Helsinki and Oslo HOHO bus question

is there any advantage to pre- buying HOHO tickets in these cities as far as allowing us to board bus quicker at the cruiseport....or does everyone go in the same line? Thank you for your response. Also , I think there are several HOHO companies in each city...does anyone prefer one over the other?

I can only speak for Helsinki--we were there in June and took the HOHO bus. There are 2 companies, both red buses, both starting their tours at Senate Square. One costs a bit less and has more stops I think and shorter time between buses at each stop (less waiting time). We took the other only because it was leaving sooner.

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As ABQcruiser said there are two companies in Helsinki, the red buses and Strömma. As you can see from the maps the routes are quite similar. And yes, both buses are red so its a bit confusing.

https://www.redbuses.com/our-tours/helsinki-hop-hop-off-tour/

https://www.stromma.fi/globalassets/finland/helsinki/map_images/open_top_tours_bus/hoho_cs_helsinki_route_map_2018_web.png

Oslo only has one HOHO bus. I don’t know if there are any advantages to booking in advance, but I don’t see too much advantage to the HOHO bus in Oslo at all. The public buses are easy to navigate, less expensive, and run 3-5 times more often.

We used the HOHO bus in Helsinki. It was a last minute decision, so I can't speak for buying tickets in advance. We were docked at Hernesaari and the HOHO bus was right there and the most convenient option for us. They allowed us to charge it to our ship account which was an added bonus.

For those that took the HOHO buses: Were you happy with them? The reports on Tripadvisor are very mixed.

Have you looked at the 2/3 tram in Helsinki? It took us everywhere we wanted to go, and was quite fast. The only downside was where we docked we needed to take a cab to market square, but it was still a lot cheaper than a hoho bus (there might have been a public bus available but since we had a 3 year old we needed to go fast). There was a 24 hour transportation card for public transport in Helsinki. This article is a little old but might help. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g189934-c114477/Helsinki:Finland:Sightseeing.Tour.On.Your.Own.html

Have you looked at the 2/3 tram in Helsinki? It took us everywhere we wanted to go, and was quite fast. The only downside was where we docked we needed to take a cab to market square, but it was still a lot cheaper than a hoho bus (there might have been a public bus available but since we had a 3 year old we needed to go fast). There was a 24 hour transportation card for public transport in Helsinki. This article is a little old but might help. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g189934-c114477/Helsinki:Finland:Sightseeing.Tour.On.Your.Own.html

Thank you !