I really enjoyed the double decker bus tour of NYC. It gave a good overview of the city and helped me figure out what I wanted to see the rest of the trip. I am thinking about taking a bus tour of San Francisco the first day we are there for the same reasons. Which company offers the best tour? Also, is a tour worth it, or should we do our own with a map and public transportation?

Even though I had been to San Francisco several times, I had never taken a tour of the city. This trip I decided to take a tour of the city. They picked me up at the hotel and I enjoyed it very much. I thought it was well worth the money. I think the tour was with Gray Line, but there are many different tours. This one made several stops along the way and I think the cost of tour was around $39.00.. This was a morning tour, but they offered several diffeent options. I called after I reached the hotel and made a reservation.

We also did Grey Line tour 2 summers ago - not usually tour bus people, but this was only way we could get to Alcatraz since all trips were sold out - and this tour included Alcatraz tickets.

We were also plesantly surprised - we did this on first day of multi-day stop in SF, and then we had a clearer sense of where we wanted to spend more time, then were off with map and public transportation.

A bus tour is not necessary in SF. It is a pretty small city, so much of it can be explores in a day or two with either public transport or by driving (my preference). The entire city of SF would barely make up a neighborhood in NYC.

We did a first-time visit to San Francisco about 18 months ago. In hindsight, I wish we had taken a tour for the reasons you indicate. We ended up missing areas that, later, we realized we should have seen. We did go on the fire-engine tour, which was fun, but we didn't really see that much of different areas. I've got some pictures of the city at http://community.webshots.com/user/bookhall . For more tour information, try http://gocalifornia.about.com/msubtour.htm .

In San Francisco the only company that offers double deckers is Grayline

For a very unique tour of SF, we're going to try local newspaper restaurant critic's GraceAnn Walden's Mangia! tour.

It's a walking tour of NoBeach complete with historic info, stops at various watering holes, restaurants, bakeries etc.
We're trying to go in July. Anybody else ever been of this tour? I saw one search result from Oct 2002 that liked it.
Kal

Whatever you decide - to take or not to take a bus tour - avoid Parlor Car tours! What was I thinking when I picked that one? The tour itself was OK, but the bus driver was visibly annoyed with his job and hardly opened his mouth. So much for a narrated tour. It served our purpose in going to Yosemite with a couple of stops in between, but overall compare to others he was on a brink of rudeness. Don't they check people's skills before hiring? I still loved that trip and would go again if this would be the only one tour company, but if you have a choice avoid Parlor.

Kal, this walking tour has been featured on a number of local news magazine shows and seems to be a lot of fun.
Re: double decker or large tour bus type tours of SF--I wouldn't recommend as a number of neighborhoods ban these buses from their streets, and they can't navigate some of the more interesting areas.

Went to S.F. last year and took a bus tour. It was great and the narrator was witty and informative. Go for it!!

In addition to any bus tours you choose to take, try a walking tour by "cityguides" I can not recommend them enough! Here is the website: http://www.sfcityguides.org

Have a wonderful trip!