We took the hop on hop off bus offered by City Sightseeing in Lisbon when we had a morning there when our cruise stopped in Lisbon. The bus stopped quite close to the docks – we could see it from the higher decks. The day was showery but, deciding we would see very little from the inside, we opted for the upper deck and were pleased to be at the front under cover. We waited for about 15 mins and then were all told to transfer to an empty bus behind, keeping the same seats; this we all did and, after another 10 minute wait, the bus took off.
Unfortunately the speaker system did not work – we had at least 4 nationalities present and no-one’s headset worked regardless of where they sat – some could hear a faint noise but not enough to understand it.
We all decided to stay on the bus and just go for a sightseeing ride around using the map – we were on the red route. After about 10 mins the bus drew into the central square – the interchange with the blue route. It waited here for about 25 minutes and a few more people got on. It then went off on the route but did not slow at all near the sights and drove around one square with a brewery museum, which we had already seen soon after our original departure from the docks, twice.
We reached our original bus stop over 2hrs 45 mins after our originally getting on the bus. The circuit was supposed to have taken 1 hr 30 mins. We decided we dare not risk taking the blue route as that was also supposed to take 1 hr 30 mins but if it took as long as the red route had we would have missed the time for being back at the ship.
Overall not very good value for 18 Euros each. Given plenty of time, so the fact that it did not keep to its timetable did not matter, and a working audio system this was probably a reasonable way of getting around but I think next time we will investigate the ordinary buses and walk.
