TopView Sightseeing Reviews 304

Do not buy the Night Tour in December!!!!
In Times Square you will see many people standing around holding signs advertising a $19 Night Tour. First of all the tour is actually $29 as there is a $10 fee that they add in to the price. Secondly, after you pay they are very persistent in asking for a tip. But the real reason I am giving them a 1 star rating is because they told me we would be on the Night Tour. When we got on the bus we spent more than 2 hours going up 6th Ave and back down 5th Ave for what was apparently a Holiday Tour to see the holiday lights. The salespeople know that this is a hard sell so they tell you its the Night Tour that goes across the Manhattan bridge and downtown by Wall Street. We didn't realize until we turned down 5th Ave and we ended up getting off the bus along with at least 80% of the other passengers. The Holiday Tour apparently runs for the month of December and takes about 3.5 hours to go 4 miles around the Empire State Building, past Rockefeller Square and back to Times Square. They give you headphones that play random songs and have very little information about NYC. I have asked for a refund, but they say all sales are final despite the bait and switch.

This company is the worst of NYC. Dishonest and dangerous - even the police have to get involved to manage their tours. Our children were so scared, disappointed and crying. And they don’t care, you email their “support” email and they send a “no reply” response telling you to basically go away.

I have complained several times,they send nice message asking for payment numbers,which l provide.They have no intention of refunding. They have three policies. LIE TO GET BOOKING & MONEY. GIVE ABSOLUTELY NO SERVICE. & NO REFUNDS.

My friend and I paid around $164 for a day tour at Penn Station before noon on Saturda. 1. We waited at the nearby stop for one hour until the fourth bus arrived before we could get on. The previous two buses were late and full. Meanwhile, Big Bus Tours had at least 3 buses stopped for their customers. 2. Then again, at stop 13 at around 6pm, we waited for 45 minutes until the third bus arrived. The previous buses again were full. 3. The sales sold us combined red and blue routes, even though it was impossible to for us to finish one route within half a day, given the buses were full, few and late. She claimed there would be a bus every 10 minutes. This is not acceptable, and a complete rip-off

DO NOT BOOK WITH TOPVIEW. Extremely poor experience. Very rude driver on the last bus of the blue line on 20/11/23. Earphones didn’t work, bus commentary was second rate, commentary on circle ferry was inaudible.
Such a waste of my time and money but the rudeness was unwarranted and intolerable. Book Viator instead.

with subways shut down me and my GF visiting from Sweden and England respectively decided to give TopView a go after hearing good things about it.
this was a MASSIVE mistake as the service quickly turned sour with long wait lines to get onto the busses, times between busses far exceeding what was advertised, busses completely skipping stops meaning you couldn't just hop on and off, low hanging branches that would intrude the top causing pain and discomfort with possibly risk of injury and when trying to contact them it's mostly silent with the most "we don't care about you" responses I've ever seen from a company.

We purchased the 48 hour pass. It was a huge waste of money and I do not recommend this tour company. During the downtown tours, there were buses we couldn’t get on due to capacity and very long wait times, and the uptown buses just didn’t come at all.
I have contacted their customer service team three times and have been ignored. I recommend checking out reviews on their Facebook page as it seems that this is a common experience and this tour is not worth your money.
There are much better ways to see New York.

Audio description was fine and to the point. Many buses available; when one was full, another immediately showed within 15min max. Trajectory well chosen. We took a 3 days package including the night tour. Brooklyn bridge on the open roof is an experience. Very funny and friendly tour night guide by the name of Sri. Sorry for those who had bad experience. We were 2 couples visiting NY in the last week of June 2023.

Bad bad and unorganised. One of the worst run tours in New York. Pay a ticket for bus, bike ride Central Park and night tour. When you go to pick up your bike you've to pay an additional fee. Total scam. Then you go on the tour during the day and there is music playing in your ears instead of audio about New York City, total rubbish. The night tour is completely unorganised. We had booked a night tour for 830pm and we were there at 8pm. We were an hour and 15mins waiting on our tour to start. The people running this operation are unless and incompetent. Do not go on this tour waste of money.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY with TopView hop-on hop-off bus company! Many problems!! You'll find their reps at many intersections in midtown NYC, and they will negotiate on price (NEVER PAY FULL PRICE!). That's the good news. Bad news is that they'll charge your credit card in excess of what they quote! For example, our rep quoted us $49/pp (for a one-day hop-on hop-off ticket for the downtown bus). There were four of us, so total credit card should have been $196. To our total surprise, the amount charged to our credit card was $276!!! Instead of $49/pp, they charged us $59/pp. On top of that, they charged us an additional $10/pp ($40 total), which was labeled a "FEE" on our credit card receipt and NEVER disclosed during the price negotiations. We still have no idea what this fee was for. We called customer service, and they could have cared less. Typical NYC rude behavior and arrogance. No interest in customer satisfaction. Basically, they got their money, and that's all they cared about. Next problem with TopView bus company . . . waiting, waiting, and more waiting! First off, they don't have a daily quota for tickets, so they'll sell as many tickets as possible. However, there are only a limited number of buses. On more than one occasion during our hop-on hop-off day, we had seemingly endless wait times on the street to get a seat on a bus. For example, when the first bus arrived, there were only a few seats available, which went to those in front of us in line. We had to wait for the next bus. Guess what? When the second bus arrived, we had the same situation. We had to wait for a third bus before we were able to board. Our experience showed there was ~15-20 minutes between buses, which means we waited 45-60 min to finally board a bus. Totally unacceptable! Our advice . . . STAY AWAY FROM TOPVIEW BUS COMPANY.

Sooo… after writing a review two weeks ago and receiving an email from Top View Hop on Hop off tours, I received an email back stating that to receive a refund for my tours due to wrong date input they advised me repurchase for date when I require to then receive a 85% refund. So silly me I have spend another £240 on repurchasing tickets and I have not heard back from the company. I have sent the relevant card details and screenshots of my tickets book and I have not heard back from the company. They state that the response time is within 24 hours and they have never responded to all the emails I have sent. I have sent around ten emails and I’ve had two responding emails. Very poor communication and I’m £240 out of pocket. Very very disappointed and out of pocket before I even visit New York next month. I was hoping to spend that extra money on further booking too.

Customer Service denied my request for a refund of the difference in cost between what I paid online for 4 tickets and what the street staff were selling them for. $24 MORE per ticket purchasing them through their own app! Extremely poor PR and Marketing...their site should be transparent and let people know that buying tickets on the street would be MUCH CHEAPER than getting them on their own website. Ridiculous. I held off my review until I heard back from TopVIew. Since they refused to refund the difference I will never recommend them to others. Communication on where alternate stops were due to parade traffic was also poor.

Bus was on time and the Tour Guide, Graham, was witty and informative, liaising well with all people on board.

Got off at Covent Garden and then re boarded for the 2nd half of the trip.

The route was also great as was the weather!

My husband and I did the night tour last night. Jake was out tour guide. He was excellent. Learn more about New York from him. Great entertaining and he knew so much. The driver was also great at the driving. Great work Top View.

Bought a ticket online can't find a bus for more than 2 hours, called customer service he said ok will refund the full money, afterwards they send a email to refund only 85%. Than send 10 different emails but no response. Customer service on call is terrible. Avoid at all costs.

City audio narration is poor. No info at all. You’re on your own. And it was off by 6 blocks and driver never fixed it. Much time wasted messing with phone tickets at every stop. Not worth it. Took 2.5 hours to get from midtown to battery park. Save your money. Don’t take TopView.

Owen was our tour guide for our journey. He was very informative and friendly and engaged with the passengers. Top guy!

Bought 3, 48hrs ticket. Waited and pickup point #1 from morning to mid afternoon NO bus.
No agent at location. Calling customer service, was informed not service to location due to some strike but surprising other hop on hop operators had their bus operating. Asked for refund nor response. DONT SUPPORT THIS TOP VIEW SIGHTSEEING!!. Wasted my day.

Just don't.
We bought 5 day pass
Seller lied about what the price included.
You will waste your holiday standing on bus stops.
The app schedule doesn't work.
The street staff have no idea on bus times
The seats are uncomfortable
Recorded city info, mostly music
Rude staff
Do I need to go on....