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See Coaches were a bloody shambles (leaving after the festival from around Pedestrian Gate A). Long delays, poor crowd management, almost zero information.

 

Is there any point complaining? If so... how & where do we do it?

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I used see coaches this year after an absolute shambolic journey with national express the previous year, and i have no complaints, left 5 mins late of said departure time, due to people bringing trolleys

and trying to fit them in etc, but was all fine for me.

 

Had my coach ticket checked twice, was told which lane to queue in, and my coach turned up on time.

i complained to national express the previous year and got a voucher to use (which i didnt) but i know a few friends who managed to get full refunds. I'd ring see tickets and see what they can do.

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Our trip (coach 83) from the O2 to Glastonbury was a pain in the arse, especially given that I wanted to be there early to get a spot in Dairy Ground, but got there too late.

 

The coach was due to set off at 8, but ended up setting off at 9.45. Next, the coach driver started driving through London, which of course was an absolute nightmare, but I deferred to his greater knowledge because, well, he's a coach driver, he does this for a living. Next thing I know I'm looking at Google Maps and we're on the M4 motorway, which seemed unusual, but not too far off the beaten path. I'm then reading my magazine and look up and see that we're in the middle of fucking Bristol!!! Seriously, in the middle of Bristol and the coach driver is looking at a print out and has no fucking idea where he's going! Absolute nightmare and by the time we got there it was 3.45 and no chance of camping in the Dairy Ground.

 

To compound the problem the air con was broken as well, so it was like being stuck in a sauna - great way to start a 5 day festival with no showers!

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Utter shambles, made two stops on the way down, first near Milton Keynes (I think), that was 45 minutes. Then as we approached Somerset we stopped for another 30 minutes, if not longer, just so the driver and his mate, they was driving in a convoy, could stop, smoke and generally natter. That wasn't the worst of it though, before we got to the festival grounds, he made 3 wrong turns in Somerset, and got us completely lost, ended up being directed by people on the coach using google maps to the site. The way back was fine, apart from the fact they parked in the wrong bay, and we all nearly missed our coach because of it!

This is all sounds we got off lightly though, compared with our friends later coach experience.

The first twenty minutes of their journey apparently the driver had his handbrake on, so the coach journey smelt of burning rubber, he had to phone head office to work that one out. There was a second coach also following, cause he didn't know the way, no sat nav, so had to stop on a hard shoulder coming out a service station to wait for coach 2. Stopped way too many times again, and stopped near Glastonbury in a service station to meet a minibus to pick up a package that he had to deliver after he had dropped them off.  

Our coach was Liverpool 55. Theres was Liverpool 163.

Edited by _daveyboy
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My previous 3 experience with See Coaches have been good, driver was ok and knew where he was going and did it in the time expected with no hassle. Stopped once as far as I can remember and then a brief stop not far from the festival to give out the tickets but that's just my 2 cents..

 

I can see why they can be a shambles though. Leaving nearly 2 hours late sounds ridiculous!

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Our driver was calling out peoples names from the coach door and handing out the tickets to whoever came forward on the street. Never even checked the coach tickets!

All went smoothly though and I was a big fan of the guy until he decided to stop for an hour when we were 30 mins or so from the site.

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Also mixed reports, driver on my bus down from Manchester was new to the job, wanted to stop as he was running close to his break time, which is fair enough, fair enough not though when he tries to stop 15 mins from the coach park, in a lay by with no toilets and glaring sunshine, he was soon chased and despite some paranoid moans from him just took us to the festival

The way home, instead of going on my allocated Manchester bus, then homeward to Glasgow from there, I got on the half empty (to my surprise) Glasgow bus, no fuss from the driver, he couldn't have cared less, he got £20 out of it for hee haw!!

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Fine for me generally speaking on See coaches. Delay when we got to Glastonbury as they wouldn't allow us off until stewards unloaded the luggage.....but they ended up going to other coaches and leaving us sat there for a while. Can understand it though as they had lots of coaches to do and it's potentially a dangerous area with lots of coaches reversing. so there needs to be some control. In the end however we unloaded the coach ourselves.

 

Midday return was ok; left as soon as the coach was full which was earlier than the departure time.

 

Given the logistics of what they have to do, drivers who will naturally be unfamiliar with the area and sat nav being of limited use near the site as they have to go a set way.......  I think they do ok. Obviously there will be failures but there's factors involved that people may not appreciate. Drivers are required by law to take breaks no matter how close to the site. Just because they are coach drivers doesn't give them any better sense of direction than normal people. Most of their time is probably spent in their local area or belting along motorways. Plus See only hire the coaches; they are not their coaches and drivers, they are at the mercy of the companies they source.

Edited by Keithy
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Also mixed reports, driver on my bus down from Manchester was new to the job, wanted to stop as he was running close to his break time, which is fair enough, fair enough not though when he tries to stop 15 mins from the coach park, in a lay by with no toilets and glaring sunshine, he was soon chased and despite some paranoid moans from him just took us to the festival

The way home, instead of going on my allocated Manchester bus, then homeward to Glasgow from there, I got on the half empty (to my surprise) Glasgow bus, no fuss from the driver, he couldn't have cared less, he got £20 out of it for hee haw!!

 

Don't they need to take those breaks very seriously for legal reasons?

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In 2007 we had to arrive at 8:30am or earlier for a 9am departure.  People were told there were general delays with coaches soon to get off the motorway.  Some coaches then started to arrive....others including mine didn't.  By the afternoon, the SeeTickets portakabin people had left, after failing to deal with an increasingly angry mob.  We were stranded and Glasto security had to assume responsibility.  We eventually left after 5pm - over 8 hours late!  A fatal accident sadly meant not moving anywhere for 2 hours within half an hour of setting off and we eventually got back to Milton Keynes after midnight!

 

We were told that several coach operators subcontracted by See bailed on the job because they didn't want the mud ruining their coaches and that some coach drivers had to return to Glasto to do a second run at short notice!

 

See Tickets didn't bother responding to my letter,  The way they handled it was a disgrace and they should have lost the contract.

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I used See Coaches getting to the festival (had a mate drive my car and beer to the festival as I had to get the coach). My coach actually blew a head gasket halfway into the journey - from Bristol!! Driver had no idea what to do but luckily a replacement came within an hour, could've been a horrific start to the festival!

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I used See Coaches getting to the festival (had a mate drive my car and beer to the festival as I had to get the coach). My coach actually blew a head gasket halfway into the journey - from Bristol!! Driver had no idea what to do but luckily a replacement came within an hour, could've been a horrific start to the festival!

to be fair there's not a lot you can do about a blown head gasket.

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to be fair there's not a lot you can do about a blown head gasket.

Oh I know, it was just not what you want on your first experience of getting the coach there rather than driving. Although despite that I almost got in before my mates who queued from 11pm Tuesday due to the shambles at their gate's queue!

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Are there ever any coaches available that leave in the middle of the night to get to the site at 9ish? This is via the See coaches bookable with the coach package, I'm aware there are national express coaches available like this.

 

You could only pick times from certain locations (London, Bristol, Bath, Reading & somewhere else, I could look it up but I'm being lazy) and the earliest from London was 5am this year but I don't know about other locations

 

Anywhere else you just got allocated a time at random

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Are there ever any coaches available that leave in the middle of the night to get to the site at 9ish? This is via the See coaches bookable with the coach package, I'm aware there are national express coaches available like this.

Bristol has coaches that leave at around 6.30/7.30 and you get on site by around 9 then!

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My third year using coaches, travelling from London every time. The first two were with National Express, this year with See. When it works as it should, I can't see any better way getting to the festival.

 

Is there any reason why they wont increase the amount of coach tickets drastically, if it's better for the environment?

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Some of this sounds horrendous man. I don't think I'll ever go for coach tickets unless it's desperation!

I have an old account that I used to get a coach ticket as a reserve. Didn't get a ticket in main sale so was very thankful to have a coach ticket already purchased!

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