TopView Sightseeing Reviews 304

Terrible. If you're reading this before booking, reconsider!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I had an absolutely fantastic experience with TopView Sightseeing's hop-on hop-off bus tour in New York! The convenience of being able to explore the city at my own pace was a game changer. The buses were frequent, clean, and the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful.

The tour routes covered all the major attractions, including Times Square, Central Park, and the Statue of Liberty, making it easy to plan my day. I particularly enjoyed the informative audio guides, which provided interesting facts and stories about each landmark.

One of the highlights was hopping off at Central Park to enjoy a leisurely stroll and take in the sights. After exploring, I simply hopped back on the next bus without any hassle. It was a perfect way to see the city!

I highly recommend TopView Sightseeing to anyone visiting New York. It's a great value, and the flexibility it offers is unbeatable. I can't wait to do it again on my next trip!

Tour for 2 cost US$114.00. Most of the trip spent at pick up stops waiting for more people. Over 20 minutes just sitting at Times Square. A total rip offf

One star is being kind.

Absolute shambles, had to wait 45 minutes for each bus. Avoid!!!

Worst bus tour ever. Compared to some I have taken in other cities. Bus driver was rude. We stood for 20 minutes each at two stops with nothing to see and when we asked why we were told he was waiting for other bus. My ticket did not work when I tried to scan it with the app and the bus driver said he was being nice letting me get on anyway that others would not be so nice, but was unable to fix it. You needed to find an agent at one of the bus stopps to help you and most of them did not have any. Felt like a big waste of money and we did not see much either.

Don’t even bother with this company, I bought two days of sightseeing hop on hop off, used it once, and it was ridiculous. How long it took to get from one point to another, it takes forever for people to get on the bus therefore, you are waiting at a stop forever. Called the company to see if I can get a refund for at least one of the days. I did not use any of the extras that came with the package. They refused won’t even give me a partial credit. So much for customer service. Use a subway or even a bike you’ll Get there faster. Buyer beware

I had high expectations for this tour, but unfortunately, the experience fell far short. First, the drivers were incredibly rude, making the journey uncomfortable and unpleasant. Additionally, the app, which is supposed to be convenient, was frustrating to use. It failed to generate the necessary codes for reservations, causing unnecessary stress and delays.

Overall, I would not recommend this tour to others. It was a waste of time and money, and I hope the company takes steps to address these serious issues.

Worst buses and tour company - we had a horrible experience as a family. It was a rainy day and The buses were old and leaking all over the place. We were seated at n the lower deck and the bus was truly bad with no PA system working and passengers left to fend for themselves- they have very few buses in circulation too - so be prepared to wait. The staff is rude and unfriendly.

Baked by TopView, that’s how the hop on hop off your felt like. The bus had no ventilation forget AC. The guys at the Times Square main stop wouldn’t let people board even though the bus had sufficient seats giving some ridiculous reason that there are passengers in other stops. What makes such responses worse is their arrogance as though they’re doing us a favor. The absolute worst part was the driver of the first bus we unfortunately got into- Mr Daniel. He humiliated more than 2 passengers since they didn’t understand his “hitler”istic instructions not to stand. At one point he stopped the bus in the middle of a busy Times Square road because one lady was trying to help her physically challenged mother. We had to sit there listening to his unreasonable instructions while vehicles behind were relentlessly honking. He even took a 15 minute break while we passengers had to sit in that ventilation-less bus getting baked. The trip from battery park stop to Flatiron building stop took more than 2 hours not because of traffic but because of Lord Daniel and his insulting behavior. Oh, did I mention his erratic driving that challenged our spine back and forth constantly! The buses weren’t clean either. We hopped on to 2 buses and both felt like ovens inside. Our wonderful NYC trip was ruined by TopView’s arrogant inefficient service. Should have just gone with bigbus.

I had a pathetic experience with Top View. I bought tickets from a salesperson who made false promises. They claimed I could see uptown and downtown in a day, but that's complete nonsense. One downtown loop alone takes 2 hours without hopping off. Don't believe their sales pitch. It's better to opt for a decent one-ride option

Horrible experience. Do not use this company. The agents oversell the seats available on the bus so my family and I were left waiting over an hour in New York to get on a bus. Sure, they come every 15 minutes but if each bus is full then what is the point!

Stay away - this was a pure scam.

I bought the 48h package for $215 for a family of three. On the first day we managed to catch a bus - which was okayish, you can get to the sights and have a good view if you manage to get a spot on the top. On the 2nd day, we wanted to do the uptown route and waited for a bus at one of the official stops… and waited… and waited… and finally gave up waiting after well more than an hour and called an Uber. I asked for a refund from TopView given that I could not use the ticket on the 2nd day, but was told that 75min waiting time is still “within reason”. “Hop on - hop off” sounds different to me, especially as we saw several buses from a competing company during that time.

Apart from this, the buses are okay but not really clean, the audio guide did not work at all, there’s limited seating, if you’re downstairs it can feel like a public bus during rush hour. The main downside is that you’re stuck in NYC traffic and the bus does many long (5-10min) stops on the way, so bottom-line you’ll be faster walking or using the $215 on Uber rides.

Their sales staff scammed us, this company have over 1000 sales agents all over NYC they constantly hound you at the door of every hotel and on the corner of all the main blocks around the city. They sold us a package for a multiday pass that he told us to include a Statue of liberty sight seeing cruise.
He made out that he discounted the ticket by 50% because we agreed to a multi day pass. The sales rep marked on our guide map the location we should get of the tour to get our cruise. He marked stop 9 circled it and wrote on it Free Ferry statue. When we got off the tour bus at stop 9, a guide at the stop said if we had topview tour tickets, we need to get back on and get off at stop 11. I showed the guide the tour map and explained that we were told to get of at 9 , the guide said "ok no problem follow me", he than took us across the road to another tour company providing SoL sightseeing cruises. This company said we had not purchased the correct tickets and would have to purchase additional tickets from them. When I challenged this, the sales rep argued "that we were sold the wrong package and that he can provide a cruise.
At this point, we decided to go to the stop 11, at stop 11 the Topview rep confirmed we did not have the correct ticket, I was not frustrated with the whole process and explained to the rep that something needed to be done to resolve this, the rep was initially unhelpful and even said he did not care for my opinion about Topview and the shameful snd scamming tactics of the sales agents as he had no emotion to my concerns and would still pick up his pay check at the end of the month, when I suggest that it was customers like myself that ensure he was getting his pay check he laughed and said no it was not.
In my opinion, the sales agents that sold me the tickets are operating a scam within Topview Tours and that we were internally sent to a cruise operator, totally independent, to Topview, it is likely that the Topview agents are getting a back handed commission from this operator to send customers to him so he can sell his own cruise to them.
In the UK, this is mis-selling, and scamming is not legal.
Whilst I do not know the laws of the USA, It would be reasonable to believe that this would also be illegal in the US.

Other reasons I would avoid this company are there list price is extremely expensive and even with discounts not not constitute good value for money.

The Tour bus is very slow, stopping at many stops.

Long ques to board at many stops

Guided audio is very poor and not in sync with buildings.

Sales agents not trustworthy

The guides were not helpful. Didn't tell us we had to use app and then we weren't allowed on bus. After 3 people some helped us.

The tour through head phones was not working and it was a waste of money to not know what we were looking at.

Rude staff no manners at all. Buses don’t turn up on time instead they come all at once. Very old buses, no audio instruction. Please don’t use this crap service

If I could give it a 0 I would.
Filthy dirty busses. Injuries to the back of our legs from the stairs.(photos taken)
Bus did not stick to routs.
Impossible to do Brooklyn route because no ther bus got there in time. We sat on the top deck, for almost an hour 100F until the person with the click counter decided we could leave.
Avoid this absolute rip off.

Plenty of sales people around but beware that not all information is disclosed. Initially, we were told a higher price and when we checked the website, the price was matched. We were also told our child rides for free which translates to he gets a seat.

Did the tour in the day, no issues and a good way to get around.

Went for the evening tour @ 8pm and was very rudely told our son does not get a seat as we only paid for 2 and he must sit on our lap. If we don’t like it, we must leave. When questioned why different rules during the day and evening, very rudely told ‘we don’t control the tickets sold by the independent salespeople’. The sales guys are an extension of your company, fulfil the request.

Further to that, the bus we were on seemed to have mechanical failures and kept switching off. An hour trip turned into 2.5 hours and we did not reach our end point as we jumped off and walked.

Imagine, 2.5hours bus ride, hot summer night with an active 4 year old on your lap

Poor costomer service safe your time and money find better company who can do better Job

Scam!!!! Very tiny fleet. You will waste your precious time waiting for a bus that will never show up. Use Big Bus, Toot bus or Sightseeing brand company instead. Judge for yourself. Sit at any of the stops and count the number of buses that arrive in 15 minutes. You will clearly see that TopView is the worse of the bunch.

Any of those three are 100 times better than this joke of a company.

This was for TopView NYC
We were told all the places we wanted to stop at were on the list. I wanted to go to High Line(I was told it was a stop).There was a sign posted on the bus that it no longer was a stop. We purchased tickets from TopView vendor outside of Empire State Building. Every stop it was supposed to stop at it didn’t. We got off at SOHO stop and walked to Little Italy, Chinatown and Washington square. Spent over $140 and we road the bus for 15 minutes. Took a cab to the High Line.
Very very misleading.