My boyfriend and I had only 24 hours in Vienna and we were looking for a walking tour to learn the…read moremost about the sites in the city during our short stay. All of the walking tours that I could find online were sold out but I came across the Hop On Hop Off Vienna Sightseeing ticket that included a free walking tour in English. There was still a tour being offered later in the day so we purchased the tickets and it seemed like the perfect combination of transportation and the walking tour to see and learn as much about the city as possible in the time frame. Sadly, this decision was a huge disappointment. We got to the tour meeting spot 20 minutes before it began. We had some lunch with us that we were eating by the meeting spot so we would be ready to go for the tour at 3:30 PM. We waited patiently next to the sign indicating the meeting point for walking tours. When it reached about 3:40 PM, we were still waiting for the tour and were not sure why it was so late. We went and asked the employees for the company in yellow shirts and they told us that the tour had already left. We never heard anyone announce that the tour was leaving and we were very upset as this was the reason we purchased the tickets in the first place. We went back up to the employees and tried to explain that we were there early, never heard the tour leave and bought the tickets specifically for the walking tour and asked if there was a way we could get any kind of refund. Instead of having any empathy or being apologetic, the staff was all very unsympathetic and rude back to us. "Too bad, you can just go on the tour tomorrow."
We decided to continue to ride the bus routes to make the most of our purchase. Unfortunately, things kept going downhill from there. We walked to the second stop, which is where the red and yellow lines are supposed to make stops. We waited for about 15 minutes to get on the Yellow bus to find out that the Yellow bus was not stopping at that stop for some reason and there was no indication on the map that it would not be stopping there.
Many of the headphone jacks on the bus also did not function properly. The sound would go in and out or would not work altogether.
At one point while riding the green route, I became extremely thirsty. I saw that there was a sign at the front of the bus for water for sale and was so excited to easily buy some so I would not have to get off the bus. When we walked up to the driver to purchase a bottle, he told us that the bus didn't have water. That would have been fine if it was not advertised!
Also, if you pay close attention to the driving route and the route that is printed on the map, it is often different. The bus does not stick to the actual route and this caused many of the audio recordings to not even match up to what we were passing.
When purchasing the tickets and throughout the bus, it is heavily advertised that there is free wifi on the bus. The wifi only worked for me on the bus about half of the time which is extremely disappointing since the company uses this as one of the main selling points.
Finally, for a double decker tour bus, you would hope that the driver would drive at a calm pace to allow the guests to really take in the scenery of Vienna. However, the bus drove extremely fast and aggressive and it was hard to even catch a glimpse of sights. When the bus drove by trees (the green line particularly has a lot of trees on the route), it would drive so fast that the branches would come in through the upper windows and snap off. It seemed dangerous if someone was to have been sitting right where the branches would have come in.
Overall, I completely regret purchasing tickets from this company for what seemed like a perfect idea at the time for my 24 hour stay. I would like to point out that I work as a Hospitality Agent for a large business at home and deal with customer service every day and it is not too much to ask for the bare minimum for what was promised with the ticket.
