Id Rather Walk (Bus tours in general)

Member Name: sarashaw100

Product:	Bus tours in general
Date:	17/09/01 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: transport

Disadvantages: buses were far and few

My brother immigrated two years ago to New Zealand. So before he went we thought we would all go round London and see the sights. To see everything we thought the best way would be to get the train to tower hill and then get on a bus tour… What a mistake.

The trains ran perfectly and soon we arrived at Tower Hill. We went to the bus stations and wondered what bus to take, we choose London Pride.

We got on our traditional red bus and decided to sit on the top so we would have the best view. When the bus left we had a lovely guide telling us all the history of the buildings we were passing. At every sight you could get on or off so it would be nice and easy to see what we wanted. Our first stop was Trafalgar Square. We stopped and took some photos of everyone having a great time.

We went back to bus stop and waited for a bus to turn up. We were told that the buses were every twenty minutes or more often (depending on traffic and what the time of day was – there are less in the evening). Well after 40 minutes the bus arrived. We were not too amused but we got on.

This bus didn’t have a tour guide but a tape telling you what was happening. (the only problem was we got stuck in traffic, so the tape remained playing and telling us what we would of seen, even though we were not even near.

When the bus started to move again we passed historic sights like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. My niece was click, click, click with her camera (taking 3 of each picture just in case the first two didn’t come out – it must of cost a fortune in developing).

We got off the bus again near Big Ben because we felt like we needed to stretch out legs. We walked around looking at all beautiful buildings. We didn’t go to the bus stop we got off at but decided to walk to the next one. We knew where it was because we had been given a map with all the bus stops marked out on it and what routes the bus took
. We ended up on this nice little side road. Not too much traffic, nice and easy right?

Well we gave up in the end. The bus stop was obviously out of action because no bus showed up after 40minutes. We were by this point not very amused and fed up. It kept happening that things were going wrong.

We walked to the next road to find another bus stop, which was in use. We waited 10minutes and the bus showed up (but didn’t pass the previous stop we were at). We just got on the bus without checking what way it was going and what route it was taking. We wanted to go back to tower Hill and go home because we were fed up. Well we went to the wrong stop, the stop that NEXT TO THE ONE WE WERE AT would of take 10minutes to get there, the bus we got on took over an hour to get back.

It had been a really long day with all the waiting around. I was really hungry for my dinner and so was the rest of the family. I was also really tired, and fell asleep on the bus. I was woken up when we got to Tower Hill where we went home.

My experience is two years old so hopefully the system is a bit better organised. I hope so because that bus trip was not cheap either. It started off a really good day and had a sour ending. Other people that have been on them have praised the trip so hopefully for the sake of others we just went on a bad day.

Sara

Summary: