Good value for short journeys (National Express)

Member Name: manonfireuk

Product:	National Express
Date:	13/10/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Journeys for £1

Disadvantages: Not enough space for tall people

If you visit www.nationalexpress.com you can book travel tickets to most UK major cities and towns by train and coach, as well as airport transfers. My review is going to mostly refer to their coach service.

Booking the tickets online is very easy, you enter your location, where you are traveling to and the dates you are traveling and it will present you with times and fares available throughout the day. You can then choose the best ones to suit you, enter your payment details and you can then print off your ticket. They will also send you a copy of the ticket to your email address too in case you lose the print off! There is also the option of having the ticket sent to your mobile but I have never done this, I'm a bit weird in that I always like to have my ticket in my hand so I know it'll work, I would be most upsetting if I accidentally deleted the text message! I think I'm less likely to lose a sheet of A4 paper!

The coaches I have traveled on have always been clean and well maintained. However, I would not really recommend using the on board toilet unless you have too. It's not that it's not clean it's just very very small and the amount of bouncing around these coaches do, it makes difficult to get the business done!

One problem I do have with National Express Coaches is the amount of leg room. I am 6ft 3ins tall and there often isn't room to have my knees in front of me, I usually have to take an aisle seat so I can stretch my legs in the aisle. This is one reason why I only tend to use the coaches for short journeys (up to 2 hours), any longer and my legs would be aching all day!

The drivers are usually friendly and will help you with your luggage. However, I did have one trip where the driver had gotten lost and my journey time was increased by an hour! This has only ever happened once though out of the 50 odd trips I've ever taken.

Price wise they are not too bad. There is not really a big difference with the trains. If I was going on a long journey then I would pick the trains just because I know that journey will be more comfortable for someone of my height. However, every so often they have special offers where certain journeys can be booked for £1 or maybe £5. You usually have to be quick to snap these up and they are not always at convenient times, like 6.30am. It's still worth checking out though because it's a big saving on the trains!

To summarise, I would use National Express when they've got a special offer on and I'm only travelling for a short time. Otherwise I would take the train

Summary: Good for short journeys