I recently did the Big Bus Tours in Rome, and overall it was a great way to get an overview of the city's major sights without exhausting myself walking everywhere. * Super convenient stops: The route hits all the essentials--Colosseum, Vatican, Trevi Fountain area, Piazza Venezia, and more. It made planning my day really easy. * Clean buses & good views: The upper deck gives fantastic photo opportunities, and the buses were surprisingly clean despite the crowds. * Audio guide: The headphone commentary was actually helpful and not overly cheesy. It gave just enough history to keep things interesting. * Great for first-timers: If you're new to Rome or short on time, it's an easy way to orient yourself. read more

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They do OK in the middle part of the day but as the day goes on. You just spend most of your time waiting for them to sell more tickets on the sidewalk. Really annoying is the one at the Metro terminal station. Where we spent 10 minutes at one stop went around the corner and spent another 10 minutes. read more

They lied to you just to get you to buy the ticket. They tell you cause by over 1050 minutes but you get there cause by every half an hour to an hour so that's a big rip off you better off use public transportation. it's almost an hour between the buses as I said I'm still standing here. I do not recommend this the worst company ever the guys out here they don't give a shit once they take your money. read more

They advertise a bus every 15 minutes but they only had one come every thirty minutes. We had to wait over thirty minutes in the pouring rain twice. They didn't have enough buses in the cycle and there wasn't an attendant at every stop. read more

Big Bus Rome - Bus stop - Bus Tours Near Me

The bus stops take 10 minutes each. Every time you stop it adds 10 minutes. It doesn't make it enjoyable. The ticketing process is also a mess and should be streamlined. I would recommend another company if you're looking for a Bus Tour of Rome. read more

this is not a "hop on, hop off" bus. this is wait in line with a lot of people to get shoved on a bus with an impatient bus driver.

Super long waits for buses, 30 minutes + definitely wouldn't buy again, avoid this one, they're not honest with wait times

The advertised 14 minute bus time is extremely inaccurate. We saw multiple Greenline Tours and I Love Rome City Tour busses drive right past us MULTIPLE times while waiting for our "14" minute advertised Big Bus time. I should have read the Yelp reviews instead of the Google reviews. We waited over 30 minutes for a single Big Bus and finally said screw it and bought Greenline Tour tickets. We hopped on a Greenline bus and never saw the mythical Big Bus. We weren't disappointed with Greenline. Big Bus's refund policy basically says "screw you, we reserve the right to change bus times anytime we want." read more

Long wait times, hot buses, rude employees and very poor communication I would never take this bus line again

We had a wonderful experience in Athens, with nothing but negative reports for Roma. False advertising of the tours, incredibly rude staff and one unfortunate visit after another. It wasn't bad enough that the Rome traffic was brutal, but they made sure to add in thoughtless, inconsiderate and obnoxious staff to the mix, to ensure a miserable time. Hard pass on ever doing a Big Bus failure again. read more

The buses hit all the main attractions, and it's fun to sit on top in the open air in good weather. Downsides: - very very slow. Besides the bad traffic in Rome, they sit for at least 15 minutes at every stop; so what should be a 20 minute trip becomes an hour. Nice if you don't care how long it takes. - commentary through earbuds is not very informative. It sounds like there are two actors (man and woman) trying to be upbeat and entertaining, while telling you almost nothing about what you are seeing. The English commentators have Italian accents (why?) and I swear, the lady's accent is fake. I would have much preferred a kind of PBS commentary on history and architecture of the things we were passing. read more

Terrible. They advertise 8 minute for buses from April to October. If you are lucky it's only 2-3 times longer than that. And if you are again lucky the bus when it finally arrives won't be full. Will never use again. I bought a 48hr ticket for like 38$ each. After first day I threw the big bus ticket in garbage and bought a 72hr Roma pass for only 18$ good for all local buses trains and metros. Much better max 5-10 minute wait and get you very short walking distances to all the major sites and some hidden gems. Lesson learned for me. Don't fall for their phony advertising. read more

Big Bus Rome - Phony timetable - Bus Tours Near Me

For the pricing you definitely can't go wrong with choosing big bus tours. I purchased he 3 day ticket which allowed me to go all over the city. The walking tours offered were also definitely a bonus if you can make time for them. read more

Big Bus Rome - Great walking tour - Bus Tours Near Me

It is a false statement that they stop at every stop every 13 minutes. I waited over 40 minutes for a stop that took us 10 minutes to find (stop #5) because it is missing their actual sign. The other tour buses just kept on coming while a big group of waited. The buses are very crowded as a result. I will be using "I Love Rome - Gray line" our next time - 4 of those buses came while we waited. Don't waste your money. I gave it a one star because it wouldn't give me the option to select "0"! read more

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The green line is too slow. It stops for too long at some stops and when it's hot you don't enjoy it. It doesn't pass often, they claim every 15 minutes when they sell you the pass. Also, we paid extra for three routes but only one route is accessible. read more

30€/adult ticket. We found it to be an easy way to get around Rome and hit all of the famous sites of the city. We didn't experience any significant waits, maybe 10 minutes, so we were happy. When you get on, they give you headphones to plug into the bus which provides a recorded tour of everything that you are passing and can follow along with your map. You can hop on anywhere along the route, but the official starting point is the train station, Termini. Total route time is approximately 1 hour 40 minutes if you were to stay on and do it all in a single trip. Of note, the bus only runs clockwise. Very useful tool to get around Rome, I would do it again. read more

Big Bus Rome - Bus Tours Near Me

HUGE waste of money and time. Buses do not follow any of the posted time schedules, all encounters with any employee was a disappointment as they are not interested in answering questions but selling to potential customers, buses wait at every stop unnecessarily long, VOX system SUCKS! Big Bus Rome should be ashamed to even be in the Big Bus family. read more

Terrible experience with Big Bus Rome. This company will tell you just about anything but the truth. Here's my experience: Purchased a deluxe ticket package that included two bus rides, a walking tour, and something else for 81 Euros (2 adults) to use on the weekdays. We purchased the tickets online, which saved us a few Euros, and had the tickets sent as a voucher. Keep in mind that the voucher was advertised to be used at any time of the year. Upon the tickets being printed by a salesperson at the bus stop, the salesperson told us that we can use the second half of the ticket during the week. I wasn't certain about this, being that the driver said that the deluxe tickets would expire after after 48-72 hours. I went back to the salesperson and asked her which was it: 48, 72 hours, or 365 days from when the ticket was purchased. She indicated that it was the later, since 48-72 hours was a bit vague (why not just say 72 hours). Turns out that the salesperson was dead wrong. While I took a bus tour the day after I purchased it on 1/09, the salesperson at Termini station indicated that I my ticket expired on 1/12 due to it being beyond the 72 hour threshold by 10 minutes. I indicated that this wasn't what was explained to me by the prior salesperson, as well as what is indicative on Big Bus's website + printed ticket voucher that I saved on my phone. This salesperson now says that the website is wrong, being that it is a third-party vendor. WTF??? The website, ticket voucher, and ticket says "Big Bus." How in the world is this a third party by any means? The salesperson & I go back and forth on this for a couple of minutes until he mentions that I can upgrade my now defunct ticket voucher for 5 Euros each. Resigned to the fact that I'm going nowhere on this, he indicates that there is a red newstand-type of kiosk across from the bus stop that can do the upgrade. My wife & I walk to the kiosk, explain what happens, and salesperson #3 says no, you have to pay an additional 81 Euros again. At this time, I'm started to get really upset, to the point where the kiosk employee directly to salesperson #3 says that it may be a different price. He asks who I originally spoke to, and I point to the Big Bus. At this point, the first Termini Big Bus salesperson is long gone. He speaks to salesperson #5 (the next bus in line), who smiles & says that I'm wrong. At this point, he starts to get argumentative, as do I. My wife pulls me away from him just before things get really heated, indicating to me that its just not worth the fight. Long story short: these people at Big Bus Rome do not know what they are doing, or saying. I felt completely ripped off, and unappreciated as a customer. Far different experience from Big Bus Paris. FYI to new users of Big Bus Rome: they will give online purchasers a hard time. Not the first time in Rome that this has happened. So many other tourist buses in Rome. What's certain is that I'll never take Big Bus Rome ever again. read more

The bus for some reason did not stop at regular stops. We jumped off at one stop. When we got on the next bus at the stop we got off at, it only stopped at one location, which was close to where we had gotten on. We needed to get to a stop for a tour, and ended up catching a taxi. Part of the time, the audio did not track with our location. We purchased a three day ticket. Big mistake! read more

If you think like an American then you can find fault with anything in Italy. We started thinking past that and realized that if it weren't for the pushy sales guy on the street we might have not received the "nuggets" we got. If your not sure, buy the bus today for the next day and by the time you get your bearings you will want to hop on the bus. The frustrating thing is you never know what stop number or color you are at unless you have your paper guide. Even at that you can get turned around. Remember, if you get stuck just hop on an Uber or taxi and things will get better. My experience on the busses that were memorable were from Rosanna, Chiaravalloti, and Stefano the bus driver. read more

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I have taken multiple bus tours in many cities around the world. This was by far the worst tour I have ever experienced. There was virtually no context or history. The most dominant element of the audio portion was the repetitive sound of musical scores filling in time, where voice commentary would have been infinitely more valuable. This was a complete waste of time and money! read more

Don't buy this bus line! You wait and wait and wait for a bus while the other bus lines/hop on hop off tours drive by constantly to pick up their passengers. Also, the mobile app for up to date bus tracking doesn't work consistently. We did try and talk to the man we purchase the tickets from and he continued to act like he didn't understand us about our experience...we gave up and left. Ironically when we were purchasing he spoke perfect English and we had a 20 minute conversation with him. Buy ANY other line, they have many more buses which will pick you up and not waste your time waiting. Try Tour de Roma, we saw their buses drive by several times while we waited for ours. Same price - more buses - better quality bus. read more

Let me tell you this company and the gentleman in this picture is phenomenal!!! Our group ended up getting split up and we had the tickets for 4 people at another stop. Very quickly the employees were able to work together to allow them to get on the bus and show proof at our stop! While waiting for the bus this gentleman was phenomenal! He was helpful. Knowledgeable, funny, And made our wait non stressful! Additionally I attempted to give him a really nice tip for being sooooo helpful and he wouldn't even accept it! I hope to run into him at a later time! read more

Big Bus Rome - Bus Tours Near Me

Avoid! Waited an hour for a bus that was advertised to run every 18 minutes while other tours arrived and left. Once the bus arrived we had to wait 30 minutes for the bus to fill before we could leave. By which time it was too late. Customer service also very unhelpful. Hop off this tour! read more

We had had luck with the big bus tours in different cities So we bought tickets with the company in Rome. However, they failed to mention that a vast number of their stops were closed for a Susan G Kommen fun run. They had known about this event for a couple of months but did not bother to let anyone know before they bought their tickets. So the day of the tour comes and we have received no emails or information that they have closed several of the stops and part of the route. No bus comes and when I try and figure out what's going on and why nobody comes to pick us up there is no way to contact anyone. We walked around town and tried at a different stop and had the driver pull up after a significant amount of time and tell us that most of the stops were closed and the route had been changed. So we decided not to go. I sent in requesting a refund on the tickets on the grounds that they had not told us that they were not running most of the route and was told that they did not do any refunds but we're happy to extend our date for 6 months even though we had already flown home to the United States. I am filing a grievance with my credit card company to get my money back. read more

I usually plan for a trip by purchasing some activities on Expedia so I have a rough idea of what I'm doing. I haven used this company in Paris and had great luck with them, but Rome was a different story. The other companies had twice as many buses, more stops, shorter wait times between buses, and multiple routes. Be warned that unlike Paris, the streets in Rome are tiny. I understand why it would be impossible to drop you off right at the Spanish steps or Trevi Fountain, but this leaves no excuse for the other qualities they lack. I would definitely recommend another company for your hop on/off needs. read more

Had a great experience with Big Bus Rome - on a joint bus tour / cruise line package. Claudio who was our guide was exceptional and took time to check each person knew where they were going, had the right recommendations and was upbeat and professional throughout. Tour was good - we sat downstairs and the aircon was much appreciated given the Rome heat. Didn't wait more than 10 mins for a bus and hopped off at various points with ease! read more

We were looking forward to the bus ride to get an overview of Rome and a bit of history. It didn't happen. Instead we were tortured by nearly endless carousel music with minimal descriptions of upcoming stops Seriously 24 Euros per persons for a bus ride. A rip off !Much better to get on a city bus for 1.5 euros Is it too much to expect a bit of actual history or context. We got basically nothing read more

FUN, convenient and informative! Very easy hop on/ off at most popular attractions with an easy walk to others. Free head phones handed out to listen to pre-recorded tour guide in offered in many languages. They have double-decker buses with an open air top deck that was PERFECT for seeing the city of Rome. It was easy to get seats on the upper deck and the buses ran frequently. We never waited long for a bus and there were always seats available. The Big Bus made my Rome trip easy and fun! read more

Big Bus Rome - Bus Tours Near Me

All the bus tours are terrible. They offer you off and on rides at 20 minute intervals. The buses arrive more like every hour, depending on the amount of protest or demonstrations or events happening in the city. read more

I didn't like the experience as all other bus companies did not force masks but big bus not only firced masks but forced the fp2 type ones, which we had to buy. read more

Love Big Bus! 10/10 recommend! My husband and I were in Rome for only 2 days-a lot to see in a short time. There is plenty of stops, the staff is beyond helpful and friendly, and we almost never had to wait for the bus when we needed it. There were only 2 times we waited more than 5 minutes for a bus. They supply headphones (for free!) so you can listen to their guided tour, and maps so you know where stops and major attractions are. Honestly have nothing bad to say about this company. Also, they offer tickets for attractions on the bus. We only bought tickets for the Catacombs of San Sebastián. They charged 10 euros on the bus. The tickets at the sight are 8 euros, but, you can get a water and espresso at the cafe at the catacombs sight at no extra charge with the ticket from the bus-worth it! read more

Public service announcement-do not waste your precious limited vacation time on this bus. I have nothing to gain and want to simply share my experience. Don't make my mistake assuming this is a larger chain bus line and thus they'd have more buses on their route. They do not. All of the negative reviews are correct. They aren't exaggerating. You will be waiting like we did for the Big Bus when 3 or 4 competitor buses come and go during that same time. Really. It's not a fluke like bus company may say to the negative reviewers. We were stupid enough to buy a multi day pass online in advance before we knew better. Don't buy in advance if you don't believe me. The prices will be the same. Just look at the buses passing and you'll easily see a significant difference in the number of buses on the road or a lack thereof in Big Bus' case. We also thought the customer service was what might differentiate this company over the competitors. No, they simply check your pass. You just listen to pre-recorded audio narration of the sites. Other passengers voiced similar complaints and regrets as we all waited and waited throughout the day. Also, bc of the limited buses they operate, passengers pack in and you likely may not get to sit at the top of the open bus. We saw that throughout our experience on this bus too. Don't do it. You'll regret it like we all did. read more

Really enjoyable tour loved every minute of it would do it again if I had the chance. Ben read more

I had the opportunity to use Big Bus's customer service department and I give them 5 stars! I look forward to touring Rome next summer using the services of Big Bus. Thank you! read more

So we're just wrapping up a 2 week vacation in Europe. We (my family of 6) had used the Big Bus in Paris and really enjoyed it there. So when we came to Rome, we thought why not try the Big Bus tour there as well. The Big Bus is similarly priced, however the stops seemed much more spread out and the bus stops usually a block or two away from the site you are going to see. Not bad, just different than Paris, or so it feels to me. My biggest issue was with the Vatican tickets that I purchased though them today. On the bus, they sell these tickets ($26 for adults) as "skip the lines" tickets. Beware, however, there are 2 lines! One line for the museums and the Sistine Chapel (which the ticket does skip the line!) and the other line is for the basilica, which they will try to sell you a $20 upgraded ticket when you redeem your receipt that the girl on the bus will print you. This $20 upgrade is what I have the problem with. To me it felt like a hustle, they weren't upfront with the information, they sold them as "skip the lines" tickets and then try to stick you with another $20 fee. With this $46 spent, if you did spend it, there is no "tour", no audio guide, no nothing but skipping the lines with a group of about the 50 other people for a certain time slot. If I were to visit the Vatican again, I would buy a tour from one of the MANY people looking to sell you tickets. Start at the castle and start walking towards the basilica, about half way there you will find the some pretty helpful people, a company joined by an Irish guy - will help you skip ALL the lines and give you a private guided tour of around 6-10 people for the same price $46, kids about half that! You will need to show the kids passport for the price break at the Vatican to prove that they are under 18, even if it's ridiculously obvious. Secondly after 6pm the buses, the buses leave every 30 minutes instead of every 15. We were stuck at the train station (they're starting point) for about 40 minutes. We had to find the driver after 20 minutes and ask when we were leaving before we were told about the every 30 minutes rule. The bus in Rome seems to sit longer at the stops than it did in Paris. I still like them, but it could be improved. read more

After purchasing 3 tickets for which we received brochures telling us the last bus times of the day and confirmed with the bus driver that those times were accurate, we were left all the way on the other side of Rome waiting for a bus that never came. The last bus time listed for the particular stop we were at was 7:50, so we arrived early at 7:30 and waited an hour with about 15 other people for a bus that never came. After calling the Rome office, we were told the last bus came "early" that night and left at 7:20 and there was "nothing they could do" for us as we were all stranded all the way across Rome and were told we needed to find our own transportation. For this reason I will never use Big Bus, they are unreliable and not worth being left behind in a foreign city with no way to get back to where you are staying. read more

Bad mistake only bus directly at termini. If you get off prepare to wait while two or three buses from each competitor stop while you wait on the big bus. Does not even stop at stop 2 while all others do. Biggest mistake made in rome read more

Not a good experience. We were left at a stop. Bus did not return for over 2 hours. Walked 3 + miles back. Hot 33 degree day. Complained to operator and no refund. Only appologies. Try other hop on off bus operators. There are many....check this site. Not a good outfit. Feel taken advantage of. Excuses ranged from mechanical to "well it is lunch time and that route has a longer wait time. Try other operators read more

The big bus was the worst experience we had in Rome. After purchasing the tickets we were told the bus would arrive within 15 minutes. After waiting about 20 minutes we were told the bus could not come to the stop where we were and would have to walk about 21/2 blocks to another area. We had to cross a very major road to do so. After walking about 11/2 blocks the agent told us to go back to the original stop. We explained that my 85 yr. old mother was with us and could not walk this much ( it was 90degress). Again we crossed and walked back to the stop. Still no bus. After 10 more minutes, he said that we would have to go BACK across the street to the other stop 2 blocks away, I spoke with a woman who was on the bus previously and she said the stops were far between each other. It was now 45 minutes. Still no bus and expected to go to other stop again. We demanded a refund, were told he could not do that and actually told me to "shut Up!" Terrible experience delayed our time on Rome. read more