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so going up via national express. baggage allowence?....


Guest thatcrazypenguin
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Ok so this isnt my first glastonbury but it is the first one where im travelling solo, due to mates down here not being lazy bastards not arsed to go this time im forced to travel up by myself as the mates im camping with are coming down from up north and im travelling up from southwest so ive booked on the national express coach.

But im a little bit worried about packing as obviously unlike when travelling up by car your restricted as to how much you can take on one of these things normally, so anyone whos been on one of the coaches before to get to glasto how much do they actually let you take.

Im planning to have a rucksack to carry on the coach with me, and my big backpack, and tent(not a in a screwed up bag one of the pop up ones so its a flat circle like this http://www.arkko.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/tente-2-Second-Pop-Up-Tent-Quechua3.jpg) in the luggage bay beneath.

Thing is if your only allowed 1 bag per person under the coach as us usually the rule with national express does that include the tent? I mean its light its completely flat so would just sit on top of any other bags wouldnt take up much room, anyone has issues with this sort of thing? how strict are they on how much per person luggage you can drag with you on the coach?

id also like to take a couple of cases of cider and a collapsible trolley as well but that's probably pushing it, going to have to get all my booze in my bags i think.

anyway so yeah what can you get away with?

Edited by thatcrazypenguin
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Yeah they didn't have much control last year coming from Manchester. As long as you don't have loads and loads of stuff you'll be ok, don't forget you can take a bag to your seat. We took our tent and beer bag to our seat last year and our rucksacks were in the storage bit.

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I think they just use common sense- as long as you're not taking the mickey, they're fine- no one had any trouble taking a rucksack and a tent (otherwise we would all have been screwed!). If you turned up with a giant trolley and lots of boxes of beer, then obviously there's a low chance of them letting you keep it.

One thing they are very strict on is gas burner things- they take those off you before you get on the coach, so don't bring one!

Also it might be a good idea to put some sort of marking on your tent, so you know which is yours when you get your stuff off the coach- just in case someone has brought the same kind of tent as you!

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In my experience there isn't really a baggage limit but there should be, they always run out of space for luggage before they fill the seats, so I wouldn't rely on past experience because eventually they're going to wise up and realise they need to actually enforce the baggage limit.

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I've taken exactly that in previous years (big rucksack, small bag for hand luggage, circular tent) - that's 8 previous trips on NX coaches with no problems. These coaches are designed to ferry a full load of people, each with a large suitcase. Festival travel has different requirements, but if the combined area/weight of your stuff is no bigger than a large suitcase, there shouldn't be an issue.

All that said, I've seen people turn up with rucksacks, tents and a large trolly of booze and still get on fine - if you were doing that I might worry a little bit that they'd start enforcing the rules. But for what you're bringing, you'll be fine.

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Since this is becoming more of a general coach thread and I can't decide what to do about a return coach...(London :P)

Do I pack up sunday morning, and take my stuff to the lock up and then up all night to get a 6oclock coach? or join the mad rush about mid day and maybe end up having to get through the tube druing during rush hour?

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Since this is becoming more of a general coach thread and I can't decide what to do about a return coach...(London :P)

Do I pack up sunday morning, and take my stuff to the lock up and then up all night to get a 6oclock coach? or join the mad rush about mid day and maybe end up having to get through the tube druing during rush hour?

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Hadn't thought about doing this but sounds a good idea - the lock-ups are free, aren't they? My coach home is at 8am but my mate's is at 6.30am so this could help with a potential all-nighter plan. Are the lock-ups big enough to hold tents, rucksacks and all that?

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Again London experience only, but rucksack, tent, carry on bag is considered acceptable. They don't like stuff attached to the outside of the rucksack (makes it harder to pack stuff in), so be prepared to un-attach it and carry it on with you. If like me you carry your sleeping bag attached to the outside of your rucksack, remember it can make a handy pillow for the journey. Pack a small carry on bag with drinks, maybe nibbles and other stuff you want to take with you.

If you have a disk shaped pop-up tent, for the love of all that is good and right, make sure that the drivers DO NOT put your disk packed tent at the bottom of the lugger compartment and ram stuff ontop!, I got a perfectly good tent F*!!%£* up that way because everything shifted on the journey and the bag and part of the tent got scuffed so much that it tore right through to the poles (which on a pop-up tent, is no good at all and often kills the tent!).

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We are on the coach from Manchester also but not untill 08.00 Thursday arriving at 13.30.

Fortunately for us friends who are going down on tuesday in their camper will be erecting our tents for us, unfortunately they are in campervan east which by the look of last year's map is on completely the other side of site to the coach station.

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Get into the queues early - they were shocking in 2010. Overbooked the bus so only room for half the peoples luggage (even though we'd stuck to the allowance) and had to get another coach from Manchester to Coventry and go from there. Got stuck in traffic and missed most of the first day.

No refund and was offered a lukewarm coffee as compensation at the time. Would never use them again. Beyond awful.

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