Philadelphia Sightseeing Tours & Transportation

Unfortunate mistake going with a local service as opposed to Corp firm i.e. Big Bus. The «shuttle service» between art museum and zoo was spotty to non –existent. Spent an hour or more awaiting a trip back to the double decker bus route. Took multiple calls to dispatcher, told 15 – 20 mins, took 30 – 40. Tour itself seemed ok, but poor planing and organization. I noticed the Big Bus had a dedicated trolley bus that made
Several trips to the zoo while
We were waiting. When spending $ 70 plus, you expect more as a consumer.

I arrived in Philadelphia today, with 7 mentally disable adults and 3 other assistants, to take a 1 day tour and was treated like ROYALTY! I spoke to Shelly on Thursday and she was the start of my awesome experience with this company. We drove from Bergen County, NJ and took a 1 day tour interacting with Shelia, the sales rep, Nick, the driver, and Ernest, the tour guide. Sheila was friendly and accomodating and made our check in quick and easy. Nick was the most pleasant person, who cared about nothing, other than our experience on his trolley. Ernest was the most knowledgable, outgoing, funny, knowledgeable, entertaining, knowledgable tour guide ever! This man knew EVERYTHING about Philadelphia and taught us all so much! We THANK YOU all for making our trip from NJ, and tour of Philly, a day we will all remember!

We thought this was a pretty good tour of the city. It lasts about 90 minutes if you don’t choose to get off or on anywhere in the route. The tour guide was funny and informative although he talked a little too fast sometimes. We sat on top despite the cold temperature and chilly wind, because that is really the only place you can see anything. The problem with the warmer, enclosed downstairs was that you really could not look up out of the windows. In addition, they covered the windows with screening with advertisements painted on them, which really obscured the view. The seats were somewhat uncomfortable because they had curved bottoms, and especially if you were downstairs, the bus felt every bump and rattled your teeth.

Our first driver was great but our second driver was new and read off his script. Overall I would definitely take this ride again as their seats were very comfortable and drivers were very cautious.

Based in our experience today, I would not recommend this tour company. Why?
The Guide spoke so fast that most of the time we had no idea what he was saying. When we approached a historic structure, or something of interest, the bus never slowed down. The guide never indicated where we could hop off. We wanted to go around again but we were told the bus wasn’t leaving for a half hour. There was not frequent departures and they did not go to the zoo as claimed. The tour was a bust. it wasn’t informative or fun, it was a wast of money.

I worked with Shelly of Philadelphia Sightseeing Tours & Transportation, Inc. (PST) over the course of two months to line up six buses, confirming them with her as late as 3:40 PM on the day of the event. PST agreed to transport over 500 people, and were fully aware that they were a crucial part of the success of the event. While weather conditions were not ideal (officially, «light rain» was recorded at 5:45 PM when buses were due to load), Shelly confirmed that PST regularly operates in the rain, unless there is lightning. There were no reports of lightning in the area on the night of the event. I believe PST acted in an unprofessional and unethical way by deciding not to deploy buses, and failing to attempt to contact me. PST simply stranded 500 people. Not a single phone call was made to contact me. In fact, I left several voice messages that were never returned.

This was a great way to see the city when you don’t have the time to walk around from site to site. Easy on and off. The guides were excellent and gave great historical and fun information!

Curtis is awesome. Such and insightful and funny tour guide. I highly recommend this tour. Come early and ride all day until 5. You’ll be glad you did

Had a great bus tour. Curtis was a great guide! Informative and funny! Great way to see Philly

Loved Annie and Tamara! My Philly day tour consists on hopping on their bus at least 3 times at different stops, what a coincidence. It was an adventurous ride filled with fun jokes, tree ducking, a «free back massage», as Annie calls the bumpy road we were rollin’ by towards the end of her tour. I learned a few things here and there about the city as well.
Their buses comes every 30 minutes (not usually on time due to traffic), and runs along their route in numerical order, there is no turning back. Streets are pretty short around here so you can really go through a few attractions by walking rather than waiting out on the next bus to arrive.
Only thing was, NO AC! There were times when we hopped back on, the top deck would be packed and we would have to be stuck in the the sauna level of the bus. That said, the best seat would be right next to the driver, as she had her little personal clip on fan fanning, and her window wide open.

I had the best tour of Philadelphia buy some really awesome guys! I’d recommend this company to anyone coming to visit Philadelphia for the weekend Who really wants to get to know about the history of the city. Great ride!!!

Curtis was a great and entertaining tour guide. I was not looking forward but really enjoyed it, as did our reluctant 12 year old.

Were really glad that we got on the bus with Danielle & Bill, not only because Danielle was fun but because this bus didn’t have an open upstairs so it was fairly warm. This 2 day hop-​on hop –off tour was definitely worth it. When you do the tour you should at least just ride & listen to all the facts & history first before you start hopping off/on.I would go on the one Danielle is on because she definitely made all the facts interesting & not so boring. Yes her jokes were silly but that’s what made you pay attention & not be completely bored for 1 ½ hrs. While you’re listening to all the facts you can mark on the map they give you all the places you definitely want to go to first. I liked this tour because it was very fun & entertaining & I think the way Danielle presented the facts made it interesting. The tour is definitely worth the money but remember; listen to the facts first & ask for Danielle. It’s a lot better to know the story (history or facts) of what you’re taking pictures of before rather than after.

I was in Philadelphia for 2 days In October 2014 and bought a 2-​day hop-​on hop-​off pass. I was TOTALLY satisfied!
I would suggest you ride the entire sightseeing loop the first time (60 – 90 minutes) to get an idea what you want to go back and see, where you can walk, the history of the sights, etc. Then, hop on and off for the remainder of your trip.
Melvin and Brittney were super helpful getting me to the bus and buying my ticket on the first day. Some of the nicest people I’ve met! One of my tour guides, Danielle, was particularly knowledgable and entertaining. I’m sure, though, no matter who helps you, you will be happy. Also, ask at your hotel… Melvin picked me up and delivered me to the bus on the first morning. Super easy!
This bus tour was one of the best parts of my trip! You won’t be sorry!

The City of Brotherly Love is so rich with history that a «hop on hop off» guided tour is a great way to see it all. However, we chose our seats ~ top deck front row ~ and simply enjoyed the beauty of this city as we listened to Tim, our guide, share not only his sense of humor, but his knowledge of the high points along the way. The driver on the other hand must have been «late for a date» or missed the training description of a bus tour. Poor Tim had to 1) talk very fast to get the description of the places of interest (which they lay out on the map you’re given) or 2) tell the driver to stop so we could at least catch a glimpse! Whoa Nellie ~ it’s not a race through Philly unless we’re holding the reins! Hence «4» stars not «5».
Not many queues to get off unless you followed along with the map or saw the bus stop # signs ~ it wasn’t a problem for us because we had already decided to stay on the bus the entire 90 min, then go back to the places we wanted to explore.
It is well worth the money; and the best way to see much more of the city than you would otherwise.

My mom and I took this bus tour one of the days we were in Philadelphia recently. We had actually planned on doing the Big Bus tour, but we came across these guys and it was $ 25 instead of $ 30, so we went for it.
Being able to hop on and hop off was great; what wasn’t great was how most of the tour guides didn’t actually let us know when the stops were, so we missed a few places we’d planned to get off. To that point, some of the tour guides we had were GREAT, others you could hardly understand on the microphone.
At one point, we were a little concerned about the timeliness of these buses; they are supposed to come every 30 minutes, which is long as it is, but one was about 10 minutes late and another was a few minutes late as well. After that, the rest of them were fine and on time.
This tour does take you to most of the main attractions — the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’s House, Independence Hall, Rittenhouse Square, the Rocky steps, a lot of museums (which we didn’t visit), etc. Definitely worth it as a good way to see all the sights, although we realized later most of it would’ve been walkable.

I have taken this tour a couple times now on this bus and each time I got a little something different out of the experience. The tour really depends on the guide and all of the little gems of information that they give you along the way
…for instance talking about the cobblestones in Philly — first tour gave the history, second did not — or about the funny laws in Philly like disassembling your car if a horse is afraid to pass — first tour didn’t tell me this, second one did.
All in all I think that no matter what bus you take around Philly your going to get some pretty sweet information along the way from your guide. And if you need suggestions on places they are always very happy to help you out.
Also they do stop at a ton of locations so you can hop off and see the sites there and then hop back on and your pass is good all day — great way to see the city!
And they do accept gratuities so take a little cash :)

My mom had discounted tickets for the Philly Sightseeing Tour so we took my grandmom out for a day of sightseeing. This tour can really be made or broken by the tour guide. For the first half of our day (start point at The Bourse to the Art Museum), our guide mumbled and wasn’t very enthusiastic.
We decided to walk around the Art Museum for a bit, so by the time we got back on the bus, we had a new tour guide. He was friendly, enthusiastic and knew a lot about the city. I was a bit disappointed that he promoted Pat’s and Geno’s, however. There was one other local on the bus as well and we sort of gave each other the eye like, «Really? Really?!» Friends, there are far better cheesesteaks out there!
While I didn’t learn anything new about the city, from a local’s point of view, I thought the tour did a very nice job showcasing Philadelphia to visitors.

I was in Philly for a business meeting that finished earlier than expected, and before I drove home I thought I’d check out the sights. So I stopped in at the visitor’s center, and the lady at the desk suggested their trolley tour. Having done a similar tour in San Francisco and having really enjoyed it, I signed up. As it’s the off season, there was only one other person on the trolley with me, so we had the undivided attention of the tour guide, which would have been nice if he had actually had any real knowledge of the sights. Instead he resorted to lame jokes and pointed out things like the 7 – 11, saying «That was NOT here when the Constitution was written.» I know it was an attempt to be funny, but it just fell flat.
Since this is one of those tours where you can get off, do your thing, then get back on when it comes back around, we picked up a couple of other people along the way. One woman was from Australia and had several questions, none of which he had an answer for. At one point she even asked him «Are you not going to give us any information about these places like the guy on the other bus did?» He then said «What do you want to know?» Seriously? He’s paid to do this every single day, and he doesn’t know what to tell the tourists? Don’t they have a script they’re supposed to work from, or a test they have to pass to do this?
On the plus side, the guide did make an excellent recommendation for a Philly cheesesteak, although he did tell me that he only gets them about once a year. Maybe this tour is better during their regular season, when the guides are all warmed up from working with several tourists, but this was not a great experience at all.

While I walked all over the city exploring on my own, me and the mister were set out for a tour of the entire area via the Double Decker bus.
For about $ 25.00, you get a 24 hour ticket to ride the bus. We stopped and saw many historical sights and hopped off when we wanted to grab a bite to eat or explore another area. The next bus routinely picks you up in an hour, so we used it as our personal bus to get around and explore the areas further away from us.
Some of the tour guides are funnier and more knowledgable than others, but all in all we enjoyed the tour and got to see almost all of the cities major landmarks.