Montreal City Hop-on Hop-off Tour

The kind of experience you have really depends on the tour guide you get. I had 4 during the course of the hop on hop off experience and I just have to give a special shout out to Julie who was fabulous. I learned so much and their enthusiasm for the city was infectious. If you hop on a bus with them MC-ing DO NOT GET OFF!

Francois the tour guide made our tour entertaining as well as educational. There was a complete blockage of Old Montreal for an ‘officer down’ funeral on our first day, but Frank our driver expertly navigated us throughout all the road closures. The company extended everyone’s ticket by a day and by the time we’d explored Mont Royal everything was back to normal and we were able to enjoy the whole tour. The stops were perfect for seeing all the best of the city.

The information was interesting and covered interesting places in Montreal. However, 2 of the buses we were on did not have any air conditioning on the enclosed portion of the bus. It was a very hot day, and since you are not able to open any windows, it made it very uncomfortable. We got off at the nearest stop just to see if we could catch a bus with air conditioning on the route. Since we had elderly in our group, the sun was too intense for them to go up to the top in addition to the stairs to climb to go up. So the air conditioning was extremely important on such a hot day.

The ride was informative (live guide was nice) and the buses were timely. The Gray Line does not have maps with timetables available until after you board, which resulted in us arriving 15-20 minutes early to our first stop. Also, there are no signs at the stops indicating this is where to meet the bus.

Stops are hard to find as they are not marked on the street. After calling and messaging I was sent this, which I’m not sure why they don’t have posted on their website! Departure point: 1001 Dorchester Square (downtown Montreal) Stop 1: Corner of St-Antoine and Place D'Armes Extra info: This corner is right next to the Japanese restaurant called Kyo Stop 2: Bonsecours Market located at the corner of St-Antoine and Place D'Armes Stop 3: Archeology Museum of Montreal located at 350 Place Royale Stop 4: The Village located at the corner of Atateken and St-Catherine Stop 5 Quartiers des Spectacles located at the corner of President-Kennedy and Bleury Stop 6: Fine Arts Museum located at the corner of Sherbrooke and Musée Stop 7: St-Joseph Oratory located right next to the Duc de Lorraine French bakery Stop 8: Kondiaronk Lookout near sidewalk entrance to the Beaver Lake Stop 9: Camillien Houde Lookout in the parking lot **For this week the stop number 9 is closed as they are repaving the area in preparation for Montreal's bike race.**

Incredibly poor experience - the route had potential to give a great overview of Montreal however the tour guide knew very little about the history of Montreal and she had no interesting or relevant information to share - as an example “on your right is a bank” (a standard commercial bank😳) and “there are many animals in the mountains like squirrels and ducks “!!!. If your guide is a female who moved to Montreal 4 years ago AVOID!!!!

Great way to get an overview of the city. The tour guides were inconsistent in quality, but if you get on Frederick’s bus, stay on it! He was excellent!

Good overview of the city for first-time visitors, and good refresher for anyone else. Frederick, our guide, was exceptional.

Streets were closed, park was closed missed a lot. And the rest if not very scenic. Bus was very clean and guide easy to hear

Quite good, the buses were in 20 min, so not bad. The buses were quite good. Will recommit friends and family