TootBus Ticket - Pass 1 day

Overview

A one-day hop-on hop-off ticket for the TootBus open-top double-deckers, valid across the network from the moment you first board, with recorded commentary in ten languages and an app that shows where the buses are.

What to expect

• Board at any stop on the route and have the ticket scanned.
• The upper deck for the view, the lower saloon when it rains.
• Commentary running as the bus moves between monuments.
• Get off wherever you like and rejoin a later bus.
• Buses roughly every ten minutes in summer, twenty in winter.
• The ticket expiring a day after that first boarding.

This is transport, and that is the honest way to judge it

A hop-on bus is not a guided tour. Nobody is leading you, nothing is booked for you, and no monument is entered. What you are buying is a seat with a view and the freedom to leave it.

Judged as transport, the number that matters is the gap between buses. Ten minutes in summer is genuinely convenient. Twenty minutes in winter is long enough that a spontaneous hop off to look at something can turn into a wait on a cold pavement, and it is worth knowing that before you plan a day of short stops.

The metro is faster and always will be

If your aim is to get from one side of Paris to the other, the metro will beat this bus every time, because the bus sits in the same traffic as every taxi and delivery van in the city, and central Paris moves slowly.

That is not a criticism of the product; it is what the product is for. You take the bus when the journey is the point and you want to see the city passing. You take the metro when you simply need to arrive.

Used well, the two work together: the bus for the first orientation, the metro for the day you know where you are going.

Start it early

The day runs from your first boarding rather than from purchase, so a ticket first used at four in the afternoon gives you an afternoon, an evening and the following morning — or, if you sleep late, considerably less than a full day.

The most efficient way to use one is to ride the whole loop first without getting off, decide what you actually want to see, then spend the rest of the day returning to those places.

Weather and access

The vehicles are covered as well as open, so rain does not end the day, though the covered part is a normal bus and the reason for being here is the top deck.

There are adaptations for accessibility, which is worth confirming for your particular needs when you board rather than assuming.

Practicalities

The commentary plays on board in ten languages with a version written for children. Take a layer for the upper deck — moving air makes any temperature about five degrees less friendly than it looked from the pavement.