Advantages: Quality tour with a live guide
Disadvantages: The heavily historic nature of the tour may not suit everyones tastes

...Guide Friday operate tours all over the country although this article is essentially based on their tour of Cambridge. The real selling point of their tour is the live guide and whilst this may make them slightly more then their competitors, (some of whom are so desperate for passengers they will undercut further!) helps greatly in a number of ways. A live guide will have no problem synchronising a tour to the surroundings however fast or slow the bus moves around the city. They will also be able to adapt a tour in order to take account of diversions or recent changes. Both or these things are where tape commentary is really lacking and whilst the latter may not normally be encountered you will certainly find that the former presents a problem for taped bus commentaries every day. Textbook problems aside though its the pure quality... Read review

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Advantages: A lot to see & do, has something to offer for everyone
Disadvantages: Too much to see and do, can be exhausting, expensive hotels

...and the lady that took us around also did other tours that she informed us about during the walk. In this walk we were taken around in the Times Square area and we got information on how the theatre district has developed to what it is today, how Longacre Square has turned into Times Square, how the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin fits into the Times Square area etc. It was a pretty good tour but maybe a bit long (it lasted a bit more than 2 hours). Guggenheim - let me see those hands We took the subway to 86th street if I'm not mistaken and we just walked over towards Central Park and Fifth Avenue. Soon the characteristic white rings appeared in front of us and it is such a cool building. Of course there were some construction work going on (as usual in big cities) but that didn't destroy the "experience". The museum was a lot smaller than I... Read review

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Advantages: Great
Disadvantages: Noisy

...evidence of your visit. Northwest of here, at around 50th Street and 5th Avenue, is the ROCKEFELLER CENTRE. A complex of buildings succeeding more than any other in the city as being completely self-contained yet still in harmony with its surroundings. Offices, cafes, TV studio, theatre, underground concourses, shopping centre, ice rink and roof-top gardens all interwoven in one of the best pieces of urban planning on the planet. It also offers the best, unhindered view of Manhattan that the city has to offer, despite being smaller then the ESB. This is a must-go attraction; there's something for everyone. I recommend the NBC studio tour, which, although expensive, is fascinating - particularly when able to enter the sets of 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien'. Close by is the famous Central Park. Cliff-faced rocks... Read review

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Advantages: The grim history of the building - and some amazing rooms with period furniture.
Disadvantages: If you really are looking for ghosts and presences... perhaps look somewhere else.

...the atmosphere - waiting for the tour that would begin shortly after our welcome. The group of us sat in the corner of the room under one of the two large chandeliers that hung from the ceiling above (covered in dust in a suitably aged way) and soon after we were welcomed and told the rules of the house. These were delivered very informally and were as follows; 1. If you feel ill, say something! There's a lot of old and antique furniture and carpeting in the house and we were told that someone would accompany us to a bathroom or for some fresh air. 2. The house and staircases are old - so be careful! The tour takes place in the dark so we were warned to be aware of the things around us and not to run in case of tripping. 3. Finally (and rather ominously), if we felt something, smelt something, or heard something, no matter how small, we were... Read review

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Advantages: Fascinating
Disadvantages: A little claustrophobic

...Edinburgh is an amazing city. For my money, it's architecturally the most beautiful in Britain and it has a history that is truly fascinating. I go there every August for the comedy festival and normally see only the shops, the bars and the comedy venues. This year, however, I was determined to get up earlier than usual and give myself time to take some of the tourist trails. After scouring the net and reading some guide books, my mate and I decided that one thing we must do was take the guided tour of Edinburgh's hidden underground vaults run by Mercat Tours. Edinburgh's underground vaults have only recently been uncovered after lying abandoned and full of waste for many years. Now open to the public on accompanied viewings only, accessible only via huge locked doors which look like any others in the city's winding old streets... Read review

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Advantages: first amphibious bus, goes on land and water, kids love it, resonably priced,great ride
Disadvantages: none

...seen the bus on the road we did not know it then goes into the sea! The tour continues along Sheikh Khalifa and Sheikh Rashid Roads past Zabeel Park to give you a glimpse of Wafi City Centre, Wonderland and other places of interest the bus then goes into the water. When this happens everyone seems to ooh and aah with surprise and excitement on their faces, especially children because they simply cannot wait for the bus to go into the water. The bulk of the tour is spent in the water and the ride is quite smooth, you continue to see the sights of architectures and the historic buildings on the both shores of the creek and are free to take photos. The amphibious bus is fully air conditioned because if they left the windows open everyone would get soaked by the impact the bus has when it goes into the water. You are brought back onto... Read review

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Advantages: Some good visual aids, fab music and mildly comical
Disadvantages: A lot of rubbish that is hard to ignore...

...as they roamed about the countryside in an apparently unstable looking bus. The film was to resemble one of those bus tours that you could get in big cities, seeing the many historical sights and coveted spots around. But this wouldn't be just any bus ride; oh no, it would be a bus ride jam packed with magical adventures. Well, enough to maintain just under an hours worth of film footage to naive fans! It was the first film the band created after the death of their close friend and manger, Brian Epstein. Obviously, his missing guidance and sense of direction for the four piece created a bit of a void. Instead of playing it safe or expanding on the previous stories comical occurrences, the band opted to let their LSD induced trances create an unscheduled and unexplained graft of events that would show Beatles fans everywhere a very different... Read review

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Advantages: Nice and spooky, full of information
Disadvantages: Not for the faint-hearted!

...a bit of experience from a year or so previously of one of the occurrences he told us about. I went on one in York about a year or so ago, which lacked some of the theatrics that you get on some of the ghost walks. There were no blokes in frock-coats or whatever, but we got some exercise from trekking through the city, learned a bit of history and discovered that York City Council boobooed on Margaret Clitheroe's house (it's not the one that it's supposed to be - it's actually a few doors up the street!). Anyway, this time round I was able to combine business and pleasure, have a few quid in my pocket, leanr a bit of gory history and get some exercise too! A few years ago a friend of mine told me about the under-city tours that take place beneath Edinburgh. Because myself and a colleague were off to Edinburgh to carry out an audit, I... Read review

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Advantages: Get to see the sites and sounds of the City of London and lose some weight too with all that walking
Disadvantages: It may rain on you

...The City of London is an incredible place to walk around as it is brimming over with history and interesting little nooks and crannies. This is a simplified walking tour of the City as its not possible to include every worthwhile site in the City within one walking tour, but hopefully it will be enough to provide the flavour of the sites and sounds of the City of London. Let the walk commence! The tour starts at Farringdon Station (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Thameslink). If you can start by travelling some of the journey between Paddington and Farringdon all well and good – you will have just travelled down the oldest underground railway in the world. It was opened in January 1863, but this station (Farringdon) wasn’t opened until 1865. Come out of Farringdon station and turn right, go to the lights and turn... Read review

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