Lisbon Oceanarium and Belém and Modern Lisbon bus Hop On Hop Off Tours 48h

Unfortunately the bus consistently arrived at least 40 minutes after the scheduled stop times...I know the times for the stops aren't exact but waiting at least 40 minutes for a bus that is supposed to pass through the stops hourly is a problem... you will spend more time waiting for the bus than actually on the bus. On day one we actually waited nearly an hour past the scheduled stop time for the bus to appear at one stop before we called an Uber and just went home. The oceanarium was great but since we were staying near there we just walked there before getting on the bus....The oceanarium wouldn't let us in since the tickets emailed to us first had to be validated by the bus and we then had to take those tickets to the aquarium... this wasn't explained on the website so we waited some more for a bus to validate our tickets so we could get into the Oceanarium. The novelty of riding on the top of the double-decker bus is the only reason to book this but Lisbon is a city with so much traffic and traffic lights that you won't really get going fast enough to feel the wind in your hair, you will just sit up top and bake slowly in the sun. You are probably better off just grabbing an Uber to see the things you want to see and buying tickets to the Oceanarium on your own. I would recommend their sunset boat cruise though, the staff was nice, the music was great, and the boat was on time :)

We purchased this as we wanted to go to the aquarium and gathered it would be better value for money to buy it with the bus tour, as we would get added extras. The provided map/leaflet was helpful, especially with a QR code to show you live bus times. The bus offered 2 routes, the route to Belem was better. Both the routes seemed very long, some parts were just going along main roads which at 50mph on the top deck is very windy! The bus headphones gave a little bit of information, but not much, most of the time it just played music and the music was quite depressing! There was no system to the queuing what so ever which made it a bit of a nightmare! On the first day we went to catch the bus to be told it would arrive in half an hour and we were at the front of the queue, we waited and waited. The bus came and because one bus is behind the other, loads of people went over to the second bus and got in an ‘unofficial’ queue. The staff took us to the front of that queue, and other customers started shouting at us to get to the back of the line, one customer pushed me out of the way and almost hit me in the face when she tried to get on the bus because I had ‘pushed’ into their queue despite having waited for half an hour! The staff also didn’t communicate to each other, as one member of staff was telling customers to queue in one place, and the other member of staff were telling us to queue in another. It was also very busy, so people were rushing and pushing to try and get a top seat bus. It would be a better idea, for at the main bus stop to have 2 queues one for Belem and one for Lisbon, which are clearly marked/signposted in different languages to avoid confusion and to avoid people pushing others.

Great tour and visit to aquarium, lived up to expectations.. hop on tours were a great way to see the city on a short trip