London - Bus Tours/Sightseeing for Reduced Mobility

jonjono

Hi!

My grandparents are visiting in London and I am looking into ways for them to enjoy seeing some of London. They are very old and get tired easily (ie, can't cope with much walking). So I suggested the open top buses as an option. Just wondering if anyone has used them before and if they are any good? Any company to recomend/avoid? Also if anyone knows of any discounts or ways to save some money?

If anyone has any suggestions for other things that could be enjoyable for them in London then I'd love some tips

Thanks!

p00hsticks

A river cruise or the Thames clippers boat service - get a River Roamer ticket on the latter (2-4-1 offer available if travelling into London by train) and you can go up and down the river as much as you want all day from Embankment to the O2 and beyond

You get to see a lot of the sights from the river (houses of Parliament, London Eye, Tower, St Pauls, Greenwich, O2, Golden Hinde, Globe etc) it's easier to get on and off than to get upstairs on a bus, and it's more comfortable, with a bar selling drinks and snacks etc....

Also consider the London Eye itself - another opportunitiy for a bit of a sit down whilst sight seeing !

alanrowell

Assuming your parents live in England then they should be able to use their bus passes on ordinary London buses.

There are the two Heritage bus routes - 9 & 15 - which go past most of the main sights in London on which some of the buses are the old Routemasters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_9_(Heritage)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_15_(Heritage)

The following map is very detailed and shows which buses pass which sights

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/central-london-bus-map.pdf

jonjono

Thanks for your help. In the end my grandparents liked the idea of the Original Sightseeing Tour.

We used a 30% off code (ARRIVASTAFF) that I found on another thread in this forum. Was a bit concerned that it might cause some problems but no one checked up on it. Booked the tickets online and printed off an e-ticket at home. The e-ticket is exchanged for the bus and river boat passes at the booths near the main stops of the tour. No one asked anything about the discount there and the bus drivers did not mention anything either

I think the best use of the buses is to hop-on and hop-off and explore the areas around the stops. The information they give on the yellow tour is constant and a bit loud and gave me a bit of a headache so I think I would recommend the red tour (without having used it) as the guide is through earphones and you can just remove them if you don't want to hear the talking.

The bus also drove quite quickly past everything so there was not much of a chance to really properly take things in (or take pictures). It was a blitz through the main sites and so for someone with only a day to see things it's not bad and the hop on and off thing is nice. It left me feeling exhausted and full of impressions but I don't feel like I learned very much more about London. Oh, and it gets very busy...don't use the downstairs seats because they give very little view of anything and they turn the volume up downstairs on the yellow tour meaning you can't even speak to the person sitting beside you because its so loud!