Efficient Low Cost Travel (Megabus)

Member Name: wastingtime

Product:	Megabus
Date:	02/10/08 (304 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap!

Disadvantages: Cramped and confined

While walking home from the office to the flat I noticed a big blue shiny bus, god I sound about 12 years old, and on this big shiny blue bus was the word 'megabus.com' in bright yellow letters. Now I don't use public transport, I drive virtually everywhere and as my flat is city centre I have no real need to commute anywhere.

I did however go and check out the web site to see what it was all about, and I am glad I did. If you have seen my other review today you will already know that I recently visited 'that London', and megabus really helped with the whole experience.

Megabus is a bus run by stagecoach who do cheap travel from many various towns to London, I believe it is about 50 nationwide. Now I am not a big fan of coaches, I find them cramped and being a smoker I obviously hate being confined for so long, but for this price I just couldn't justify taking the car.

To prove the point I just just done a dummy search, travelling on the 3rd November and returning on the 4th, if I left Leeds at 5.50am and returned the next day at 7.00pm then for my return journey it would cost £9. Now let me put that into perspective.

If I drove down, and thus having the car in London for two days I would now have to pay the conjestion charge, which for two days is £16, so already I have saved £7.

Then I drive a 1.8 petrol engine and I'm not a slow driver, so lets assume that I spend £50 on fuel. The I would need to pay for a car park, the car park at the hotel where I stayed was £5. So just on those three things alone I have saved £62 by getting the bus.

If you do get the bus then it will stop at London Victoria, and if you know your London well, which I don't, that is pretty central and puts you right next to the train and tube station.

All in all, I still hate buses, but with the credit crunch hitting just about everyone at the moment, then I would suggest if you have to travel long distances, check the availability on this site first!!

Chris

UPDATE
It has been brought to my attention that I didn't say how long it took, which I guess is pretty damn important. Leeds to london took us four and a half hours, which I didn't think was bad at all.

On the way down we had one fifteen minute stop so the bus could change drivers and the passengers could get something to eat and drink. On the way back their was a change of driver and a 2 minute stop to do a drop off in Sheffield, but the passengers weren't allowed off.

I think it would take me about three and half hours to drive down there in my car, so an extra hour for all the money that was saved I thought was worth it.

Chris

Summary: Always worth checking availability