I have been doing my fair bit of travelling on good old Megabus recently. It is cheaper than a train and I conveniently arrive closer to my accommodation in Warwick and Andy’s accommodation in Bristol on Megabus than I would by train. It is perfectly designed for travelling students who can not afford the extortionate train prices (which are increasing year by year). Even with a 16-25 year old rail card, the prices of trains are not within my grasp as a student.

Yet Megabus comes with a lot of disadvantages. Disadvantages which make you want to throw down your bag and say “FINE, NO MORE. I’ll beg for more money if it means I can avoid Megabus and get a train.” But alas, you sigh, you huff, you pick up your bag and next time you find yourself searching the web for cheap train tickets, you find yourself back at uk.megabus.com.

Maybe I am spoilt as I just spent a year in America but the Megabus customer service is p*ss poor. In America, everywhere you are greeted with a smile and some friendly banter. Within my last three trips with Megabus, I have been met with yelling, rude, and impatient members of staff.

For example, I arrived ten minutes early for my trip from Bristol to London and the bus was already there (let me tell you, a bus to be there early is a SHOCK.

“Anyone else going to London?”

“Yes!” I called looking him straight in the eye. I grabbed my bag to reach for my phone because I had taken a photo of my reservation ticket number online (even though I had paid for the SMS service so it would be texted to my phone, yet alas, no such text had been received). The driver went and sat down in the drivers’ seat, started up the engine and began closing all the doors.

WHAT! There was still ten minutes to go and I had just told him ‘Yes’ to his face. And he had heard me as we were a foot apart! Luckily, another boy came running up and starting banging on the door. And totally out of character it would seem, the man turned off the engine and began grumpily swearing to himself as he got out the coach.

Another student ran up to him (she had been there for sometime it would seem) and begged him to let her on the coach She had an important meeting to go to in London and had bought her ticket. She had a NUS student card and had selected the student card option. You need a NUS Extra student card to get a discount on Megabus (just so they can be seen as giving student discounts but aren’t really). This poor girl was asking if she could pay the extra £0.40p there and then.

No. The driver refused.

She begged if she could buy a new ticket.

No he didn’t except tickets and his bus was full.

Yes but she wasn’t going to be on it with the previous ticket so she could buy a new one?

No.

To be honest the driver could have stashed the money as a tip for himself if he had accepted. I couldn’t believe his manner and was glad people kept running up to him so we left ten minutes later than expected. What a rude man.

This is only one case concerning the rude drivers. There have been plenty more.

I have had drivers tell me they are not going to my destination when last minute they yell out “So anyone else for Coventry?”. I have had drivers swearing about traffic and drivers sigh as I hand them my ticket as if they really didn’t want me personally to turn up!!

I remember when I worked at John Lewis, there were mirrors backstage with words across the top like “the customer is always right.” “Deliver everything with a smile”. Clearly Megabus mirrors say “Act like an Arse”. Let me quickly add there are some (VERY FEW) nice drivers. I can remember one in particular who drove me from Coventry to Bristol at 5.20am in the morning. He was really cheerful. How can he be so cheerful at 5.20am and the others be so miserable in the middle of the day?

Another thing I hate is how delayed they always are. They never seem to be on time and there is no GPS tracking system so you are just standing there, indefinitely, waiting for the buses. Today, I was on a Megabus that was delayed by forty minutes. No explanation given. And once we had got on they filled the empty seats with people who were early for their next bus to Bristol! What!!! So then we were all nicely squished and toastie warm.

And I am not complaining about delayed coaches due to traffic. I get that. It’s understandable. I am complaining about when you’re sitting in London Victoria Coach station and you’ve seen your driver munching on a pasty for the past thirty minutes and smoking a cigarette. Then suddenly your coach is ready…twenty minutes late - it’s been stationary in front of you with all its lights off for the past hour.

I once even had a driver who got off at every stop to have a cigarette. Sorry? If I knew my bus was delayed not due to traffic but from the driver’s smoking addiction I would be furious!

Furthermore, the people. Ok. Yes I am one of them but I don’t act like them. Why have English people forgotten how to queue? We are British! Kings and Queens of the Queues! Yet when it comes to a Megabus queue, well it’s like that scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan imagines the cafeteria in Africa where people roar at one another and leap across tables. That is what it like.

Then you sit down….well try to sit down. People do the classic tricks of putting seats on bags, pretending to fall asleep across two seats the moment they sit down, sitting on the aisle seat and putting their bags by the window. Yep. Classic.

Once you’ve sat down you realise someone didn’t send you the details for the Megabus picnic. What is this? Everyone is getting out food. From the smelly coronation chicken sandwiches to the salt and vinegar crisps and the curry. What? Sorry? It’s 4 in the afternoon. Why are people having food now? Why are people having a meal? How did someone bring a pizza on here!!!!? So then there is the background music of everyone eating, choking, spitting etc. At least that smell can disguise the smell of BO that accompanies every Megabus journey. Yep. No one washes. Or at least three people don’t and stink out the bus. You encourage the person next to you to get out their anchovy garlic egg roll just to drown out the smell of the person two rows behind.

Also Megabus advertises £1 bus fares. This is FALSE ADVERTISING. On their website with their highly unprofessional FAQ section, they state the first 1-10 tickets on every coach journey is a £1. How come I have been on a Coventry to Bristol journey with one other person and it has been £5. Did 9 people not show up? Also, if the journey was £1 they would add 0.50p for booking it online…and then if you wanted your reservation sent by text that would be an extra 0.20p (and it would never show up). So in fact NO JOURNEY is £1.

Basically Megabus is anything but Mega. It is annoying and corrupt. It’s a rather awful way to have to travel and it makes you irritated and much more of an angry person than you were coming onto the bus. However, it’s cheap. Yep. And hence, I’ll have to keep travelling on it.