Paris Night Bus Tours

One open-top night bus runs in Paris, it leaves from a single stop, and it covers more named landmarks per euro than anything else you can book. Everything you need to know before you take a paris night bus tour is below.

What the night bus actually is

Operator: Big Bus Paris.
Duration: two hours, one continuous loop, no hop-off.
Departure point: Big Bus Stop 1, at 11 Avenue de l'Opéra, 75001.
Capacity: up to fifty travellers.
On board: recorded commentary in several languages through earbuds you are given, plus Wi-Fi.
Price: from $33 per person.

It is not a hop-on hop-off service in the evening. The night tour is a single circuit that returns you to where you boarded, which is the right shape for a lights tour and the wrong shape if you wanted to get out somewhere.

When it leaves, and why the time changes

The departure moves with the season, which is unusual and entirely correct on a tour whose whole subject is illumination. From 30 March to 27 September the night tour departs at 21:30. From 28 September onwards it departs at 20:30.

The operator asks you to arrive fifteen minutes before departure. Both times are set so the bus is on the road once the lighting is on, which is the same reasoning behind the sunset table we publish for every month.

The route, in the order it happens

1. Board at Stop 1 on the Avenue de l'Opéra and collect your earbuds.
2. Past the Palais Garnier and down towards the river.
3. Along the quays for the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay.
4. Across for Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité.
5. West along the Seine to the Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower.
6. Trocadéro, then up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe.
7. North to the Moulin Rouge and back to the Avenue de l'Opéra.

Fourteen named landmarks pass in two hours. Nothing stops, so treat it as a moving viewing platform rather than a tour with photo breaks — the photographs you get are taken at speed from an open deck.

The open top, and what happens when it rains

The top deck is the entire point, and it is also the risk. In poor weather the bus operates with the top closed, which turns a night lights tour into a coach ride behind glass with reflections in it. The tour still runs and still refunds in full up to 24 hours ahead, so the sensible move is to book it and watch the forecast.

It is colder up there than the temperature suggests, because a moving bus adds wind. Between October and April, take a coat you would wear to stand still outdoors for two hours. Our what to expect page covers the rest of the practical side.

Is a night bus tour worth it against a cruise?

They cost about the same and they show you different cities. The bus gives you the boulevards, Montmartre, the Moulin Rouge and the Arc de Triomphe — the Paris of avenues. A cruise gives you the river facades and the bridges, which is the Paris of the postcards, and it is warmer.

The bus rates 3.7 stars from over nine hundred reviews, which is the lowest rating on Paris Night Tours and worth understanding rather than ignoring: the one-star reviews are almost entirely about buses that did not arrive, not about the tour itself. Our bus against boat comparison works through the choice properly.

Who should book something else

If there are two of you and the evening matters, a vintage car costs more and delivers far more. If you are travelling with somebody who cannot manage stairs, the top deck is reached by a staircase. If it is January and you feel the cold, take a cruise and sit inside.

And if the bus is what you want, book it for the correct season — a 20:30 departure in July would sail through a bright evening, which is why it does not exist.