I've had a friend from Australia staying with me for the past 6 weeks, so we've been doing a little sight-seeing, and obviously a visit to London is a must. We had a look around on the internet before-hand, just to check prices and various locations, and if there were any particular sights that we thought were a must. After looking long and hard we decided to take one of those bus tours, where you get to view from a red London double decker bus.
Here is where we checked out The Original London Sightseeing Tour, which looked pretty impressive on the net, with much detail to availability, prices and tour stops and departures. Although this can be booked on-line, we did not do this only for the simple reason that we were not sure exactly what day we would be travelling and what time we would be arriving, so we just printed off where one of the main ticket offices were, and took the details with us.
On arrival in London we checked out Baker Street, where a main ticket office is situated, to purchase our tickets ready for the next morning, and got chatting to the ticket attendant, after running through the details with us what we actually decided to do was a little different than we had previously anticipated. To start with tickets are valid for 24 hours from the time that you purchase them, so being as it was now 3.30pm, we bought our tickets and we decided to take a full tour which lasts for 2 ½ hours, to take it all in, and decide from that what we really wanted to look at tomorrow, then get off at a particular place of interest, then hop back on, which is the real benefit of this ticket.
So I'll start to fill you in more……….
The London Tour Company was founded in 1951 and is now the largest operator in the world. It proves popular because of the way that you can "hop on" and "hop off" at any of the 90 different stops, and buses run every 20 minutes. What I liked was that you had an option of the 3 different size routes that you can on, we chose the largest of the three, which really packs in the wide range of sights there are. The other benefit I liked was the fact that they operated 3 different themed buses, we chose the one where you are given ear-phones which you can plug in by the side of your seat, and listen in English, French, german, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Russian. Another bus has a live commentator, and the third a commentator which speaks in a kid like language for them to understand, without any of the heavy stuff that goes with some of these things, and they also receive a kids activity pack.
The main pick-up points are Baker Street (alongside the tube), Embankment (by the tube), Piccadilly Circus, Victoria and Grosvenor Gardens, Trafalgar Square and Marble Arch. We chose Baker Street because that was the nearest to where we were staying.
As I said before the length varies depending on your route option, we had the longest which was approx 2 ½ hours, then the other two are 2 hours and 1 ½ hours.
Here a list of the main sights,
Westminster Abbey, Houses Of Parliament, Tower Bridge, Tower Of London, Big Ben, Madame Tussauds, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, No.10 (Tony's) The National Gallery London Bridge St Pauls Cathedral Kensington Palace Oxford Street National History Museum Victoria & Albert Museum Princess Diana Memorial Trafalgar Square London Eye Kensington Gardens Shafsbury Avenue Whitehall Harrods Hyde Park
Prices We paid £18 each for a adult ticket, and children's prices £12.00 and you can get a family ticket which covers 2 adults and 3 children for £72.00 If you book online it does work out a bit cheaper saving £1.50 on both the adult and child price, but £12 cheaper on a family ticket. Group bookings are available also. The prices vary in the height of the summer season.
Also, the price includes a trip on the Thames, which also has a commentator on board, and it's well worth fitting that in as well, it's surprising how different some things look being viewed from a different angle. You pass up the Thames on a zig-zag like crossing along the way to pick up other passengers, and once again you can hop on and off when you wish to.
Another handy option is that you can get discounted priced theatre tickets when purchased through The Original Tour Company.
So after all that what we did was to go back early the next morning, having decided what stops that we wanted to get off at. We started off at Baker Street, and our first hop-off was Piccadilly Circus and a coffee stop, then back on until St Pauls Cathedral, then we got off again at the Tower, where we spent most of our time and had lunch, and it is here that we boarded the boat and cruised up until we got to the London Eye and hopped off here, hoping to get on the eye but the queue was so long we decided against it. Then we walked along and up over the bridge to Big Ben to take lots of snaps, and picked up a bus again and got off at Buckingham Palace for some more shots, then back on and back to Baker Street at the end of the day.
Extremely tired, but well worth it, and I'd recommend to anyone who has limited time to spend in London, we got to see all the sights that were most important, got a cruise on the Thames, and it seemed to be run extremely organised, the staff were helpful and friendly, (and they supplied you with rain mac's which I thought was funny)
There website address is www.theoriginaltour.com , which is well covered from booking tickets, prices, routes, where you even download maps of the routes that they cover, timetables, virtual tour, and cruise information.
I'd rate this company 9 ½ / 10 Hope you enjoyed reading and if your down that way give this a go, you wont regret it.
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