

Hop on Hop off Bus London Review

bus routes:

* All three operators cover the same major areas of London, with very little difference in frequency of service.
* If you are staying in the Bayswater, Lancaster Gate or Paddington areas, Big Bus offers a more regular service since this is covered on a primary route.
* If you are not staying in these areas, then there's no real difference between the three operators.

Each company offers two different kinds of hop on hop off bus routes:

• The primary routes are the ones that visit all of the major London sightseeing attractions and each company offers a very similar service.
• All three services go to almost exactly the same places, including Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. All three providers offer the same operating hours, from about 8am to 5 pm.
• The secondary routes are essentially connector routes that take passengers from the major hotel districts and bring them to the primary tour routes.
• All three providers offer secondary routes at a more limited frequency, normally in the morning and evening hours.
• Big Busoperates a primary route that goes to popular hotel districts of Bayswater, Lancaster Gate and Paddington area, whilst the other two offer only secondary routes.

bus frequency:

• In terms of frequency, because of London's ever-changing traffic conditions and roadworks, the frequency of hop on hop off buses can vary enormously. (What is written on each company's website is a very rough guide, based on ideal conditions.)
• On some days, the hop on hop off can work really smoothly, with buses arriving all the time, without really having to wait too long. On other days you can get stuck in bad traffic jams onboard the buses, there can be diversions because of roadworks, and on occasion, long waiting times at the bus stops.
• Our opinion is that this isn't something unique to each particular company, but is dependent upon conditions that are out of their control.

audio-guides & Commentary

* All 3 companies offer a live guided commentary in English on their flagship route and offer audio guided commentary on all their routes.
* For native-English speakers, the only difference between the services is if you are traveling with children since The Original Tour and Golden Tours offer a dedicated audio-guide for kids called a 'Children's Channel'.

All 3 companies offer audio-guides in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese

Each operator also offers the following languages and services:

• Big Bus: Polish, Hindi
• The Original Tour: Kids Channel
• Golden Tours: Kids Channel & Hindi

River cruises:

* For a 24-hour ticket, all 3 companies offer the same river cruise route, from Westminster to Tower Piers.
* Big Bus and Original London cruises last between 30 to 40 minutes and include live or recorded commentary.
* Golden Tours cruise lasts around 25 minutes and there's no guides or commentary.
* The Original London Bus is the only service that allows you to take the river cruise as much as you like within that 24 hour period.
* With Golden Tours and Big Bus, you are only allowed to take a single one-way river cruise

• For a 48-hour ticket, the Original London Bus and Big Bus both offer an extended route which goes all the way to Greenwich.
• Big Bus also offer an extended route to Greenwich on its 72-hour hop on hop off bus tickets.

walking tours:

Golden Tours is the only operator that allows you to take one of their walking tours on a different day, which is great if you want to spread out your itinerary.

• Original London Bus offer three different walking tours, Royal Walking Tour (incl. Changing of the Guard), Rock ‘n' Roll & Jack the Ripper
• Golden Tours offer two walking tours, the Royal Walking Tour (incl. Changing of the Guard) & the Beatles London Walking Tour. These tours don't have to be taken on the same day as your Hop on Hop off ticket
• Big Bus offers a walking tour called Heart of London (the major sites) which is actually a free tour operated by Sandeman (so you could take this anyway, regardless of whether you chose Big Bus or not!)

type of tickets: calendar vs. open

Hop on Hop Off London

There are two different types of hop on hop off bus tickets, a calendar ticket, and an open ticket.

Open tickets offer a little more flexibility than calendar tickets but are slightly more expensive

An open ticket means that you can use the ticket any day within a 3-6 month period. The ticket is also counted by hours, meaning if you activated a 24 hour ticket at 2pm on a Monday, it would be valid until 2pm on a Tuesday.

A calendar ticket means that the ticket is only valid on a specific day that you choose in advance. This means if you activate a 1-day pass at any time, be on a Monday at 9am, 12pm or 4pm, the ticket will only be valid until the end of that same day.

• Big Bus offers open tickets with a choice of 1, 2 or 3 days.
• Original Tour Bus offers a 24-Hour or 48-Hour open ticket, and a 24 hour calendar ticket
• Golden Tours offer a 24-Hour open ticket and a 24, 28 & 72 hour calendar ticket

price:

* There isn't a large difference in price between the three operators, although the cheapest tickets are calendar tickets offered by Golden Tours
* Original Tour is the only operator to offer student & senior tickets
* It's cheaper to buy tickets in advance than purchase them on the day. You'll save over 10%

Ticket types:

• Adult: 16+
• Child: Ages 5 to 15 years
• Concession: Student and 60+
• Family ticket: 2 adults and 2 children
• Children under 5: Free

24-Hour Ticket:

24-hour tickets are offered by all three companies, with Golden Tours & Original Tour offering both an open ticket and a calendar ticket

24-Hour Open Ticket:

24-Hour Calendar Ticket:

**Ticket excludes river cruise & walking tours

48-hour ticket:

48-hour tickets are offered by all three companies, with Big Bus and Original Tour offering open tickets and Golden Tours offering calendar tickets

Golden Circle Tour Iceland Reviews

72-hour ticket:

72-hour hop on hop off bus tickets are offered by Big Bus (open ticket) and Golden Tours (calendar ticket)

deals:

Golden Tours Reviews London

All three companies offer combination tickets, where you can buy entrance tickets to major London attractions at the same time as purchasing hop on hop off bus tickets. The idea is that you should save money.

Since there are so many different deals on the market we chose to compare a classic combination ticket of a hop on hop off 24 hour tour plus a standard entrance to the London Eye.

* It is substantially cheaper to buy an Original Tour & Golden Tours combo London Eye ticket than to buy two separate tickets
* Big Bus offers no savings, in fact, it is more expensive to buy their combo London Eye deal!

Standard London Eye online ticket price:

Original Tour: Combo deal

Golden Tour: Combo deal

Golden Tour Reviews

Big Bus: Combo 'deal' Play 21 for fun.

• Where to Stay in London - Best Areas in London
• How Many Days Should You Spend in London?
• Hotels Near Royal Albert Hall
• Top Celebrity Hotels in London 2020
• George IV Exhibition, Buckingham Palace, 23 July - 1 November 2020
• The 10 Best London Tours 2020

Winter 24-hour extra free promotion

In the winter months all operators traditionally offer a free day's promotion. This historically has been made available by all operators from around late October to late March. Exact dates vary from year to year and are not publicised in advance.

Big Bus v Original Tour v Golden Tours comparison

At first inspection all three London sightseeing operators offer a very similar product. But spend an hour or so studying each service and you begin to identify the differences.

What is the same between each tour operator?

All 3 London sightseeing tour operators are established operators in the London market. Big Bus and Original London Tours are owned by large corporates and Golden Tours the relative newcomer entered the market several years ago after a long history of offering the traditional guided coach tours, which they still do.

All 3 operators offer the same basic formula. A route network of open top double decker sightseeing buses covering all the major sights in Central London, a river cruise operated by a third party operator and at least one walking tour.

Vehicles used are almost identical, all offer free Wi-Fi and audio guides providing commentary in 11 or 12 languages. All sightseeing tour operators have one core route that has a live English speaking guide, (which to many are surprisingly good).

All operators start up around 8.30am and start running down the service around 5pm.

Any difference in attractions visited by tour operators?

Short answer is no, although they each have a different number of routes where they visit is almost identical, with all three sightseeing tour operators almost duplicating each others routes in the very heart of London.

You can click through on the menu right to study each operators route map in detail.

Any difference in bus frequencies?

All three operators, even in the winter months, you should have no issues with waiting too long for a bus.

Of the three operators perhaps Golden Tours is slightly less frequent. All operators have a core central area where some of the most famous London icons are located with each operator offering more than one route between them.

Differences in ticketing offered by London's sightseeing operators

Standard tour ticket durations

Original London Tour and Golden Tours offer tickets in 24, 48 or 72-hour formats whilst Big Bus offers 1,2 and 3 calendar day tickets.

To clarify, this means that if you boarded your first bus at 1pm with Big Bus and with a 1 day ticket, your ticket expires at the end of that day. Whilst with Original London Tour or Golden Tours with a 24-hour ticket it expires at 1pm the next day.

Discounted - cheapest tickets

Hop-on, hop off sightseeing tickets are freely available in London from hotels, tourist centres and on the day from the representatives of the tour companies you find around the bus stops.

The cheapest tickets are found on the official websites of each sightseeing tour operator, links to these are at the banners further down the page.

Winter 24-hour extra free promotion

In the winter months all operators traditionally offer a free day's promotion. This historically has been made available by all operators from around late October to late March. Exact dates vary from year to year and are not publicised in advance.

Big Bus v Original Tour v Golden Tours comparison

At first inspection all three London sightseeing operators offer a very similar product. But spend an hour or so studying each service and you begin to identify the differences.

What is the same between each tour operator?

All 3 London sightseeing tour operators are established operators in the London market. Big Bus and Original London Tours are owned by large corporates and Golden Tours the relative newcomer entered the market several years ago after a long history of offering the traditional guided coach tours, which they still do.

All 3 operators offer the same basic formula. A route network of open top double decker sightseeing buses covering all the major sights in Central London, a river cruise operated by a third party operator and at least one walking tour.

Vehicles used are almost identical, all offer free Wi-Fi and audio guides providing commentary in 11 or 12 languages. All sightseeing tour operators have one core route that has a live English speaking guide, (which to many are surprisingly good).

All operators start up around 8.30am and start running down the service around 5pm.

Any difference in attractions visited by tour operators?

Short answer is no, although they each have a different number of routes where they visit is almost identical, with all three sightseeing tour operators almost duplicating each others routes in the very heart of London.

You can click through on the menu right to study each operators route map in detail.

Any difference in bus frequencies?

All three operators, even in the winter months, you should have no issues with waiting too long for a bus.

Of the three operators perhaps Golden Tours is slightly less frequent. All operators have a core central area where some of the most famous London icons are located with each operator offering more than one route between them.

Differences in ticketing offered by London's sightseeing operators

Standard tour ticket durations

Original London Tour and Golden Tours offer tickets in 24, 48 or 72-hour formats whilst Big Bus offers 1,2 and 3 calendar day tickets.

To clarify, this means that if you boarded your first bus at 1pm with Big Bus and with a 1 day ticket, your ticket expires at the end of that day. Whilst with Original London Tour or Golden Tours with a 24-hour ticket it expires at 1pm the next day.

Discounted - cheapest tickets

Hop-on, hop off sightseeing tickets are freely available in London from hotels, tourist centres and on the day from the representatives of the tour companies you find around the bus stops.

The cheapest tickets are found on the official websites of each sightseeing tour operator, links to these are at the banners further down the page.

Do not expect to find discount vouchers or codes, if you do find one its the exception rather than the rule.

Big Bus and Original London Tour offer you a straight discount on the street price by buying from their respective websites in advance.

Golden Tours offer a best price guarantee by buying from their official website.

Cheapest advance purchase tickets - flexibility and ease/cost of obtaining tickets

Call of duty versions. Big Bus and Original London tour advance purchase tickets are valid for any day within six months of purchase.

Golden Tours you have to stipulate the day of travel at time of purchase.

All tour operators offer an option where a voucher is sent to you by e-mail immediately after purchase which you exchange for tickets on boarding your first bus.

Big Bus also offer the ability to have the voucher sent as a SMS message to your mobile phone.

Original London Tour are the only tour operator to offer delivery by post, this is the only option that incurs an extra charge.

Banner links to official websites of tour companies

Non-standard cheaper tickets

The Original London Tour offers a one calendar day ticket that is cheaper than the 24-hour ticket called the City Sampler ticket. The difference is that the City Sampler is valid for for 1 calendar day, not 24 hours (the ticket expires at the end of the day that you ride) and you only have access to the hop-on and hop-off bus services, not the river cruise or walking tours.

Golden Tours offer a London Introduction ticket, basically a one lap orientation of one of the major sightseeing routes. You travel on the standard hop-on hop-off bus which will make many stops in its circular route, but when you get off that is the end of the tour.

Walking tours and river cruises are not included in this tour.

Golden Tours and Big Bus included in the London Pass

The London Pass is a flat rate sightseeing pass to many (but not all) of London's main sightseeing attractions. You can buy a London Pass for 1, 2, 3, 6 or 10 day durations.

The London Pass gives you entry into more than 60 London tourist attractions and a river cruise on the River Thames.

The London Pass also now includes use of either Golden Tours or Big Bus hop-on hop-off bus for one calendar day, whatever the duration of the London Pass.

Key points of the London Pass HoHo bus offer

• You can choose to ride on the Golden Tours or Big Bus hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus for one calendar day. Original London Tour is not covered.

• The HoHo bus offer is for one calendar day not for 24 hours.

• Most people use the HoHo facility on the first day of their London Pass, but there is nothing stopping using it on another day when the London Pass is valid.

• The HoHo bus offer with London Pass doesn't include the walking tours and river cruises included in the standard tickets issued by the HoHo companies concerned, only the bus tour (but you do get a river cruise included in the London Pass separately anyway)

• You show your London Pass to the driver or tour guide of the first bus you board. They will scan your London Pass and issue you with a separate ticket for the bus company concerned valid for the rest of the day. You cannot switch to the other bus company once you have made your first journey.

Save money buying attraction tickets & bus tour in one package

If one of London's major sights like the Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral, London Eye et are on your must see list when in London, you can get an additional discount by purchasing attraction tickets plus sightseeing tour in one package. .

All tour operators offer these combination deals, but Original London Tours arguably has the best offering.

Free river cruises

Both Big Bus and OLT use the same river cruise company, City Cruises. In our opinion City Cruises are better received than Thames Clipper used by Golden Tours. The cruise is between Westminster Pier and Tower Bridge with both OLT and Big Bus.

The Thames Cruise should be a highlight of your day and we recommend you take advantage of the facility. The core cruise itself between Westminster and Tower Bridge lasts about 30/40 minutes.

Note with the Golden Tours and Original Tour ticket for 1 calendar day, no walking tours or river cruises are included in the ticket.

All operators run river services approximately every 40 minutes but OLT and Big Bus have departures later in the day, so offering an extended service.

Golden Tours and Original Tour offer 24-hour boat rides

Golden Tours and Original Tour both offer unlimited rides for the duration of your sightseeing bus ticket on their Thames River hop-on boat ride, but with different providers.

Greenwich

OLT and Big Bus also offer option to extend your river cruise beyond the Tower of London to Greenwich, with the more expensive tickets. Golden Tours (who use a different provider) do not offer this service.

Free walking tours

All three operators offer at least one walking tour. Original London Tour offers the best choice of walking tour.

Guides and audio commentaries on the tour buses

All three operators offer a core tour route that has an English speaking guide in addition to the audio guides. Our experience is that these guides are surprisingly good. As well as a lively commentary they are normally quite chatty and are a mine of insider information much of it gleamed from feedback of other visitors.

The three operators offer slightly different language provision as follows:

Original Tour has commentary available in 11 languages and a unique kids' channel (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic & Brazilian Portuguese).

Big Bus Red Route buses feature a live English speaking guide only. Blue Route, Green Link and Magical Merlink buses offer a pre-recorded commentary in your choice of the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian.

Golden Tours has audio guides available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese.

All three operators offer free Wi-Fi on their buses.

London's hop-on hop-off sightseeing buses - your questions answered by Bob

If you have any questions or have anything you wish to add please use the discussion facility below.

The virtual casino instant play. I'll normally get back to you within 24 hours.