19 replies to this topic

[paulo999]

Did the buses from CC work better this year? What were the queues at PGA like on Wednesday morning? And how were the buses on Monday?

[_rachelbon]

i got a national express bus from glasgow and it was supposed to arrive at 10:40am on wednesday, we arrived at 5pm. it took about 6 hours to go 20 miles. the bus was roasting with no air con. f**king awful.

[Glasto fan]

I came by train on the Wednesday, as I always do, and found it much easier this year than last. Last year I got into Castle Cary at 1pm and had to queue for a bus for four hours! I finally got to my camping spot at 6.30pm! I was expecting the same this year but it was much better. We got an earlier train, so we were at Castle Carey for 10am and on site by 11.30am!! They'd definitely put more buses on this year. The problem last year was there were massive queues and no buses most of the time. Unfortunately it was still organised chaos at the station though, where they insisted on filling one bus completely while five sat there empty with no-one getting on them, despite lots of people queuing, but you can't have everything! Had they mastered the task of filling more than one bus at a time, there would probably have been no queue at all. We were probably on one of the first trains into Castle Cary that day, so I'm not sure what the queues got like later on?

[mandypants]

I stayed in Pilton village on the tuesday night, there were queues at the station already, mostly festival workers.  I managed to blag my way into a taxi that someone was taking on their own and they dropped me off near where I needed to be   I got to gate A for about 7.55am Wednesday morning and was onto the site by 10 past   

On the way back I was staying in Glastonbury town for a night before travelling home, there were no queues for that bus at all, although there were huge ones for Castle Cary and Bristol.  Once the coach was full we had no bother getting into the town at all, the roads were pretty clear.  So for me it was pretty good altogether

[Glasto fan]

There was a bit of a queue for the CC buses on Monday morning but we didn't leave until 12.30pm so it was okay by then. We also got on a train pretty quickly as well. I think most people want to leave asap on the Monday which is why there are massive queues first thing. In the afternoon it is a lot quicker.

[HarrisonJ]

Travelling with national express from brighton, leaving at 6am via heathrow. Coach driver tried to refuse our trolley in the storage, claiming no food articles were allowed on the coach. How the f**k can they offer a coach service to glastonbury, but try to refuse food on the coach.
We arrived at heathrow at around 8.30, where we are due to change coach, which is supposed to take an hour. An hour later, the coach turns up, we all pile on, the coach has a flat tire, we all piile off, 40minutes later, another dirty, old coach turns up, that we all pile back on.
The drive to glastonbury isnt so bad, despite the fact the foreign driver is talking on his phone most of the way down, illegally. He then announces, we're 9miles from the site, but he has to stop as hes legally only allowed to drive for four hours, so we park in some farm yard, the majority end up in a pub, in which we're told by the locals the coach gate is a 5minute drive down the road. We return to coach, angry farmers are kicking off because we parked in their yard, they come out in force, luckily there was 40 of us, or we coulda had a fight on our hands.

We all board coach, finally someone plucks up the courage to ask for the fans turned on, after showing the driver how to turn them on, we're rewarded with a faint breeze from the fans.

We got there at abour 3.30pm, should have arrived at 12.30.


Trip back was so much better, took about 4 hours, on a modern coach with an awesome central heating system, within 5 minutes we was all cold.

[hedgepeg]

I got 3 buses from camelford in Cornwall one to Exeter one to Taunton and one to Glastonbury town then I walked up the road to Pilton. It cost me £15 in all. Not too bad.  

[HurrahBrother]

On the other hand I had an easy journey, Nat express from London Victoria.

The arrangements of the festivals coach station this year were way better than before, much less distance to lug stuff before getting in the gate itself. Much appreciated.

Also no hospitality camping blocking off routes to camping once in.

Definitely a significant improvement on the lay out last year which felt like a kick in the nads for those of us coming by public transport with the long distance to the gate, and getting in gate then seeing seeing all routes blocked by the wall around hospitality.

Edited by HurrahBrother, 04 July 2010 - 10:16 PM.

[fowls]

I got the National Express from Bristol.  Left at ~8.15 (8.30 official time, but left early since it was the 2nd of 5 buses).  Was meant to get there at 9.45, but got there about 10.45 because of the traffic for the last 2 miles.  He did get a bit lost down one 'shortcut' though.

Not a problem for us, but the bus driver was expected to be back in Bristol for 11 (Including a break!).  God knows how NE thought that was feasible.

The driver was really nice, joking with the passengers and playing Oasis and Faithless CDs.  No air con, but for such a short journey that didn't matter.

Edited by fowls, 04 July 2010 - 10:16 PM.

[indieheart]

me and my son got the national express from brighton, 10.00 a.m. Half full coach which they said they planned to make sure enough luggage space. 3/4's hour service station break and onsite by 3.00 p.m. Similar story back except a full coach. Will do the ssame next year.

[Kaybee]

Came by train from Cardiff, busy but not packed as far as Westbury, packed but not hideous from Westbury to Castle Cary.  Waited maybe 45 minutes for bus - queuing system well organised if a bit "herdy" - stewards and drivers cheerful.  No traffic at all into Pilton.  No queue at all at PGA, walked straight through (about 1.30pm ish).

Coming back queued maybe an hour at bus station and queued again on bus to get onto station at CC.  No more than half hour wait at CC (water and food and a band on hand) - onto a half empty train back.  

I appreciate there have been some hideous years but on this year's showing for me I'd never bother driving again, it was an absolute doddle.

[sisterofmercy]

I got the train from Bristol on the Thursday and had no problems at all. Infact my carriage was actually empty besides me.

[emmmmma]

Kaybee, on 05 July 2010 - 08:19 AM, said:

I appreciate there have been some hideous years but on this year's showing for me I'd never bother driving again, it was an absolute doddle.

Same. I came from London Victoria. Got my allotted bus with no problems getting my stuff on the coach. The bus driver was really cheery, he showed us a film to pass the time and he knew lots of short cuts so the journey took about four hours followed by an easy walk from ped gate A to the Dairy Ground. On the way back I slept the whole way home, which also took about four hours. I will never drive to a festival again.

[OneLittleFish]

We had taken an overnight coach from Edinburgh down to Birmingham to catch an 0730 coach to the festival.

Got to Birmingham with about 20 minutes to spare, queued, was refused on as they'd not booked enough coaches to cope with peoples luggage. We'd been careful to stay within National Expresses luggage guidelines where others were let on that clearly hadn't. Queue jumpers weren't dealt with either.

Ended up getting a coach to Coventry to get a coach from there, which turned up late, very little information given and when the coach finally did arrive which we were all (about 20 of us) promised seats on, we were refused on in particularly rude fashion, were told to get the supervisor (with no information of who he or she was or even looked like). After a lot of fussing, we were eventually let on and were setting off further north from where expected and near three hours late.

Because of this we hit the worst of the festival traffic and arrived some six and a half hours after we were originally supposed to - and in an un-air conditioned coach. Overall from our home town the journey including train to Edinburgh cost around £100 each and took 23 hours.

Will do all I can to avoid National Express in the future, absolutely dire service.

[MrMac]

Only used public transport on the way home on Monday.

Got to gate A at 6:10am
On a bus to Castle Cary by 6:40am
On the station platform at 7:15am
On the train at 7:25am (Dorchester route)
Home by 10:00am

On reflection it was a bit of a close call as if I'd been 10 minutes late there was a 3 hour wait for the next train.  Still, I'd settle for that every year...

[LostRiot]

On the way there
- 10:17 - Castle Carey Station (moderately busy train)
- 11:15 - On a bus and on the way to the site
- 12am - Through the gates

On the way back

10:30 - arrive at bus station - see massive queue
11:00 - Queue moved very quickly - on a bus
11:30ish - Arrive at station join queue for train going to bath,
12:20ish - at bath, train not really that busy, i.e. - got seats.

Couldn't fault it this year.

[Vieuphoria]

Train was simple, and the buses from station to site were great. Only thing was the security telling people to move around in the wider areas of the queue... It made things slower, allowed people to queue jump and just made it more hot and uncomfortable than it needed to be. Other than that it was really rather pleasant.

[ParanoidAndroid86]

I managed to get a one-way lift from London and had to get the train back.  Decided to not sleep on Sunday night to get the 5am train as I've read how bad the queues have been on the Monday in previous years.  I got to the queue at about half 3 and there were around 50 people there, with a small number constantly joining.  After about 5 coaches arrived, people started to board one before one of the drivers got into an argument - the few people had to get off one of the coaches and have their bags removed.  One of the stewards shouted a message which I could barely hear, which seemed to suggest that the drivers weren't prepared to take more people to CC as the station was completely full.  

If that's what they were claiming it had to be absolute nonsense!  If they had 5 coaches at that time running and started at 3am, then only 100 people or so could've been taken by the time I arrived.  After about 30+ minutes of waiting they came to some agreement and we left about 4:20. I would've been in the queue at CC at 4:45ish and there was a fairly small crowd of people.  I was really concerned about the ticket checks because I forgot my young person's card and had an off-peak ticket without knowing whether a train before half 5 would be off-peak or not.  When the train came in they had to let people through to fill the train as much as possible so thankfully didn't check mine!

I managed to be home before 9am - not sure I missed as much queuing as expected judging from the comments above.

[jonbob]

Got shuttle bus from Bristol Temple Meads on Wednesday morning.

Got on bus 10am
Bus left BTM 10:45 (waiting to fill up)
Bus arrived in Festival Bus station 12:05
In gates about 12:15

The bus ride took 1hr20, with worst traffic in Bristol. We didn't get held up once on the way in, not once! Straight in non-stop to the bus station. Was gobsmacked!! 11 Glastos and thats the fastest I've ever got along those pilton roads.

Monday:

Arrived Gate A around 12:30
Bus left station About 12:50
Arrived at BTM 14:55

Bus took 2hr5 on way out, worst traffic again being in Bristol.

Overall I was chuffed with the bus this year, I'll be doing exactly the same next year, but with less stuff ;o)

[fezzyeads]

Liverpool 11:30pm (Tuesday) >>>> London 6am >>> Glasto 11:30am

We made good time but had no f*cking sleep, which meant i was up till Friday due to normal shenanigans from Monday night.

Ill probs jump train down next year the Tuesday and stay somewhere then taxi it to the drop off point or something.

Will see.