Does the Victoria Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Go to Butchart Gardens?

Does the hop-on hop-off bus stop at Butchart Gardens?

No. The Victoria hop-on hop-off bus runs a 15-stop loop around the city and its inner neighbourhoods, and Butchart Gardens is not one of those stops. The Gardens sit well north of town on the Saanich Peninsula, outside the loop entirely. You need a different tour or your own transport to get there.

We want to be blunt about this because plenty of people book the bus assuming the Gardens are included, then discover on the day that the route never leaves greater downtown. The bus is a good product for what it is. It is just not a Butchart Gardens product.

Where does the hop-on hop-off bus actually go?

It departs from a red kiosk on Government Street near the Fairmont Empress and loops through 15 stops covering the Inner Harbour, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, Beacon Hill Park, the Ogden Point breakwater, Craigdarroch Castle and Oak Bay Village, with live commentary the whole way.

For a side-by-side look at every option, Victoria BC Tours keeps the full tour lineup on one page.

The full circuit takes about three hours if you stay aboard, and the open-top deck is the point. Live narration covers the city's origins in 1843 and the architecture you pass. Your ticket includes access to every stop on the route and a city guide brochure. Castle admission is not included, so budget separately if you plan to go inside Craigdarroch.

The open-top double-decker bus tour runs around $49 and is rated 4.2 on the operator's own listing, with more than 3,300 bookings behind it. That rating is the lowest of the twelve tours we list, which is normal for hop-on hop-off products anywhere: they live or die on how long you wait for the next bus.

Why is Butchart Gardens not on the loop?

Distance. Butchart Gardens is on the Saanich Peninsula north of the city, and a guided van covers the run in about 35 minutes each way. Adding it to a sightseeing loop would turn a three-hour city circuit into a full-day drive with long dead stretches of highway between stops.

Hop-on hop-off buses work when stops are close together and frequent, so you can leave one bus and catch another 20 or 30 minutes later. Stretch a leg of the route out to more than half an hour of driving each way and the model breaks. That is why every operator here sells the Gardens as its own separate trip.

Which tour does include Butchart Gardens?

The half-day city tour and Butchart Gardens combo. It runs about five hours, includes your Gardens admission ticket, gives you 2.5 hours inside to wander at your own pace, and travels in a small van capped at 14 people with door-to-door hotel service from selected downtown hotels.

This is the direct fix for the problem this article started with. You still get the guided city portion, including three photo stops around the Parliament Buildings and Fisherman's Wharf, and then the 35-minute transfer to the Gardens with your entry already paid. Guides hand out garden maps in several languages and give you a plan for using the 2.5 hours well.

The city tour and Butchart Gardens combo is around $106 and rated 4.9 with more than 5,000 bookings, the highest-rated way we list to reach the Gardens without a car. Travelling from the mainland instead? The ferry-inclusive day trip from Vancouver bundles the crossing, the Gardens and the return into one 13-hour day, and we break that option down in our post on the day trip to Butchart Gardens from Vancouver.

Can you get to Butchart Gardens on your own instead?

Yes. Driving takes roughly 35 minutes from downtown and there is on-site parking, and BC Transit's regional bus network serves the Gardens from the city, though the ride is considerably longer than the drive and schedules thin out in the evening.

Going independently makes sense if you want a long, unhurried visit, especially during the Christmas Lights season when the Gardens open in the afternoon and run to 9pm. It makes less sense on a tight schedule, because you are paying admission separately on top of transport either way.

Adult admission is roughly $42 to $46 in spring, about $44 in peak summer between June 1 and September 15, and drops to roughly $29 to $37 in October and November, the cheapest window of the year. Hours swing hard by season, from 9am to 10pm on summer evenings down to 9am to 3:30pm in late autumn. Check Butchart Gardens' official website for the exact price and closing time on your date, and read our Butchart Gardens visitor guide before you commit to a plan.

So which should you book?

Book the hop-on hop-off bus if you want a flexible city overview and plan to spend the day downtown. Book the Butchart combo if seeing the Gardens is the reason you came. Booking both on the same day is possible but tight, and most people are happier splitting them across two days.

If you have two full days, the sensible order is the bus first to get oriented, then the Gardens the following morning. Our 2 day Victoria BC itinerary slots both in without either day feeling rushed.