Tour Bus Hell

(You know it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't rant about something every once in awhile....)

The next day we again went to the open air bus tours office and waited outside for it to open. (Once my sister gets an idea into her head it’s hard to let go) And, again, no one showed. We had mentioned to the person at the front desk of the hotel that we would like to get on a bus tour and we always got pointed down the street to the closed kiosk. (and, looked at like we were idiots “Can’t you see that kiosk right there? Are you blind, American?”) We explained that it was closed and then was told we could pick up a bus tour at the Louvre. Hmm, we were at the Louvre yesterday and we didn’t see no stinking bus office. In fact, every time we tried to get on a tour bus and pay we got grumbled at in French and told to go to THE KISOSK THAT WAS CLOSED! Then, we were told that we could get on a tour at the Opera. Well, that was one stop up on the metro so let’s give it a try. We took the metro got off and yes, there was the wonderful Grand Opera but no bus tour anything.

(Do you see a tour bus in this picture?! Nooooo!)

I was starting to get impatient with this search for a bus. How did one EVER get on these things was mystifying. We wandered into this beautiful building that turned out to be a bank.

Once back at Madaleine we saw an open air bus parked at the curb on the other side of the street. We thought that maybe this was the actual place to get on the bus instead of the kiosk. We saw a vague sign that said relocation and such. We go to the bus – no driver.

Did anyone who works for this company actually work?

We waited around for a half an hour (yes, my sister REALLY wanted to get on the bus) and finally the bus driver crossed the street and we ran over to the bus. Only again to be shooed away in French and he actually POINTED to the CLOSED KIOSK!

I was actually really over it by this time. I wanted to break the language barrier with a little universal sign language of my own.

So, I have no advice if you want to get on these bus tours. I don’t know how one does it. The rest of our stay we saw them tooling around town with people on them. One would go by and my sister would exclaim “There’s one!” and I would flip it off.

L' Open Tour, Fuuuuuuuuck you!