The pic is from the web, just used for illustration of what buttons I am talking about. My iPad Safari wont go into full screen mode either. The top bar is always present. I don't have an iPhone and I know what I used to have on my iPad and I used to have those buttons appear. Thanks for the suggestions.
Do you have an iPad Mini or a full sized iPad? While I'm pretty sure the Mini runs the same version of Safari as the larger iPad, I could be wrong, since I've never used one.
However, Safari on the iPad has never had a bottom bar. Not even in iOS 6. Though it did used to have a full screen mode, or at least part of the top bar would disappear. This feature went missing in iOS 7, the very first version of iOS 7.
I can't explain what you've experienced, but iOS 7 Safari does not support the features you are talking about. At least on on the full sized iPad. Whatever had them working, and whatever made them go away, that's the way it is now. There is no setting that will make them come back.