We take these Hop-On Hop-Off trolley tours whenever we vacation for the first time in a large city. They are generally very informative, providing facts that are often unknown.
The trolly tour in Philadelphia was frustrating to say the least! As usually, I bought tickets in advance thru Trip Advisor, then arrived at the first location ready for the adventure. It was advertised as the Big Bus, yet we were told to get on the Red bus that was waiting to leave. As it was a comfortable day weather wise, we sat on top. Our guide introduced himself and asked if we could hear and when all said yes, off we went. That was the last time we heard his voice. The engine or was SO loud, my husband and I couldn’t even hear each other even when raising our voices. We motioned to the guide that we couldn’t hear, so he indicated that he would turn his mic up…didn’t help. The first 3 stops were what we really wanted to hear about, but we could only see our guides lips moving and him pointing in multiple directions. By stop 4, we’d had enough! The couple next to us said this happened the day before as well, and they only came on this one again to get to a place they didn’t want to walk to. So we got off and fortunately there was one of their stands where we told them how awful it was. He seems surprised, but then said “next time you should sit closer to the front or down below”. Then we were told to wait for the Big Bus since their sound was better then the Red buses. We had 20 mins to wait, so we grabbed a takeout so we wouldn’t miss the Big Bus. When it came, there were only 4 seats available and again they were up top. We decided to take 2 and were pleasantly surprised that we could actually hear! However, this guide spoke so fast, that it was difficult to understand all of it and she was often talking about the next stop while we were trying to take pics of what we were still passing. Too much information, so we were not inspired to return to investigate anything further. This is the first tour where the trolly/ bus only stopped if someone indicated they wanted to get off. All others stop for a few minutes whether someone wants off or not or even if no one is waiting to come on board. Very strange and stressful 2 hours.