13 Jun 2025
We got this bus tour as it was the first one sitting near our hotel and we assumed all tours would be much of a muchness. As it turned out, it wasn't great.
First of all, the staff were lovely. They were very friendly and helpful and can't be faulted. The problem was in the awful commentary. I love a good bus tour as I like to learn about the sights and locations before going out on my own. This is what I have always had from these tours. This commentary was lacking in any kind of real information. It missed important sights and gave facile, idiotic commentaries for others. It was also very clearly AI generated, given away by it spelling HOP ON HOP OFF instead of just saying the words. It was obviously written in capital letters in the script that was fed to the AI. If you can't be bothered to actually speak the tour, then what is it worth. Lazy.
Some examples of the rubbish included:
- Being told some story about the commentator being kissed under a bridge near Waterloo
- Seeing the Shard and only being told it makes us want to go to space because it looks like a rocket
- A wall of silence as we passed the "not so important" St Pauls Cathedral
The amount of times my wife and I rolled our eyes at each other because of the nonsense. We learnt nothing new.
Also, don't bother using the app to listen to the commentary. It kept needing refreshing and often just didn't work. I heard one bit about Paddington three times!
I won't be using Tootbus again.