Chilly Chester city sightseeing (Bus tours in general)

Member Name: werewolf2

Product:	Bus tours in general
Date:	29/05/06 (360 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see more of the city or town; learn about its history;

Disadvantages: can be chilly on the open top; can be quite expensive

NAME OF LOCATION: City Sightseeing Bus Tour, at Chester. There are 18 stops around the city including one outside the train station.

BACKGROUND: Whilst on a weekend trip to Chester, my boyfriend Robert and I decided try the open top tour. Unfortunately we bought our tickets on the Sunday and lost some of the benefits of having 24hours as we went home Sunday evening but learn from our experience!

TRANSPORT
We visited Chester by coach and walked from outside the walled city to the Cathedral, where the nearest sightseeing bus stop was to our coach drop off point. There was another company doing a ½ hour bus tour from this point on an old fashioned tram like bus but this did not offer the benefits this tour did so we didn’t try it.

Chester has a railway station but looks on the map to be some distance from the town so you would need a taxi or bus to get into the town itself (although the sightseeing tour goes past it, and picks up opposite it near the Queens Hotel.

ATTRACTIONS
If you take the sightseeing bus round the town it takes an hour (and if you do, you will get money off certain other attractions’ admission charges when you show your bus ticket). We liked the tour and the fact that if you used a different bus you can get a different perspective on the area. The buses are very easy to spot as they are bright red and open top. The bus stops (18 of them)are more difficult to find unless you have a map (we got ours from the Deva Roman Experience museum).

The sightseeing bus does not go past the Deva Roman Experience museum (see review) as it is on a pedestrian’s only zone but it is near stops 7, 11 and a short walking distance from 12, and you will get 50p of adult/senior citizens’ prices if you show your bus ticket, which if we had known we would have used the bus first.

PRICE (2006)
Adults £8 Child £3.00, OAPS £6.50 Family £19 (Bus only)
Adults £11.50 Child £4.50, OAPS £9.00 Family £27.50
Family is 2 adults and up to 3 children but all tickets valid for 2 days(24 hours from time of purchase) and entitles you to a hop on hop off service every 30minutes (more frequent in summer)).

OPEN (2006)
11-26 March: Weekends only from 0955 every 30mins, last tour from station 1555.
27 March – 26 May: Daily from 0955 every 20mins, last tour from station 1615.
27May –21 July: Daily from 0955 every 15mins, last tour from station 1655.
22 July-1 September: Daily from 0955 every 12mins, last tour from station 1725.
2 September-17 September: Daily from 0955 every 15mins, last tour at station 1640.
18 September-29 October: Daily from 0955 every 20mins, last tour from station 1615

Additional buses operate on Bank Holiday weekends.

I strongly suggest that you obtain a leaflet as the bus has 2 routes (a daily one and a Sunday one and although they have similarities, the Sunday one has Sunday only stops and the leaflet gives a map showing where they all are (different colours for each day – the daily ones seem to be on the Sunday route so can still be used).

There do not seem to be any proper bus stops, so look for the number on the nearest lamppost – the one opposite the Chester Visitor centre had 18 on it, which is the right stop number.


GOOD POINTS
1. Hop on hop off service
2. Valid for 24 hours
3. Live guided tour
4. Different guides have different speeches so may hear new information about the same place if go on same route
5. Kid’s club –receive a kid’s passport and felt tip pens as part of their ticket price.

BAD POINTS
1. Open top bus so not ideal for bad weather
2. Have a long wait if miss a bus at particular times
3. No obvious bus stops – we missed the one near the Cathedral and only realised because the map showed the Cathedral shape and we were too far down the road.

AFTERWARDS
Keep your ticket, as it entitles you to money off in Chester or if you go elsewhere, it gets you 10% off another City sightseeing bus in 70 other cities around the world – London, Sydney, Cape Town.

MORE INFORMATION FROM
Chester Bus 01244 347457or 07786 657225 www.chesterbus.co.uk or info@chesterbus.co.uk Please note that I have not checked this website out myself – I just hopped on the bus after getting a leaflet from the Deva Roman Experience.

City Sightseeing Head Office (general enquiries) 0871 6660000 www.city-sightseeing.com Please note that I have not checked this website yet – although I intend to do so to find out how much the London one will be.

Deva Roman Experience, Pierpoint Lane, Bridge Street, Chester Cheshire, CH1 1NL Telephone 01244 343 407. Despite “trawling the net”, I have been unable to find a specific website for the Deva Roman Experience. However it is mentioned on lots of other tourism websites including http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/England/Where+to+Go
and http://www.e-travelguide.info/chester/attract.htm

werewolf

Summary: good if bus offers hop on hop off service; plenty of information you'd never know