This is a decent way to see Vancouver, although it helps to be able to do its route in one day rather than splitting it into two.

The staff is friendly and knowledgeable. The buses are spacious and pretty clean, and two-thirds of the ceiling (at least on all the ones I saw) are retractable plastic sheeting that can be opened to the sky. The recorded tour narration is decent and the expected... more

We booked our two day tour at the Stanley Park kiosk. They had a board and printed on the board for two days during the time we were traveling, it listed the price as $47.

The woman at the Stanley Park Kiosk quoted my friend and I $47 for a two day hop on hop off bus for Vancouver. We paid the payment. My friend Peggy started her journey first and I chose to go see the Aquarium first.

I met... more

Don't book with this company...we waited 1hr and 45 mins everytime for pickup. Only one bus and it was ridiculously slow. Use the trolley company, these guys were terrible.

The service was really good. We bought a Groupon so the tickets were half-price.
Positive things:
- Both drivers were friendly and helpful
- The route is fine, specially if you are in Vancouver for a few days

Neutral/Negative:
- One of the buses was old, noisy and cold.

This is less a hop on/hop off tour than an extremely expensive hotel shuttle service. Most of the stops are to downtown hotels, and it takes for ev errr to complete the hotel circuit. The hotel circuit portion of the tour had next to no commentary associated with it. One driver kept asking the bus whether people were getting off at such-and-such stop, if not, he'd just avoid it "to save some... more

My husband and I had a great experience on these buses. It was a convenient way to travel around and see what Vancouver had to offer without killing our feet. We got a killer deal & the bus drivers were super friendly. I highly recommend this if you're coming to Vancouver without a car!

Our experience with big bus was a positive one.
We got off our cruise in Vancouver waterfront terminal at 8 AM; Got CDS baggage to transfer our luggage to the airport so we can be hand free to use the big bus.
Since the 1st trip does not start until 8:45AM; we walked to the gas lamp and china town. We then boarded the Stanley park excursion which took us directly to the Stanley park bus at... more

Just a normal hop-on-hop-off tour.
Most of the buses use a tape to explain the buidlings and views. Some drivers also turn it off and explain by themselves. This makes it much more funny and interesting for the customer.
Two big minus points:
1. Some buses wait at some points for not generating too much timespace between two buses. If you don't have much time in the city, you really don't want... more

The tour guides/drivers are extremely nice. Some are more informative than others. A couple played an audio recording at times which I found confusing. Larry was my favorite and if he had a Yelp then I would give him 5 stars. Loved him!

I took the trolley one a couple years ago and it seemed like I saw more with that one like Stanley park. We didn't get to see Stanley park because the "free... more

I do agree with some of the previous reviews. Don't waste your precious vacation time and money on this tour. There is not many bus running during the winter as we had to wait over an hour in one location. The Vancouver trolley compagny sounds a much better option as we saw 2 of those one while waiting for our bus for more than an hour. In addition there is no schedule time available so... more

Don't waste your precious vacation time on this tour. Ask how many buses are running in winter as we had to wait over an hour in each location. It was not worth the money and one of our guides was so ill informed he was borderline making stuff up. Worst hop on hop off we have ever been in and we have been on a lot.

Ok I'm not sure how to start because I have nothing good to say about the big bus hop on hop off tour bus. Too expensive for what you get! Many times I found my self catching a city bus or taxi to get back to my hotel. Bus driver on bus 415 was very rude on 9/22/2013.

To sum things up. I paid 80.00 for a two day pass and found my self catching a taxi or bus to get back to the hotel. A better... more

If you have read my Yelp reviews, I apparently have an aptitude which only surfaces on Yelp. Without any coaxing I seem to be able to be drawn to good restaurants, motels, airports, etc. having "bad days," with uncanny regularity. Yes, my Yelp reviews are usually the one-star experiences which punctuate the four-star reviews of others.

Although my NY-Area roots makes me extremely skeptical of... more

we had company from out of town and the 4 of us did the big bus tour in Vancouver and even though two of us were from Vancouver it was a fantastic and easy way to see the city. We had a great tour guide named Emanuel Fappas he was so personable, funny & knew a lot of information about the city. I would recommend this tour to others and hopefully they will be lucky to be on Emanuel's bus.

So, I do a HOHO in almost every city I visit. And they are mostly really fun. The one in seattle rocks! So does the one in NYC! Very fun!

This was the worst one I've been on by far. We bought a two-day pass, only to use it one day and realize it was a HOT MESS and not worth it. The buses are always packed full (and leaving waiting riders behind), the drivers are insane, and the some hosts... more

I've never done a HOHO, but it was a decent 1st experience. Great for the old, people with kids, and nervous travelers, which I am none of these & still had s good time. I had a groupon & probably wouldn't have paid outright. Overall, a very relaxed way to scope out the city for areas you want to visit.

Where to begin? I've taken other bus tours of this kind, but none were this disorganized. Of the 5 buses I took, two used recorded information, two used the ramblings of the driver, and one had a commentator mor interested in "high-end" shopping, than in imparting knowledge.
We waited for over 30 minutes to be picked up from one stop, which is 15 minutes more than we were told we would need to... more

Horrible! Don't do this tour! Waited forever...and makes vancouver seem 1000 times less interesting than it actually is... more

our a big-bus experience was rather mixed.

first of all the vessels:
semi-open busses, in some you can hear the driver (or recorded audio guide) at each and every seat, in others you are happy when understanding something in rows 8-10

schedule:
it takes about 30-45 minutes until a bus arrives at the points marked in the map

drivers:
we had a great driver (Steve - he makes 5 stars alone) at... more

This is a business that survives mostly on visitors who arrive by cruise ship. With that being the focus, and the published arrival information, you would think they would have their full fleet of busses running on days when there are multiple ships arriving. The published 15 minutes between busses is a very optimistic estimate. Plan for 30-45 and it taking a couple cycles to get on at popular... more

This was my first trip to Vancouver. I found this bus tour to be a good introduction to Vancouver and the different parts of the city. I took notes about which stops I wanted to go back to. As far as this being a hop on and off bus route - maybe. If you want to see things close together, then it could work as long as you are willing to wait for the bus to come back by. If you want to see parts... more

Just ok. We had a tour guide gal for our first hop on. She was interesting and put effort into it. After a hop off we hopped back on to the recorded message of the points of interest. We ended up walking back to the hotel from Gastown area. It was faster then waiting for the next hop on bus. You can do a lot better with a local map, a little effort and public transportation.

Horrible!

First time in Vancouver and wanted a ride around the attractions of the city, and some insight in the process.

Bought a ticket for $45/ 2 day pass. The bus was 40 minutes late at our first stop!

The driver was nice, but when he accepted our voucher and printed out actual receipts for us as tickets, he printed out 1 day passes. Another headache to remedy!

We took the bus to... more

During our first visit to Vancouver, we had a $125 gift voucher from the hotel to use at the tourism office for local attractions. Seeing as we did not hire a car but still needed a form of transportation to get around town, we figured the Big Bus 2 day pass would be a great way to save us some taxi fare.
Unfortunatley, it was raining and during their 'off season', so we ended up waiting in the... more

We got the Capsilano & Big Bus Route combo tour. $72 per person. I don't recommend it.

There is a recording in the bus to explain highlights and the sound is quite bad. I didn't learn anything because I could barely hear.
Ground transportation in the city is quite good and easy, so I would skip using this bus if I go again. The city is not THAT huge, so this bus was not too useful.

Capsilano... more

Big Bus is a great concept; unfortunately, a really poorly executed one.

Be warned this is not what I'd call a 'tour' - it's more of a really slow shuttle bus that happens to stop at a few of Vancouver's popular attractions when it's not stopping at a hotel to pick up passengers.

The majority of the drivers we encountered were apathetic and did not acknowledge the passengers on board. Perhaps... more

Big Bus is a poor excuse for a bus tour. The ground staff seemed unorganized and mildly annoyed that we wanted to give them our business.

Heard several calls on the driver's walkie-talkie that there were Big Bus patrons left stranded at stops, with no one to help them.

The pre-recorded audio sounded like story time for toddlers, with dubious facts and figures about the city's history. When we... more

I have been on open top bus tours all over the world, from San Francisco to Glasgow, from Barcelona to Chicago, and truly believe that it's the best way to learn about a new city you are visiting.

However, in the case of the big bus vancouver this is definately not the case. It's about the same in cost as other bus tours i've been on ($38 for a 24 hour pass), but in all other criteria it is... more

It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, but I think the real value is in the 24-hour ticket and multiple stops that allow you to get on and off. Granted, it's an expensive way to get around the city - but if you're from out of town and don't want to deal with transit, this is a viable option.

That being said, we had a bus driver with a serious attitude problem which kind of soured our trip.... more

I read the other reviews for this service, and sometimes me thinks they're written by their own employees. Our experience with Big Bus was awful. Their claim that buses arrive every 30 minutes is categorically false. It's more like they arrive every 45 minutes and then wait for another 20 before departing. More than half of the sightseeing areas we stopped were useless - mostly hotels. On our... more

As first time tourists in BC we purchased a 2 day family pass for the Big Bus tour to get a sense of Vancouver's popular points of interest. For two adults and our girls we dished out a hundred bucks total which wasn't too bad I guess for an unlimited hop-on hop-off privilege.

They offered adult, child, senior and family pass discounted pricing. Kids under 6 ride free. You can purchase the... more

Really people? You call this a tour? If I had to judge Vancouver based upon this tour I would just go back to San Francisco.

I recently relocated to BC. I am currently living on Vancouver Island and will eventually come to reside in Vancouver. I thought I should get to know my new city and what better way than on an open air bus, with a narrated tour of this fabulous city. My expectations were... more

A lot of fun! There is a ton to see in Vancouver and this bus tour really covers pretty much all of it. The buses come by fairly frequently, so we never had to wait too long to catch the next one. I totally recommend this bus tour to anyone new to YVR. It's the best way to get your bearings in this growing, modern city. No, we didn't see them filming Twilight. Bummer:) Did pick up some cool... more

Good value for transportation while in Vancouver! Highly recommended. It's $37 for adults per ticket which is good for 2 days.

It takes you around town, including Granville Island, you can hop on & off as many times as you like within the 2-day period. We thought this is a far better way to travel around Vancouver than taking a cab (which can easily cost you 12~15 bucks 1 way)! You sit on the... more

The concierge at our hotel told us the Big Bus was a great value instead of taking taxis everywhere and she was right! We had a blast stopping and hopping off, shopping, then hopping back on! Enjoyed Granville Island. Skip Chinatown, it's seedy and depressing - go for Stanley Park, English Beach and shopping on Robson. A good way to see the city, especially if it's your first time in Vancouver.

I finally did it. I caved and was the cliche tourist - and you know what, it was pretty dang fun!

I had not been to Vancouver in roughly a decade, so needless to say, the city has changed (and my memory is far from perfect). We wanted to see the beach, Stanley Park, Gas Town, the Olympic Village and everything in between - however we also knew that we were not about to walk that distance... more

So we are getting off our cruise ship, trying to figure out what to do in Vancouver. We didn't want to do the shore excursions, so we decided to go walk around and see what we could find.

At first we were feeling a bit distraught. Looking around we didn't see a whole lot, but decided to walk and see what we could find. As we are walking, a guy comes up to tell us about Big Bus.

Hop on and Hop... more