Tip: I recommend showing up at a bus tour stop to purchase your pass (ticket). I bought a two-day…read morepass and got a third day for free. That deal currently doesn't exist on the Big Bus Tours site. I find it helpful doing a bus tour in a city that you are visiting for the first time. I've done such tours in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and London. Of course, it's also fun to take a tour when you've been in a city before. New York comes to mind. Anyway, I decided to get a ticket from Big Bus Tours when I was doing touristy things in Piccadilly Circus. I am normally a planner (I got a city pass to various tourist attractions), but for tours, I show up at the stop. There's a reason why I do it. You can often get a deal. I ended up getting a three-day pass, but I only paid for two days. It was nice to get an extra day for free. There were three different routes that this bus company offers. I did all three, which was great. You get a pair of headphones and you listen to the audio detailing what you are seeing. It's informative and fun. You can choose the language that you want. You hop on a double-decker bus that allows you to hop off to visit a touristy site (Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Big Ben, etc.) and hop back on when you're done. Naturally, if you want to stay for the full tour, it's cool, too. Top floor is best for taking photos, which I did. It was December when I was in London. I recommend wearing a hat, a warm coat, and gloves to keep warm. It can get a bit windy, but I was fine. It did rain on my last day, so I sat inside. Taking photos was fine, but you deal with the window in front of you and potential glare. It was comfortable and a great learning experience as a tourist. I recommend it if you have a chance while in London. (45)

I had about 5 hours to see London, and one of their representatives at the airport suggested I…read morecould see a lot on this bus tour. I took the train to Paddington and got on the Blue line bus, which arrived as I was walking up to the stop. Enjoyed the ride around town on the open upper deck and got off when we reached the London Eye. After visiting the area with the London Eye, I got on the Red line. My original plan was to ride the red line around to Piccadilly Circus to visit somewhere else I wanted to go then, depending on time, take more of the Red route before switching back to blue to go back to the Paddington Station. That plan didn't work out at all! Once on the red route, I was trying to follow along on the map they gave us to make sure I got off at the right place, but very few streets were labeled on the map so I was having to compare the paper map to Google maps. It became apparent that we had, at some point, looped back and repeated part of the route as we passed things that I had taken pictures of 45 minutes prior. In looking at my Google timeline later, you can see that after leaving the London Eye, we did 2 loops around stops 1,2,3, and 4. The bus driver was also honking at people and tried to drive on the wrong side of the road to pass a truck. At many stops, he just got off the bus and left us there waiting while he went off somewhere. Around noon, the driver collected his things and just left the bus for a new driver. I guess he wanted to be in a specific area when his shift ended, so he did his own route to stay in the same area rather than the one we were supposed to stay on. It took 2 hours to go from stop 19 at the London Eye to stop 6 at Piccadilly Circus. I visited the area I wanted to go, and due to the amount of time wasted on the Red route I didn't have time to take the bus again as planned. I had to take the subway back to where I started to go back to the airport.

When I saw this tour, I thought of how fun it sounded to march along beside the guards. And it did…read morenot disappoint. Our tour guide, Alex, helped make the tour fun and very educational. It was great to listen to his commentary and also to march along beside them as they made their way to Buckingham Palace. We were able to see them from a few different spots and then we hung out at Buckingham Palace to take photos for a while before heading down to where the guards return after they're done. We would not have known about their return trip if it weren't for the information we got from Alex. It really was a great experience!

The tour was amazing! I had so muh fun with my kids and the tour guide Alex was very nice! I…read moredefinitely recommend!

What makes or breaks a guided tour of a popular attraction like London is the tour guide. On our…read moredouble-decker tour of London, Joe the tour guide was wonderful - funny, engaging, knowledgeable and entertaining. That made the entire experience! I would also like to give a shout-out to Radu (the driver) - yes, he was an excellent driver, but he was also the perfect foil for Joe's boisterous and entertaining persona, and he really cared about the customers - he was polite, professional and very thoughtful, for example lingering a bit longer at a particular attraction to let a member of the tour get their pictures just right. I was very pleased with Goldent Tours as well - ease of booking, prices and plethora of choices. All in all - I would use them again and highly recommend them.

We booked despite the bad reviews because it was the only way to get Harry Potter tickets during…read moreour quickly planned trip. We read the reviews and understood we were going to need some patience. The problem with many reviews were the meeting instructions (via TripAdvisor) so we went to the Baker Street location a day early to scout it out. We could not find signage for Golden Tours. We did see a Harry Potter bus dropping off a group and assumed (wrongly) that the spot was also the meeting spot. Actually they do have a location (store front) near the Baker street stop. It is not on Baler Street. If you come out of the tube and turn away from the wax museum, you will find their store from down the next block. That is the meeting spot point for tours! Very important thing to know and find -- because you have to meet there to get your tickets beforehand. We missed our bus time despite arriving 45 minutes early. The staff was less than kind about this part of the trip and made no apologies for the lack of directions. They gave us headphones but there was no movie on our bus. We had set our expectations low for our son, due to the reviews so we didn't mind -- but there were some disappointed families near us. The bus was clean enough but no WiFi and the phone charges didn't work on most seats. The driver for this portion of our trip was great and very helpful given that he had to help us find someone on site to get our Entry tickets. Despite the set backs, we finally had tickets in hand and enjoyed the studio tour from here on out on our own. The trip back was easy enough but this bus driver was less friendly and at one point was screaming at another driver along a busy street in London. We actually found it comical and thought it added to the busy city feel, but I could see how many guests would find this very unsettling. All in all, it is OK if this is the way you can get entry tickets to something on your must see list, but if you have options - I'd try another company.

Awesome experience and one of the trip itinerary's highlights. The overall trip was a gift, so the…read moretour was already factored in. The reservation was set day's prior, so we arrived early in the day and had the freedom to ride to various attrractions and exit the bus at places that we wanted to visit specifically. The bus was never overly crowded as there were many buses on the road at any given time. It was great. The earphones were provided at the beginning of the trip. They were only for listening to tour information. This is the first time that I chose to do the touristy thing in London, but it was definitely a memorable experience. I got to see and visit all of the popular tourist attractions. I don't think we missed anything within all areas of Central London. Though it is not necessary at this point, it is something that I would consider doing again.

This was a great excursion and a great deal for the price. We spend an entire day riding around on…read morethis bus and getting on and off at different locations. I highly recommend it to cover the most ground, especially if it's only a short trip like ours was.

My husband and I just returned from country roads of Switzerland it was absolutely amazing!…read moreStarting from the pick up from the airport to our return to the airport. Our tour guide was so knowledgeable , friendly and so caring. Oh let's not forget our bus driver Our group was also so friendly and fun and came from all different countries. The hotels, food and sights were so breath taking. My husband is one that does not like to travel like me but is defiantly on board to take another Insight Tour for sure! Thank you ! Insight Tours..

Our travel agent recommended Insight for our Scandinavia vacation. We liked their itinerary and…read morebooked their small group tour six months in advance. Two months before the trip our tour was cancelled "due to operational reasons and lack of participation". We requested but were refused compensation for costs incurred related to our unrecoverable travel and insurance expenses for this cancellation. They said, "read our fine print, we do not have to compensate you." DO NOT TRUST Insight Vacations. Never again. Go with Gate 1.

I did the Stonehenge, Windsor castle and Oxford tour. James my was my tour guide and he was…read moreabsolutely amazing. It was an affordable option with great care. I highly recommend trying them!

Booked: Oxford, Stratford, Cotswolds and Warwick Castle Day Trip on TripAdvisor…read more The tour has absolutely nothing to do with Cotswold, as our tour guide made perfectly clear on several occasions, however 6 of us booked this tour because of it's title and stated "drive through scenic Cotswold.". This is false advertising and as our tour guide stated, "you were RIPPED OFF!

Some of the worst communication ever! Tried to threaten me into not doing a negative review even…read morethough they met up with me to do the tour! Reviews are now being sunburned on all platforms I would def skip this tour

****BEST FREE THING IN LONDON***…read more Gary our tour guide gave us an amazing tour of east london's street art. You book by emailing him, meet round the corner from Liverpool Street and he takes you on a 2 hour tour around london's east end for free (though, the tour is that good you will want to give him a heavy tip at the end) Ive been round this area on many occasions but thing were pointed out and explained and without being too dramatic, completely changed how i look at the area. We saw works by Banksy, Stiks, and T.wat and given a real sense of what the work meant. and what it was doing for society - Stiks has used street art to transform his life old life as someone who was homeless to someone who now holds exhibitions around the world. and others who have since set up charities. very compelling stuff. Learning about the history area of Jewish / bangladesh settlement, and the more current artist versus bankers territorial struggle was fantastic too. SOOOOOO cant recommend this enough. made me proud to live in london.

This is just what Londoners need…read more Some interesting information first: London has the highest number of singletons in the country - a fact that comes as no surprise given that it is also, by far, the most populated city in the country. Now tell someone it also has the highest percentage of single people than anywhere else in the country and you may raise some eyebrows. If you have lived here, as I have all my life, you wouldn't be surprised to see why this is the case. Londoners abide by certain invisible rules, amongst them are the following: "Thou shalt not speak to strangers" and "Thou shalt not make eye contact with those you do not know." With these rules in mind you can see why so many people have trouble connecting with others and why it does not have the same sense of bonding and community spirit you would find in small towns and villages. The English reservedness also proves to be highly problematic in approaching people and asking members of the opposite sex out on dates - this is where Jean Smith comes in. She teaches us to approach, talk and flirt with people everywhere we go - whether it be the supermarket, art galleries, bars and even the street where you may meet your dream partner. If you do not try, you will only miss out. On the walking tour we went to several places - an art gallery, the local supermarket in Covent Garden, a pub to name a few and she encouraged us to strike up a conversation with members of the opposite sex. In the world of dating, the most common fear people have is rejection. Now this isn't what worried me - thankfully pretty much nearly everyone I meet respond positively if I start a conversation, ask for contact details and even ask them out. What I do have difficulties with though is flirting. I don't know how to flirt and quickly feel awkward if someone flirts with me even though I don't mean to feel that way. Reading signals is another problem area - particularly when women are quite subtle. To give you an idea - my last two ex-girlfriends claim they made it blatantly clear they were flirting and were interested in me before we entered a relationship. I also often find myself wondering, "Was she flirting with me or being friendly?", telling my female friends about those situations and find they tell me those women I encountered were indeed flirting. I tend to be much too cautious! Jean told us what to do, where and how to do them. She also told us about body language and the signals to watch out for - something I found to be of super help! Just before the end of the tour, we retired to a pub and had a good discussion together. There was flirting going in amongst members of the group - every single person had a laugh and a good time! We were all encouraged to ask questions and discuss them together. Jean answered them all in a very helpful, detailed manner. One more thing I am also pleased to add is that she was not in any way patronising or condescending. She comes across very friendly, down to Earth, approachable and extremely charming through her smiles and super confident personality. All in all I think I met about 15 women - all of them total strangers and they all reacted positively. Had a great time, including a comical time when during the supermarket task I had pretended to be completely clueless about wine, simply to strike up a conversation with a woman, and it turned out she had no idea about wine either. She had a boyfriend (oops) a few metres behind who then came up to me but don't worry, he was quite friendly. I then had to spend a few minutes playing dumb, saying "Really?", "Ahhhh, I see", "I didn't know that", "Aha!" etc. a lot as he proceeded to spend a few minutes telling me all about wine. :) The evening ended on a high, and I certainly felt more confident thanks to Jean!

I decided to go on this tour or a laugh and just see what Jean had to say on the topic of flirting…read more About two hours before the tour was to start, I re-read Jean's website and realised that this was meant to be an interactive tour. Needless to say, I was more than a little terrified by the time I turned up. I needn't have been. Jean does a great job of easing people into the tasks so that while they still require you breaking out of your comfort zone in order to perform them, at the very least, they're not so mindbogglingly difficult that you'd run screaming from the tour the instant you're told about them! I think one of the great things about this tour is that everyone who comes on this is as open-minded as you are. Consequently, it makes it easy to bond with one another, and, it most definitely helps when you know there are other people out there trying to do the same tasks which you're doing. You'd think having people you know around when you're attempting to flirt would make things a little more nerve-wracking and pressurising, but it doesn't. Instead, it helps you feel more relaxed because you've got all these people there for moral support. It's definitely a fun way to spend an evening. It's a good way to open your eyes as to the different places where you can meet people, and the ways in which you can approach them. I also liked that Jean had a mini Q&A at the pub at the end of the tour so that you could ask more questions about meeting people, cultural differences and taking things further... basically anything at all to do with flirting! Highly recommended!

Great fun at Day Trip to Stonehenge. Will use them again to go to Lake District in summer when i…read morevisit the Uk again. Thanks Alba!