What to Expect on a London Night Tour
Nobody publishes what a London night tour is actually like from the inside — what happens when you arrive, how cold the top deck really is, whether there is anywhere to sit, what the guide does. This page does, from the departure details the operators publish and from what travellers say afterwards.
It is written as the evening happens, in order. If you have not chosen a format yet, start there; guided London night tour has the departures.
The evening, in order
You arrive
Ten minutes early, at a named point rather than a station. Guides carry something visible — a blue flag on the royal-parks walk, a red umbrella at Tower Hill.
You are counted on
Mobile ticket scanned or a name checked against a list. On the cab tours the driver texts you when he arrives instead.
The light goes
Between October and March it has already gone. The first twenty minutes are when the city changes and the guide usually says least.
The middle
The floodlit stretch. On a bus this is continuous; on foot and by cab you stop, get out and look.
It ends where it said
Usually at or beside a station. The cab tours end wherever you asked them to.
How cold is it, honestly?
On an open top deck in December, colder than the number on your phone. The bus is doing twenty miles an hour and you are sitting still in it for ninety minutes, and the commonest criticism across both bus routes is not the tour but the temperature.
The fix is entirely within your control: a hat, gloves and one more layer than you would wear to walk the same distance. Blankets are not provided. If you would rather not test it, the lower deck is enclosed, and a black cab has heating.
Is there anywhere to sit?
On the buses and in the cabs, obviously. On the walking tours, no — not at any point, and that is worth knowing if standing for two hours is difficult. The Ripper walk covers Whitechapel and Spitalfields on pavement; the royal-parks walk covers about a kilometre on park paths and pavement.
If that rules a walk out for you, the cab tours reach the same East End streets with a seat under you, and one of them is built around the same subject.
What does the guide actually do?
More than you would expect on the cheap formats, and this is where the money is. On the buses a live guide talks throughout, with recorded audio in twelve languages as the alternative on one route. On the walks the guide is the entire product. On the cab tours your driver is also your guide, which is why they take the Knowledge seriously enough to be worth quoting on it.
The reviews name them constantly — Lou, Alan, Yiannis, Sineade, Andre, Jamie — which is unusual on a market this size and a reasonable signal about the guiding.
Can you take photographs?
Everywhere on these routes, and nothing is off limits. A phone handles a floodlit facade better than most people expect. What it cannot do is light trails, which need a tripod and a slow shutter.
The hardest place to shoot from is the moving bus; the easiest is anywhere the cab stops. If photographs are the point of the evening, the photographer's guide covers where to stand.
Toilets, food and the practicalities
None of these tours schedules a stop. The bus circuits are ninety minutes end to end, the walks are under two and a half hours, and the cab stops wherever you ask it to. Use the facilities at the station you arrive at.
Food and drink are excluded from almost every fare, and the Christmas tours exclude tea, coffee, snacks and anything alcoholic explicitly. Eat before you go.
Tipping
Gratuities sit outside the fare on nearly every listing, which is the operators' way of saying they are welcome rather than expected. Ten per cent is normal in London if the evening was good. On a cab tour there is only one person to think about, because your driver and your guide are the same person.
What each format feels like
The same evening in four different vehicles, or none. What changes is not the route so much as how much of it you are exposed to.
| Format | Seated? | Sheltered? | Group size | The thing to prepare for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open-top bus, top deck | Yes | No | Up to 60–72 | Cold, and it is worse than the forecast |
| Open-top bus, lower deck | Yes | Yes | Up to 60–72 | A window between you and the view |
| Private black cab | Yes | Yes | Up to 6 | Nothing much — this is the comfortable one |
| Ghost or Ripper walk | No | No | Up to 35 | Standing for two hours on pavement |
| Photography walk | No | No | Your party only | Carrying a tripod for three hours |
What happens if the weather turns
Very little. The walking tours state that they run in all weathers, the buses run with an enclosed lower deck, and the cabs are unaffected. Rain genuinely improves the photographs.
If the forecast is bad enough to change your mind, every departure listed refunds in full up to 24 hours before it starts — which is the reason that policy matters more here than on a sunny-country day trip.
The one thing that can spoil it. Booking a 7.30pm departure in June and finding it runs in daylight. Both bus operators say so in their own small print. Check the month before you book and take the latest departure of the evening if you are here between May and July.
Know what you are getting?
Every departure with its length, its meeting point and what it includes.
What travellers said afterwards is the other half of this page, and the FAQs answer the rest. London Night Tours has the tours.
Departures across the three formats described here
Private 2-Hour Night Tour of London in an Iconic Black Cab
Private groupHotel pickupLive guide
From $356 per group (up to 6)
