Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego

This tour was great. You have access all day from open to close of all the stops so you can plan your day accordingly. They were very knowledgeable and funny. Our parents were in town for the week and this was a perfect idea for one of their days here.

AWESOME TOUR!
My husband and I went to Old downtown January 2, 2016 around 9:00 am. it looked pretty dead. Opens up at 10:00 am. We noticed the Trolley Tour booth we walked over there and was immediately greeted by a lady who informed of us the tour (s) and fee and how you can hop on and off throughout the tour and that a trolley comes by every 30 minutes.
She had us sold :) We boarded the 10:00 am Trolley which filled up pretty fast and we noticed the one right before us was also full (good sign). Kaye was our first guide very nice, friendly, very knowledgeable not just about San Diego but he seemed to know about where everyone was from as he asked «where we from/​visiting» as we boarded. He knew about Montana a small town there, Alpine, Ca, India, and he even spoke Spanish. Those were just a few places where visitors were from. I almost wanted to stay on the Trolley with him for the whole tour but like he said if we did we would missing out on time sightseeing on our own.
Our first Hop off stop was Seaport Village. When we went back to the trolley stop to aboard again. I like that there was an employee she came over and had us stand in a line before boarding and made sure there was enough seats for all of us as there was not so some had to wait for the next trolley which was right behind us. Our guide then was Scotty he was also friendly. We were only with him for a short ride to the Gaslamp where we hopped off again :)
Trolley time pick up times seem to be very accurate we were always able to get on a trolley as were only a party of 2 but some parties had to wait due to the trolley being full. There was a Trolley right behind us to pick them up.
To sum this review all up our last 2 Guides were Steve and Krez they were all exceptionally fantastic guides. We enjoyed our hop off hop on tour and would highly recommend this to anyone.
My only 2 suggestion is the gratuity I would love to tip them all as they deserved it! but to keep having to pull out cash and a crowded trolley. Sometimes hard to dig in your purse. Can there maybe a central tipping jar at the main Trolley stops like at Old Town, Seaport VIllage where customers can just leave one big tip at the end of their tour and that would then be divided among all guides. They were all amazing and deserve a generous tip. I just feel a lot of people do not want to continually tip throughout the day rather just one time .
Second suggestion there was 2 stops that the Trolley was full and could not pick up the passengers and they had to wait for next trolley which was right behind us. It seems like Trolley Tours will just keep selling passes no matter how many people are already on the Trolley. This I feel like will cause unhappy passengers that will have to wait awhile (as I already read on other reviews) at what point do they stop selling tickets? As the trolley only holds 35 people.
Thank you Kaye, Scotty, Steve and Krez for a wonderful tour of San Diego as you all made this tour fun :) :)

Spent the day being a tourist in our own city. In case you didn’t know, a San Diego resident rides free with one paid ticket. So my girlfriend and I paid $ 39 for a day of fun while learning more about San Diego. We jumped off once in Coronado for lunch so we had 2 different trolley tour guides. Sadly, that leads to one really happy review and one really sad or scared review.
1^st Driver– Bonk (no, really that’s his name! The way he gets you to remember it, you’ll never forget him) wonderful personality! We jumped on about 10am on Sunday morning in old town and rode with Bonk to Coronado. What a great kid with a natural ability to entertain. His jokes were great and didn’t sound rehearsed. He was pleasant and greeted each person individually as they boarded the trolley. If we had been with Bonk the entire time this would be 5 stars not 3. Keep up the great work and the silly jokes Bonk!
2^nd Driver– Melissa («the rookie») waited at the Coronado stop for 28 minutes for the trolley. When it finally arrived and we jumped on I almost instantly felt like we should have waited 5 minutes for the next trolley! Barely a mile down the road Melissa told a joke and no one said anything and she was obviously annoyed. I myself didn’t laugh at the jokes since they were all either complaining about her mother or bashing on San Diegans. Going over the Coronado bridge, never been so scared in my life! Melissa drove over the bridge at 40 mph in the center of both lanes. Two lanes of angry traffic laying on their horns behind the trolley led to very angry drivers giving the middle finger to her as we merged on to 5N. She made a joke about using all 5 fingers to wave back when someone else waves at you with 1. Since I have been on this tour before I was upset knowing that she skipped a ton of good information about city college, balboa park, and little Italy. Instead she used that time to keep talking about her favorite pizza place (which has 2 Unilocal stars) and pushing everyone to go there! Lastly, telling everyone to vote for her as rookie of the year and what it means for her… not anything about this terrifying drive would ever lead me to voting her for anything.
So we jumped off the trolley at the end and ran to the car!
If we had stayed with Bonk, we easily would have gone around the city 1 more time.

This is a review on their overpriced and boring Christmas lights tour that literally had 5 minutes of lights.
You start in old town and then it takes you to downtown San Diego to some hotels that have average décor of Christmas lights. Then it takes you to balboa park to see some lights in the middle square, Rudolph and reindeer in the center island and some Jesus in the manger stories that are tiny. Then they drive to point Loma and the first route has two streets and those streets have homes that barely decorates their homes.
For the grand finally they take you to see garrison street with 1 block of 10 homes that have some good lights.
For $ 25 and adult and $ 15 a child I would have expected a lot more and not a trolley with broken windows and the whole ride you are frozen stiff.
Save the money and just drive to garrison street. The tour they normally do of the city is awesome but they failed on this jolly trolley tour.

This truly is the best way to visit all the tourist sites in this area. We only wished we had planned our whole visit around it. We got on at Balboa Park and from there we were treated with some informative and at times humorous information we otherwise would not have gotten about the area from Balboa Park to Coronado. If we had it to do over again we would have changed our hotel location and parking location based strictly on what this service offers. Bravo! Old Town Trolley Tours.

We had a great time on the trolly tour! Good way to see highlights of what San Diego has to offer, then go back and spend bulk time where you’d like. The ‘hop on, hop off’ concept may work on most days, but a Realtors Conference poured 25,000 + people on the tourist path and some of the wait times weren’t reasonable as trolleys stuffed with passengers had no room for more. Driver/​guides are informative and entertaining, and keep things interesting. Highly recommend!

Loved it. I wish there were more interesting facts and trivia. BUT it was exactly what we were looking for.

The first 3 trolleys were completely full, which was really frustrating. Once we got started it was a nice experience, but not sure it was worth wasting about 45 minutes of valuable vacation time standing around waiting for a trolley with room on it. I would NOT recommend this business.

Knowledgeable, friendly drivers that take you to all the main attractions. Last departures start around 5:00, so if you haven’t gotten to all your stops, then you may be forced to rush. Also, some buses are full, further delaying your arrival at the next stop.

Overall very nice tour, pleasant and knowledgable guides. Lots of interesting stopes and plenty of things to see .
Keep up s good job

We were in San Diego only for a day and this tour was PERFECT to see the main highlights.
They have 10 stops and you can hop on and off whenever and the trolleys go every 30 min.
we had a long stop in coronado beach for lunch and it was great!
The bus drivers were very nice, funny and enthusiastic! We had a nice day!

Loved it. They have many good drivers, but «Bonk» really made the day fun. That dude is a natural comedian/​tour guide. This tour is very fun, informative and relaxing. No pressure since there is a new trolley like every 30 minutes.
5 Stars though to BONK…

The driver was very informative. I highly recommend planning this as a whole day thing. I love the info but I would suggest using it as a bus system; its way easier than parking every where and it takes you right in front of all the tourists spots which includes seaport village, the USS Midway Museum, Unconditional Surrender Statue, right in the middle of Old Town, and Balboa Park. I went to Old Town parking was absolutely horrible and it looked bad in Balboa.
My complaints with the tour was the windows. They wouldn’t roll up and down. And also, it was only mentioned once that people should be mindful of others when talking during the tour. There were old women that got on talking really loudly then a large family got on and started screaming to each other from across the aisles. Couldn’t hear a thing.

Loved this tour! Our driver was Boxcar and he was fantastic! We learned so much about San Diego and loved being able to get on and off the trolley. We made a day out of it. I was in a group of five and we only weren’t able to get back on a trolley once and only ended up waiting less then ten minutes for the next one. I would recommend this tour to anyone coming to San Diego. My only regret was not doing this tour sooner.
P.S
Get off the trolley at Little Italy and have a delicious lunch!

Dann schreiben wir doch mal die erste deutsche Bewertung ;))
«Old Town Trolley Tours» können wir nur wärmstens empfehlen.
Von den verschiedenen Touren die angeboten werden, haben wir die Hop-​on/​hop-​off City-​Tour gemacht. Diese eignet sich perfekt als Einstieg in den San Diego Urlaub. Die Tour bietet Gelegenheit sich einen ersten Eindruck von den wichtigsten (und auch schönsten) Orten San Diegos zu verschaffen und so einen ersten Überblick zu bekommen. Wir konnten aufgrund der Tour den Rest unserer Urlaubs entsprechend gut planen, da wir eine konkrete Vorstellung davon hatten, welche Bereiche wir nochmals gesondert besichtigen sollten…
wer noch nie eine Hop-​on/​hop-​off gemacht hat: Das Prinzip ist, dass man an allen Haltestellen austeigen kann und dann in einen anderen Bus wieder einsteigen und die Rundfahrt fortfahren klann. Busse fahren alle ¹⁵⁄₂₀ Minuten.
Man sollte die Zeit jedoch nicht unterschätzen. Wir haben einige Punkte auf der Tour ausgelassen und bewusst nicht viel Zeit pro Standort verbracht und haben gegen Ende dann (zum Glück) den letzten Bus erwischt. Man sollte also wirklich recht früh los…
Sehr angenehm waren die Fahrer — meist sehr unterhaltsam :)
Einige Tipps:
— Direkt nach Old-​Town fahren. Dort kann umsonst geparkt werden (hinter der Kirche)
— Auf den ersten Stop in Coronado kann gerne verzichtet werden. Hotel Coronado ist allerdings ein muss.
— Little Italy kann auch gerne ausgelassen werden (hört sich besser an als es wirklich ist)
— Für Balboa Park sollte man einen separaten Besuch einplanen. Als Teil der Tour ist es zu wenig Zeit.
Wenn nachmittags noch Zeit in OldTown sein sollte, ist das dortige Sheriff Museum definitiv zu empfehlen (auch weil der Besuch kostenlos ist).

Tour of Old Town was great.
The tour guide was fully informed on the historic areas of the tour .
The tour was at a good pace and was nice that you could hop on and off as needed at attractions
A good value and all stops people were friendly and kept things well organized for getting on and off

I had never been to San Diego before so decided to take a trolley tour to get a good overview of the city. This was a a great choice and I’m glad I took it.
Staying on for the whole route took a little over 2 hours and goes by many major attractions. The driver for most of the tour was «Boxcar» and he was great. Very knowledgeable and just the right amount of humor.
My only complaint is the seat cushions were worn so the seats werent that comfortable after 2hrs.

I’ve now ridden with Old Town Trolley in my 4^th city, their 6^th. I’ve ridden in Boston, DC, Savannah and now San Diego. Old Town provides the same great customer service in all cities.
They provide excellent driver/​narrators who really love their job and their city and try their hardest to convey their passion to their guests.
I experienced two guides during my trip to SD. My favorite was Patricia. Patrica’s narration flowed off her tongue. She gave interesting facts and included songs when appropriate — a few more songs than most guides I’ve had did.
You can pick up the tour anywhere on the route — tickets are taken in Old Town. Some people did not get on the trolley at each stop because they were full, but our driver called to dispatch who has empty trolleys on standby throughout the city that can jump in the route to get excess passengers.
All in all I recommend this for locals and visitors to gain historical understanding of the city and to get a good lay of the land.
The only con I would say was waiting for the trolley in old town. We wanted to ride roundtrip from Coronado without hopping off, but had to get off in Old Town and await another trolley because our driver was going on break.

One of the best tours of San Diego… Its more than a tour! You pay for your ticket and you can stop and go along the way as much as you want. If you are a local you ride free with a full paid admission. Check out Hometown pass if you’re local.
All the staff at Old Town Trolley your have been absolutely wonderful. The busses are enclosed but lots of Windows. Definitely recommend this if you are a tourist or a local!

My friend and her friend drove down from L.A. and Oceanside, respectively and we decided to do the City Tour on the Trolley from Old Town. I want to start off by saying that I really liked the idea of driving around San Diego, being new here and all.
However, our trolley driver, Brian O’Brian was a whole different story. Although he gave factual information about San Diego (which I enjoyed), the way he went about it was not right. He made snide remarks about people talking while he was talking. I felt like he was in high school, and I did not pay $ 40 to be scolded like a child. I get that it’s rude and all, but I feel that as long as people weren’t talking over him and it didn’t affect the people around him, it was fine.
Other than our driver, everything else was great! The views from the tour were great! As you can see from the pictures I posted. The information he shared was interesting and at times funny! I know he means well, but I just want him to know how some people feel about his attitude.
I also noticed that there aren’t enough trolleys, because each stop that we were at was a load of people that couldn’t get on, because our trolley was full! We went on a Thursday afternoon and I can’t even imagine how it is on the weekends!
If you’re into history and love great views and even if you wanna just learn about this wonderful city of San Diego I suggest you take this tour!

Our driver was Jim, he was the worst sight-​seeing tour guide I think I’ve ever had! He thought he had to entertain us with his jokes, but he forgot that we had paid $ 39 to take in the sights of San Diego! I can honestly say I learned NOTHING on this tour! We actually drove past The Hotel Del Coronado & he had NOTHING to say! One of the guests on the trolley actually had to ask him to tell us something about it! I could have told the group more than the information he gave! I’m hoping that the other tour guides are more helpful!
Additionally, almost every stop we made there were people wanting to get on, but there weren’t any seats available for them so they were told that another trolley would be along in approximately 17 minutes! What a mess! My friend & I decided not to even get off the trolley, even though that’s all we wanted to do to get away from Jim, but we were afraid we’d never get back!
All I can say is, if you plan to take this tour, if Jim is your driver, GET ON ANOTHER TROLLEY!
Ugh! There goes 2 hrs of my life I can NEVER get back!