HOHO Bus in Helsinki

[Travelling2Some]

Can anyone tell me if the HOHO busses travel in both directions or do they do a continuous 90 minute loop in only one direction?  Would also love to know which of the two HOHO companies NCL uses as one gets better reviews than the other.  I would book directly but the discount we get through NCL makes it quite a bargain.  Thanks!

[PLee]

They typically have a set route.  You should be able to go onto their website to pull up their map.

[Travelling2Some]

Thanks.  I do already have a copy of the route.  What I am wondering is if the busses travel their route in BOTH directions.  The full circuit is 90 minutes long so knowing if we can "backtrack" a bit would be helpful for planning the order of sights we would like to see.

[gnome12]

32 minutes ago, Travelling2Some said:

Thanks.  I do already have a copy of the route.  What I am wondering is if the busses travel their route in BOTH directions.  The full circuit is 90 minutes long so knowing if we can "backtrack" a bit would be helpful for planning the order of sights we would like to see.

If it doesn't specifically say both ways, I'm sure that it is only one way. The stops are generally numbered.

[MeHeartCruising]

All HOHO buses that I have ever seen in any city simply do a continuous one-way loop on the defined route.

[Travelling2Some]

46 minutes ago, MeHeartCruising said:

All HOHO buses that I have ever seen in any city simply do a continuous one-way loop on the defined route.

Thanks.  I will just have to plan accordingly then.  I was not sure as we have never done the HoHo thing before.

[Hezu]

If you want to take just a part of the HOHO bus route, you probably could use regular public transportation to travel to the opposite direction. Most HOHO bus stops should have bus or tram stops or a metro station in the vicinity. Of course, for these you will need a different ticket. For more information about public transportation (routes, ticket prices etc.) in Helsinki region, please check out HSL website.

[Travelling2Some]

That's a good idea.  Thanks!  I'm thinking we can walk between most of what we want to see once we are in the town center so I don't want to sit on a bus for an hour riding through a lot of outlying areas.  The HoHo is a bargain with NCL's discount and the appeal is that it picks up directly from the ship, which is not walking distance into the town center so that is useful for getting back and forth to the ship.

[cmph]

The map I've been referring to has arrows on the route line. They aren't super-obvious, but they are there. They run mostly clockwise, if you ignore the bit where it goes back and forth into Market Square.

[Apel]

On 4/14/2023 at 9:00 PM, Travelling2Some said:

That's a good idea.  Thanks!  I'm thinking we can walk between most of what we want to see once we are in the town center so I don't want to sit on a bus for an hour riding through a lot of outlying areas.  The HoHo is a bargain with NCL's discount and the appeal is that it picks up directly from the ship, which is not walking distance into the town center so that is useful for getting back and forth to the ship.

 

I don't know what the cost of the Hoho bus is, but if you just want to get around the city a day ticket for all public transportation costs €9 and most cruise ports have a tram stop nearby.

[Hezu]

6 minutes ago, Apel said:

 

I don't know what the cost of the Hoho bus is, but if you just want to get around the city a day ticket for all public transportation costs €9 and most cruise ports have a tram stop nearby.

Majority of cruise ships dock in Helsinki at Hernesaari (Ärtholmen in Swedish) and the distance between the quays there and the nearest tram stop is something like a kilometre, so not exactly something I would call nearby, although for a able bodied persons not impossible distance to walk.

Few smaller cruise ships (+ Silja Line and Viking Line cruise ferries) do call at South Harbour (fi: Eteläsatama, sv: Södra hamnen) and from there the distances to the nearest tram stops are much shorter.

[cmph]

18 hours ago, Apel said:

 

I don't know what the cost of the Hoho bus is, but if you just want to get around the city a day ticket for all public transportation costs €9 and most cruise ports have a tram stop nearby.

It actually ends up being free for the 1st person in the room, with the perks NCL added when we booked. We have 2 rooms with 1 adult and 1 teen assigned to each, so 2 free people. One of the rare cruise excursion bargains! 😆