Lisbon hop-on hop-off bus.

[Peterlg, Halifax]

We will be visiting Lisbon on our forthcoming cruise, and plan to use the hop-on hop-off bus. We've used these before in other cities so are quite happy with them in general. We wondered if anyone has any specific advice regarding e.g. the best stops to get off at etc..
Thanks.

[Old Sea Dog, Stockport]

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We use the HoHo buses whenever we visit places that have them but we've never used the ones in Lisbon. We've used the tour trams instead. It's a delightfully quaint way to discover the old part of the city. You should have enough time to do both whilst your docked there.

Cheers OSD

[jc, liverpool]

Hi Peter
The HoHo buses will be lined up outside the terminal.
We did both routes,,,got off by Belem Tower,which is a way out of the centre,,,also handy to walk to the Monument of Discoveries, and Jeronimo's Monastry.You can see these 3 sights as you sail up the river to the terminal,,it shows how far away they are.
Back on the bus,got off in city centre at Rossio Square,,then walked to Santa Justa elevator,,,,,we walked down the shopping street to Black Horse square (Commercial Sq) by the river,,a lovely place for a drink,,,,,,,you can get the old trams into the old town (Alfama) and up to the Castle of St George,,,great views over the port.....
Or you can get back on the bus,back to the ship,,,,if you are OK on your pins,,,,you can walk from Black Horse Square in 20 mins.
The buses change from Red to Blue routes in Pombal Sq,,,,the best view over the city.
JC

[alandrover, beccles]

Hi
Just done this in April. "Yellow Bus" tours are waiting outside terminal [can get very busy straight after docking] but buses do come regularly. Blue[Tagus route] and purple [Olisipo route]. As JC said before blue goes to Monument of Discoveries etc, purple goes around business district, aquarium and airport, and back through the old town ,passing the Opera house.
The price was 16 euros each journey or19 combined. I did the purple route about, never been around that area before, took about 1.5 hours but I didn't get off. Change over from red to blue routes in a couple of conjoining areas .ie blue 4/purple16 and blue18/purple19,so you don't have to go back to the start if you don't want to.
Free maps are given to show numbered stops and places of interest. Double decker open buses.
Red route are trams.
Orange route starts at the end of the blue route.

[Peterlg, Halifax]

Thanks for your advice.

Subsequent to our visit, my advice would be to not use the Ho-Ho bus at all. Whether it's because of the large amount of building work going on, traffic in Lisbon is so bad that we had to hop off after 6 stops as we were worried we'd not complete the route in time to get back to the ship before it sailed.

[Old Sea Dog, Stockport]

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Thanks for the feedback Peter. Interesting.

Cheers OSD

[mummybearspain, Albatera, Alicante]

Good to see your post as I have just been looking for advise on Google. We are there in 10 days time off a Thomson cruise so hope to do this and all the comments here are so useful. Thanks all.

[mags, cardiff]

Unless you just want to see things in traffic from a bus I would suggest deciding what you do want to see and then finding how best to get there. We visited, not for the first time, a couple of weeks ago. I researched on the internet, there was plenty of information about tourist things. We had really wanted to do the places in Belem, as mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, monastery etc, but we were there on a Monday when all museums and such are closed, so alternatives had to be found. To go to Belem and spend time on that would have been a waste of precious time. As we sailed past we noticed the Monument of Discoveries is under scaffolding. We decided to concentrate on the old parts, Alfama and central areas rather than pay for long HoHo routes, possibilities that would certainly be good if you were in the city for a few days. Unlike our previous visit, the ship docked further up river and the Alfama area was walkable from there. We walked up to the Cathedral, visited it then caught a tram from outside to take us further up the hill. The tram went down into the centre where we walked about the main squares and streets. Pick up a map in the terminal, it helps walkabout.

[Tracey, East Yorkshire]

We were here in July on the Thomson Discovery.... We had planned to do the Ho-Ho buses but someone said as there were a lot of roadworks, and 2 ships in, it would be slow going. So instead we had a stroll off the ship, up a hill and caught a little tuk-tuk ride. It was really good, our driver, Sandra, took us all over, stopped at certain sights for us to take photos etc, she even pulled over at one point and popped into a shop and came back with a bag containing a Portuguese tart and a lovely piece of coconutty type cake, delicious...
whilst the Ho-Ho buses were caught up in the extremely busy traffic and lots of roadworks, our driver was able to weave in and out and down side streets, and we saw everything we wanted to see with lots of time to spare. We finished our tour and she dropped us in the centre near shops and bars where we had time for a few drinks before strolling back to the ship.
We have enjoyed Ho-Ho buses at Rome, Cadiz etc but it would have been not so enjoyable in Lisbon for us.

[mummybearspain, Albatera, Alicante]

Thank you both for your input and we have just watched a tv programme about Lisbon where the guy took a tuk tuk and it seemed quite fun. I'm not able to walk very far so the bus seemed like a good idea to see Lisbon for the first time. Not sure which port our ship will dock at but may well change our plans now and go to the local area, if it is Alfama,-it seems the tram goes around a lot of tourist places for a fraction of the price too

[Topdeck, London]

Travel man 48hr..... (not for everyone)

Travel Man: 48 Hours in Lisbon
(or your catchup service if you have one)

next week Naples another cruise stop favorite