1 Our Commitment to Honest Reviews
Reviews are the most important tool travellers use to choose a tour. Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide is committed to maintaining a review system that is genuine, transparent, and trustworthy.
We never pay for, incentivise, suppress, or manipulate reviews. Every published review was submitted by a real customer who completed a verified booking through Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide.
Our review system complies with the EU Omnibus Directive (2022) requirements for review transparency and verification, and the UK's Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
2 Who Can Leave a Review
Only verified customers may submit a review on Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide. Specifically, you must:
- Have made a booking through Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide for the specific tour being reviewed
- Have a booking status of "Completed" — i.e. the tour date has passed
- Submit the review from the account used to make the booking
- Submit the review within 12 months of the tour date
Reviews from anonymous sources, unverified bookings, or competing tour operators are not accepted. Staff members of Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide or our Operator partners may not submit reviews.
3 How to Submit a Review
- After your tour date passes, you will receive a review invitation email within 48 hours
- Click the link in the email or log in to your account → My Bookings → Leave a Review
- Select a star rating (1–5) for each category
- Write your review (minimum 20 characters, maximum 2,000 characters)
- Optionally upload up to 5 photos from your tour (JPG/PNG, max 10MB each)
- Submit — your review will be moderated and published within 48 hours
Review invitations expire 12 months after the tour date. After this period, reviews cannot be submitted for that booking.
4 Rating System
Reviewers rate tours on a 5-star scale across four categories. The overall score is a weighted average:
Rating categories
- Value for Money (25%) — did the experience justify the price?
- Tour Experience (40%) — quality of the tour, guide, vehicle, commentary
- Organisation (20%) — punctuality, booking process, ticket clarity
- Customer Service (15%) — support quality before and during the tour
Tours require a minimum of 5 verified reviews before an overall star rating is displayed publicly. Tours with fewer than 5 reviews show "New" status.
5 Review Guidelines
To help maintain a useful and respectful review community, please follow these guidelines:
Please do
- Describe your actual experience on the tour
- Mention what you liked and what could be improved
- Include relevant details: weather, time of day, group size
- Be specific and constructive in any criticism
- Upload real photos from your visit
Please don't
- Include personal information (names, phone numbers)
- Use offensive, discriminatory, or abusive language
- Review a tour you didn't actually take
- Post advertising or promotional content
- Include irrelevant complaints (e.g. weather, local traffic)
Reviews should focus on the tour experience itself. Complaints about external factors entirely outside the operator's control (e.g. heavy rain, local events causing congestion) will be noted but may be flagged during moderation.
6 Moderation Process
All reviews go through a two-stage moderation process before being published:
Stage 1 — Automated screening
Our system checks for: duplicate submissions, spam patterns, prohibited content (profanity, personal data), and minimum length requirements. Reviews failing automated checks are flagged for manual review.
Stage 2 — Human moderation
Our content team reviews flagged submissions within 24–48 hours. Moderators may:
- Approve the review as submitted
- Request edits from the reviewer (e.g. to remove personal information)
- Reject the review with a reason provided to the reviewer
We never edit the substance or sentiment of a review. We only remove content that violates our guidelines. Negative reviews are treated identically to positive ones.
Standard publication time is within 48 hours of submission. During peak periods, this may extend to 72 hours.
7 Removal of Reviews
A published review will be removed only if it:
- Is found to have been submitted fraudulently (fake booking, impersonation)
- Contains illegal content (defamation, hate speech, threats)
- Includes sensitive personal information about a third party
- Was submitted by a person who did not actually take the tour
- Is the subject of a valid legal order requiring removal
We will never remove a genuine negative review simply because an Operator finds it unfavourable. Operators may respond to reviews (see Section 8) but cannot request removal without valid grounds.
If your review is removed, we will email you the reason within 5 business days. You may appeal the removal at help@activity-crest.com.
8 Operator Responses
Tour Operators may respond publicly to reviews submitted about their tours. Operator responses must:
- Be professional, respectful, and relevant to the review content
- Not contain personal attacks on the reviewer
- Not include marketing or promotional language
- Not dispute the fundamental authenticity of a verified review
Hop On Hop Off Bus Tickets Worldwide moderates Operator responses using the same standards as customer reviews. Responses that violate guidelines will be removed. Operator responses do not affect the star rating of the reviewed tour.
9 Display & Ranking
Default sort order
Reviews are displayed with the most recent first by default. Users can also sort by: highest rated, lowest rated, and most helpful (based on "Was this review helpful?" votes).
Overall rating calculation
A tour's overall star rating is the weighted average of all verified reviews using the category weights described in Section 4. Ratings are recalculated in real time as new reviews are published.
Review age
Reviews older than 24 months are retained but may be weighted less heavily in the overall score calculation to ensure the displayed rating reflects recent guest experiences.
Transparency
We display the total number of reviews and the distribution of star ratings (1–5 star breakdown) on every tour page, so users can assess the full picture.
10 Dispute a Review
As a customer
If your review was rejected or removed and you believe this was incorrect, email help@activity-crest.com within 30 days with your booking reference and the reason for your appeal. We will respond within 5 business days.
As an Operator
If you believe a published review is fraudulent or violates our guidelines, use the "Report this review" link on the tour page or email help@activity-crest.com with your evidence. We investigate all operator disputes within 10 business days.
Operators may not dispute reviews solely on the basis that they disagree with the reviewer's opinion or rating.
11 Contact
For all review-related queries, disputes, or feedback about this policy:
- Email:help@activity-crest.com
- Response time: Within 5 business days for disputes, 48 hours for general queries
- General support:Contact Us →