Big Bus Tours

Big Bus Tours are tours that a variety of cities offer that allow you to get on and off the bus whenever you like. They stop and pick people up at the different attractions throughout the city. The buses are double-decker, with the option of sitting outside on the top deck.

I have done a tour with this company twice, and overall they were good. Especially because the trips I took were small trips. They gave me the chance to choose what to do as I went.


The two cities I did the tour with were Dubai and Hong Kong. Both of these are kind of similar places. They are tall cities and seem to compete with each other in that regard.

The first one I did was in Dubai. The bus tour in Dubai was much better than Hong Kong for a couple reasons. First, the timing. When I went to Hong Kong it was days into the 'Umbrella Revolution' so some of the area were blocked off and part of the bus route had to be d toured.

That was really out of the Big Bus Tour's control, but the other feature that Dubai stood out in was not out of control. It was with the night tour that both cities offered. In Hong Kong, it was the same as the day tour, just at night. The same recording playing over and over again with the background being the lights of Hong Kong.

In Dubai, they had a real tour guide who was on the bus and talked about the different aspects of the city. He was funny and much better than listening to a recording we had already heard throughout the day.

A lot of the things the tour guide talked about were things the city of Dubai seemed to be in competition with Hong Kong. Things like the world's tallest group of buildings, the stretch of buildings that are the tallest, Dubai's future building plans that will break some of Hong Kong's current records and so on. A lot of things I frankly found a little meaningless.

The night tour in Dubai also included a light and laser show that we were able to watch when the tour was on a break. It was actually quite good. I found it much more entertaining than the light and music show we saw along the water in Hong Kong.

I would recommend the Big Bus Tour on a short trip as the bus takes you to the places a tourist wants to see the most in the city. Shanghai has a Big Bus Tour, but because I have all the time in the world here, I will just use the stops as a guide and go on my own time.

My next couple posts will look at both of these cities.