megabus complaint

jadeyandcoke

helllo,

On Friday, i used the mega bus on a long haul journey from London Victoria to Aberdeen to attend a friends wedding. from start to finish the journey was a complete nightmare - the double decker coach that was due to take us on our journey broke down en route to london victoria, so we were provided with one single decker coach that seats 49 - for 95 passengers! unfortunately me and my OH didn't make the first bus so we were forced to wait at the coach station for another bus to turn up to take us to Watford gap Services to meet the first coach and pick up another double decker. this was at 8am, and we didn't leave London until 9.30am. we picked up the bus at Watford gap, and the journey was okay, the bus was comfortable enough. however, we were made to change buses a further two times between Watford and Aberdeen - at Glasgow and Dundee. On all four buses we used, none had functioning toilet facilities and from the time we left London at 9.30am and the time we arrived in Aberdeen at 11.30pm (we were due to arrive in Aberdeen at 8.30pm), we had made one 15 minute stop at 1.30pm in Cheshire to get food and a toilet break. As you can imagine, me and the OH were not impressed - we had a lot of luggage with us as it was for the wedding - suitcases, suit covers, wedding present, etc, so we didn't buy any food because we simply couldn't manage it and assumed we'd be making a few stops along the way... obviously this didn't happen, and cue a grumpy couple when they arrived in Aberdeen, desperate for the loo and starving hungry!
I wouldn't have minded, but even though MegaBus is cheap, we still payed nearly £90 each for the coach tickets!
Needless to say, we were booked onto last nights sleeper service back to London, but the OH couldn't bear to go back on the bus again so booked us train tickets back which was the sumly price of £200... eeek.
Is there any way i am entitled to a refund for the simply awful and delayed journey?

Thanks in advance.

robpw2

i guess you may be entitled to a refund for the first journey,
as for stops you had stops at glasgow and dundee, did you not ?

normally with coaches they dont tend to do a stop unless they are changing driver

hewhoisnotintheknow

they are cheap for a reason i guess

Would of been cheaper to hire a car for a week, do either of you have a licence?

jadeyandcoke

robpw2 wrote: »

i guess you may be entitled to a refund for the first journey,
as for stops you had stops at glasgow and dundee, did you not ?

normally with coaches they dont tend to do a stop unless they are changing driver

we had lots of stops to pick passengers up but weren't allowed to get off. and when we changed buses, there was no time to get a toilet break because we had to retrieve our luggage and put it onto the new bus. it was just terribly annoying with no toilet on any of the four buses and the drivers wouldn't stop for any toilet breaks

jadeyandcoke

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

they are cheap for a reason i guess

Would of been cheaper to hire a car for a week, do either of you have a licence?

no, i failed my driving test two weeks ago. it was originally the plan for me to drive up there, but spread the journey over two days with a stop in a hotel overnight inbetween.

hewhoisnotintheknow

did you ask them to stop?

jadeyandcoke

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

did you ask them to stop?

yeah, i did. i've got impaired kidney function, so it's sort of paramount that i have to drink and go to the loo regularly, and the driver had the attitude of "it's not my problem, you chose to travel this way".

robt_2

jadeyandcoke wrote: »

yeah, i did. i've got impaired kidney function, so it's sort of paramount that i have to drink and go to the loo regularly, and the driver had the attitude of "it's not my problem, you chose to travel this way".

Did he? Or is that what you have decided was implied from saying 'no' ?

jadeyandcoke

robt wrote: »

Did he? Or is that what you have decided was implied from saying 'no' ?

no, i asked him if there was any chance he could stop at some point so i could use the loo, and he said "no" and i explained that we had had one stop in about 8 hours and he turned round and said "not my problem lassie, i'm being paid to drive straight to perth and that's what i'm gonna do."
fair enough, he's been given his instructions, but it's a ridiculous state of affairs because none of the buses we had travelled on up to this point (this was bus number 3) had had toilets/or functioning toilets.
do you think i'll get anywhere if i complain to mega bus?

robt_2

jadeyandcoke wrote: »

do you think i'll get anywhere if i complain to mega bus?

Nothing to lose

Woby_Tide

technically they do state that not all buses will have toilet facilities and if they don't they will stop on longer journeys. You look to have just been unfirtunate that with changing those few times the majority of journeys they didn't class as 'long'. Watford to Glasgow they stopped at Chester so I guess they are within their long clause. probably worth complaining on the grounds it wasn't your fault you had to change 3/4 times, but also a sorry insight into how they can offer such cheap prices in the main