A City Sightseeing Edinburgh ticket buys the best panoramic view of the Old Town ridge for £20, and it will not carry you to the castle gates. The red route drops passengers at George IV Bridge, and the rest is a ten-minute climb over cobbles that turn slick in the rain. Whether that matters depends on who is doing the walking.
On a spring visit I took the first departure of the morning from George Street, paid the adult fare and stayed aboard for the whole circuit. The bus left nearly empty, and the loop ran closer to 90 minutes than the advertised 75, almost all of it lost in traffic between the Grassmarket and the Royal Mile. For a first look at the city that ride earned its money. For getting anywhere, it plainly did not.
Where the tour starts now
Edinburgh Bus Tours has moved its first stop for road works. Since 6 September the tours no longer serve Waterloo Place; departures leave from George Street, Stop GG, opposite the Assembly Rooms, which is also where Royal Edinburgh Ticket holders exchange their voucher. The operator's CitySightseeing Edinburgh page carries the notice and a helpline number, and the change is scheduled to run to the end of November.
From Waverley station it is a straightforward walk of about ten minutes: leave by the Princes Street exit, cross over and follow George Street west past St Andrew Square. The pavement is wide, but it climbs out of the valley and takes more out of you with a suitcase than the map suggests. Most Lothian buses from the south and the Airlink 100 from the airport stop on or beside Princes Street, one block from the George Street bays, and an Airlink open return costs £8.50.
Summer and winter timetables
City Sightseeing Edinburgh runs all year on two timetables. From 29 March to 31 October buses leave every 12 minutes between 08:45 and 18:00. From 1 November to 20 March the gap widens to 20 minutes and the last departure is 15:55. That last figure is the one that catches people out: a ticket bought at three in the afternoon in winter buys less than an hour of loop, and hopping off at the castle may mean walking back in the dark.
Live vehicle positions in the operator's Edinburgh Bus Tours app are a better guide than the printed leaflet when road works or a jam opens a gap between buses.
Practical tip: In winter, start your full loop before 14:00. With the final departure at 15:55 there is no time to hop off and rejoin.
Arriving without a car
Driving to the centre is the costly option. The Edinburgh City Council parking rates run to £9 an hour on George Street, St Andrew Square and the neighbouring streets, and £8 an hour across the Old Town, charged Monday to Saturday 08:30–18:30 and Sunday afternoons. A day of sightseeing on a meter costs more than the tour ticket itself.
Motorists save most by leaving the car outside the centre. Lothian Buses Park & Ride lists five sites with free parking, Ingliston, Hermiston, Sheriffhall, Straiton and Wallyford, each linked to the city by frequent buses. Bus services were withdrawn from Straiton, so check the current list before setting out.
What the red route actually covers
A full circuit takes about 75 minutes without leaving your seat, and it is built around the Old Town; the Georgian squares barely feature. From George Street the bus swings south into the valley and works along the ridge: Lothian Road, the Grassmarket below the castle rock, George IV Bridge (signed as the stop for Edinburgh Castle) and The Mound, where the National Gallery and Princes Street Gardens sit under the skyline. Farther east it passes the Museum of Childhood on the Royal Mile, John Knox House and the Canongate, Holyrood, and Our Dynamic Earth beneath Salisbury Crags. The operator counts 15 stops in all, and the way the three Edinburgh Bus Tours routes interlock is worth understanding before you pick a ticket.
If you ride one stretch and nothing else, make it the Grassmarket. The bus drops into the hollow beneath the castle and the tenements close in on both sides.
On a wet afternoon the top deck emptied within two stops as the drizzle set in, which left me the front row and a very close view of the stone walls on the bend into the Grassmarket. The bus felt less like a tour and more like a delivery van threading a medieval street. It is the part of the loop I would not skip.
Nine languages, and a channel for children
Headphones are handed out as you board and plug into the seat-back jacks. The recorded commentary runs in nine languages and is triggered by GPS, so it stays roughly in step with what is passing outside. Families get a second channel: Terry Deary, the author of Horrible Histories, narrates a children's version built on grave-robbing, executions and plague. Neighbouring seats can be tuned to different channels, which is the main reason the tour works for mixed-age groups.
Upper deck or lower deck
The top deck is open at the back and partly canopied at the front; the lower deck is enclosed and heated. On a still day the upper deck wins without argument. On a windy one, the exposed rows near the back are the coldest place in the city, and the pillars and condensation downstairs make a poor substitute for the view. These are the same seating and weather trade-offs that apply to any open-top bus, and Edinburgh makes them sharper than most cities.
A thin windproof shell is worth more up there than an umbrella, since the bus picks up speed on the eastern stretch and an umbrella turns inside out. On a bright morning that turned into a squall between the Grassmarket and Holyrood, the passengers in shirtsleeves retreated downstairs and stayed there.
The castle climb nobody mentions
Route brochures list a castle stop, and first-time visitors reasonably read that as a stop at the castle. It is not one. Preserved streets and the gradient keep the buses at George IV Bridge, and the rest is on foot: north along the bridge, then west onto the Lawnmarket and up Castlehill to the Esplanade.
The walk is short on paper and tiring in practice. It climbs the whole way, the surface is set cobbles and flagstones with worn edges, and the final pull up to the Esplanade is the steepest section. Allow ten to fifteen minutes with a pause, and more with small children or a buggy.
I did it with a full daypack and stopped twice, once at the top of the Lawnmarket to let a tour group pass. Coming back down the same cobbles in the rain afterwards is the part I would think hardest about with anyone unsteady on their feet.
Castle tickets, hours and the booking trap
The bus ticket covers transport only; the castle is a separate admission. Edinburgh Castle's ticket page lists adult entry at £23.50 online against £26.00 at the gate, concessions at £19.00 and £21.00, and children aged 7–15 at £11.50 and £13.00. Opening hours follow the season: 09:30 to 18:00 from April to September with last entry at 17:00, and 09:30 to 17:00 from October to 23 December with last entry at 16:00, closed on 25 and 26 December. Historic Environment Scotland's plan-your-visit guidance warns that tickets often sell out well in advance through the summer, and that once the online allocation is gone there is nothing left at the gate.
Two smaller details are worth knowing. The castle audio guide costs £4, and a Young Scot card gets you in for £1, the cheapest admission on the whole route if you qualify.
What the Royal Edinburgh Ticket does not solve
The Royal Edinburgh Ticket (£81 adult, £76 senior, £43 child) bundles 48 hours on all three bus routes with guaranteed entry to the castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Royal Yacht Britannia. Its real selling point is the castle: the operator's terms say its sellers arrange your timed slot when you validate the voucher, and can get you in even when the castle's own website is sold out. The catch sits in the same sentence: the slot cannot be arranged before you arrive, so on a busy morning you may wait at the desk for the next available time.
The palace is the second condition. The Palace of Holyroodhouse closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 15 September to 31 May, and the operator offers no refund or substitution on those days; the King's Gallery and a guidebook are offered only when the palace shuts for other reasons. It opens seven days a week just from 21 May to 14 September, with further closures on 12–20 May and 26 June to 3 July. If your trip lands on a Tuesday or Wednesday outside high summer, the £81 is buying two attractions, not three.
What each ticket costs
Three ticket families matter here: the single red-route ticket, the Grand passes across all three routes, and the Royal Edinburgh bundle. Adult fares are in the table. Children under five travel free everywhere, and Kids Go Free changes the arithmetic for families.
| Ticket | Online adult fare | On board | Valid for | Routes | Admissions included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CitySightseeing 24 | £20.00 | £20.00 | 24 hours from first scan | Red route only | None |
| Grand 24 | £23.40 | £26.00 | 24 hours from first scan | All three city routes | None |
| Grand 48 | £27.90 | £31.00 | 48 hours from first scan | All three city routes | None |
| Royal Edinburgh | £81.00 | £81.00 | 48 hours from first scan | All three city routes | Edinburgh Castle, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Royal Yacht Britannia |
Kids Go Free
Up to three children aged 5 to 15 ride free with every paying adult or senior on the CitySightseeing tour and on the Grand 24. The child tickets still have to be added to the basket at checkout, where they come through as zero-fare passes, so the saving depends on that step. The Grand 48 uses a family ticket for two adults and up to three children instead, which is where the larger group saving sits.
Three routes, not one
The Grand passes and the Royal Edinburgh Ticket both open the other two routes, and they are genuinely different. CitySightseeing is the recorded, multilingual red route described above. The Edinburgh Tour is a shorter loop of about 65 minutes with a live English-speaking guide on board. The Regal Tour runs out to the Shore at Leith and the Royal Botanic Garden, which is how the Royal Yacht Britannia is reached without a separate tram or bus. On a two-day trip that spread is the main argument for the Grand 48.
When the £81 bundle pays off
Run the numbers before you buy. A Grand 48 booked online is £27.90. Add advance admission to the three attractions (£23.50 for the castle, £22.00 for the Palace of Holyroodhouse and £23.00 for the Royal Yacht Britannia in summer) and the total comes to about £96 against £81 for the bundle. The saving is real, but only if you visit all three, and only if the palace is open on your dates. Visit two and you are ahead buying separately.
What I would leave out
Two purchases on this route I would not make. The first is the tour bus as transport: a single tour ticket against a £2.40 Lothian fare, or a £5.70 daily contactless cap, is several times the price for a slower journey. The second is the Royal Edinburgh Ticket on a short break. With one full day you will not fit both the palace and the yacht, and the bundle carries no partial refund.
Riding realities
Traffic and delays
The loop is advertised at 75 minutes, and traffic decides how close it comes. The operator notes that timetables are subject to change, and the pinch points are the Cowgate, North Bridge and the approaches to the Royal Mile. If you have a train to catch or a table booked, leave a margin and check the app before committing to a stop.
Wheelchair and scooter access
Every bus has ramped, low-floor boarding, and the operator accepts a Class 2 mobility scooter when a wheelchair space is free; wheelchair users have legal priority for those spaces, and dogs, including assistance dogs, are welcome. The gap to plan around is at the other end: a step-free ride to George IV Bridge still finishes at the foot of the castle climb.
Queues and the top deck
Between 11:00 and 15:00 on sunny days the lines build at the Grassmarket and George IV Bridge stops, and because most people stay upstairs for the view, seats free up slowly. Boarding at Stop GG, where buses start empty, is the reliable way to get the front of the top deck. Joining mid-route in the middle of the day often means standing, or sitting downstairs until someone leaves.
Booking, cancellation and the bus as transport
Booking and cancellation
An online booking produces a barcode voucher that can be redeemed for up to six months from the chosen start date, and the 24- or 48-hour clock begins only when the driver or dispatcher scans it. That is the difference between a rolling 24 hours and a calendar day, and it decides how much of a second morning you get. Bookings can be cancelled or amended up to 48 hours before the start date, and nothing is refundable once the ticket has been used or the date has passed. Save the voucher offline; mobile signal is patchy in the Old Town closes.
The tour bus against Lothian's own network
The three sightseeing routes are run by Lothian Buses, so the comparison is easy to make. Lothian's fares put an adult single at £2.40, a City DAY ticket at £6.00 and a contactless daily cap at £5.70, and the network covers the same Old Town streets and everywhere the loop skips. What the tour ticket adds is commentary, an open top and a fixed circuit. For crossing town, the public bus is cheaper and quicker.
Because the clock starts at the first scan, a late start on day one buys a second morning on day two. Buy the single 24-hour tour, board in the afternoon and ride the loop once, then use what is left of the 24 hours the next morning for a second run out to Holyrood or Leith. On a weekend break that is the cheapest way to see both ends of the route without paying twice.