Travelling by specifically by Coach

[95438756]

What service did you use? Can be outside Ireland too. What didn't work on board? What were the other passengers like?
Myself: Used Aircoach from Aston quay Dublin to cork city and back in early January
Pretty nifty and comfortable too, the Aircon worked. Not over crowded either way. Quiet passengers.

Negative experiences are welcome here too and are encouraged. Spill it out...

[678904673]

Use to get the 115 Bus Eireann to Kinnegad on regular basis in the 00's. Before the days of WiFi. But the buses were always clean, comfortable and in general pretty empty. (But I was travelling off peak)

[nlgbbbblth]

I used to commute on Bus Eireann to city centre before I switched to the train.

Positives
More comfortable
Cheaper
Boarded at city centre, no need to travel to Heuston.

Negatives
Traffic made the journey times unpredictable especially in evenings

Occasionally used Dublin Coach (green bus) to go to airport. Not always reliable and sometimes had a dodgy clientele.
One time I was waiting for it and a guy asked me were there toilets on the bus.
I said yes.
He then asked a woman - "can you go for a sh*t on the green bus"
She was horrified

He boarded the bus anyway and spent about 20 minutes in the toilet and left the door open afterwards. The air was fetid.

[95438756]

^^^^ it's now turning into a poo thread.

[Del.Monte]

I hate bus travel with a passion despite part owning three buses some years ago. That said, the new express coaches offer a great deal more comfort than many competing rail services, cheaper and more frequent. Toilets on all public transport are best avoided but the idea of using one on a bus is off the scale - for me anyway.

When forced to take a coach I like to sit up front and watch the road but this has the disadvantage of seeing how potentially deadly the journey can be. The bad driving of other road users is quite staggering and they seem to think that a coach can stop on a sixpence - apparently oblivious to the consequences of being rear ended by said coach. That's my tuppence worth.

[CelticRambler]

The last three coach trips I took were:
(1) Flixbus, 200km journey to Paris. Very "meh" in all respects. Cheaper than the standard price for a train ticket, but I can usually get a special offer fare on any train journey I take. On this occasion, though, the train was not an option because they were on strike. Even though there were fewer stops on the route compared to the equivalent rail journey, they were tedious in the extreme - all the disadvantages of driving into the city centre with no apparent advantages. And because the trains were on strike, the road traffic in general was very heavy, so we were about three hours late arriving in Paris. Wouldn't bother again, no when car-sharing is a viable option here.

(2) Greyhound coach, Los Angeles to Las Vegas (and back a couple of days later). Now that was an experience! Which is why I did it. Every conceivable American stereotype packed into one small space. My seat-neighbour on the outbound journey was approximately 48 hours into his 8-hour trip from Denver, I think. He'd got as far as Albuquerque when the service was cancelled due to driver failing a drugs test, and had to go all the way back to Denver to get an alternative service via LA. On the return journey, things "kicked off" as a result of some black-on-black disrespect and I was psyching myself up to witness some good ol' American gun violence ... but the situation was brought under control by bigger, blacker passengers. Point in common with Flixbus: stuck in traffic, crawling the last ten km to the bus station.

(3) Narrated coach tour, Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and back. Not quite the same category as regular travel. That was grand. Like Del, I opted to sit up front, which certainly helped improve the view. The lack of intermediate stops, compared to the Flixbus journey, made it a more enjoyable ride too.

(4) Somewhere in my memory there's a vague recollection of getting a coach from Stansted to London Victoria, or maybe the other way around. Can't have been too traumatic, as I don't really remember anything about it - except (yet again) seeming to spend ages and ages travelling through the greater London area at about the same speed as a pushbike.

[isha]

Come on lads, nothing could ever beat the catatonic psychedelia of the zombie half sleep on the bus boat bus from Ireland to London in decades past. Interrupted by that dry mouthed stupefied shuffle through the rest stop to the manky toilets and the shop in the middle of the night in the middle of some godforsaken place with no name and lights that could strip your retinas, and arriving in Victoria or some place close to it at bleak dawn having forgotten your name and your reason for existing.

[JayZeus]

A trip somewhere on a coach would likely result in me having a Falling Down kind of reaction to my fellow passengers.

I’d rather ride a bicycle with two flat tyres to get somewhere than have to be in a confined space with strangers who inevitably piss me off by just being there.

I’ve taken a bus less maybe 5 times in the last ten years. On every occasion I got off the bus and walked the last couple of kms rather than stayed in a box on wheels filled with nose picking, mouth breathing, window-licking morons.

[nlgbbbblth]

Come on lads, nothing could ever beat the catatonic psychedelia of the zombie half sleep on the bus boat bus from Ireland to London in decades past. Interrupted by that dry mouthed stupefied shuffle through the rest stop to the manky toilets and the shop in the middle of the night in the middle of some godforsaken place with no name and lights that could strip your retinas, and arriving in Victoria or some place close to it at bleak dawn having forgotten your name and your reason for existing.

The memories
Slattery's bus from Rosslare Harbour to London via a rough ferry.
Travelled that route to see The Pogues play the Town & Country club for St Patrick's Day 1988. Messy!