Private Coaches

[VisionOfLove]

Big group of us going this time round and the last 3 years we have used national express, but considering going private this year for cost and not needing to travel to coach station etc, has anyone got any experience with it?

The official website states the private coach drop is at Bronze gate. When compared to the official coaches that drop you at yellow, how far would the walk be to Park Home for example, does anyone have an idea?

Also at Bronze gate is there much of a queue early doors Wednesday, as the advantage of national express in the past has been the queue jump element..? 

If anyone's done it before and is clued up some advice would be great before booking, cheers! 

[VisionOfLove]

Surely someone's got a coach down before!?

[Cieran]

You can see bronze gate isn't a huge distance away from the national express drop off point, The closest entrance is gate A! It took us about 15-20 minutes to get from the pink car park to entrance A last year, this will depend on how much stuff you've got to carry though. Queues are likely to be equally as bad as each other come Wednesday morning.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Cieran

[cerv]

We didn’t turn up until Weds afternoon so don’t know how busy it gets at peak. You have to book a half hour time slot for arrival and departure (they appreciate you might be delayed but if you turn up early you run the risk of being turned away)

It worked pretty well despite the traffic issues. The only thing that soured it was a bunch of lads hanging around the loading point on departure day who were waiting for their pickup and getting in the way of everyone else trying to leave. There is LOADS of room to chill out on the grass with your stuff while you wait so you don’t need to get in anyone’s way. When asked politely to give some space for others to load up their vehicles they thought it funny to throw some cheap racist jibes at our driver and the odd homophobic one at a couple in our group. Was a bit depressing that the values of the festival were so completely lost on them.

Anyway, a few idiots wouldn’t stop us doing it again. There’s no special pedestrian gate for you to access, you’ll have to queue up like everyone else. I’ve never done Gate A but I’ve heard there’s priority there for coach arrivals? Don’t know if that includes private ones, I’d suspect not as by the time you get to that gate they won't know whether you've stepped off a coach or not.

We walked to Gate D which is where you might head for Park Home. Walk was fine. From checking the map I’d say the walk is not much worse than from gate A for you. How big is your group? Minibuses with around 15 seats are allowed to use the same park so worth comparing cost of coach with 2 minibuses. Gives you the ability to be a bit more nimble with local roads should traffic turn to hell.

If you want an early slot you're best off enquiring about it now.

[hpants]

Got a private coach last year, cannot for the life of me remember what gate we used - think it was bronze. But with all the traffic issues we were allowed to by-pass the congestion and waltz straight in - we were the first private coach in and got a sweet spot on pennard . Has the obvious advantages of dictating when you leave etc. Arrived at about 5am after doing an overnight journey and weren't too far back in the queue at all just had to wait for gates to open. Was about a 35 minute walk to pennard but would be much quicker if it wasnt for the mud so probably similar to park ground. 

[jonodillieono]

Is the private coach drop off literally at bronze gate?

I was under the impression the actual drop off is inbetween A and D

Can someone confirm where exactly it is? 

[Brock Landers]

It is at Bronze. I've travelled on a private coach for about the last 4 years. Last year was the first year that the coach dropped us off at Bronze gate (prev it just had been at Nat express bus / coach station). With all of the insane queues around the site it was actually piss easy getting inside. We then just walked to gate A then made the shortish walk to Bushey.

My memory of everything is probably clouded by being the most drunk I've been whilst arriving into a Glastonbury though. For all I know other people could have been having an absolutely horrific time. I was on cloud 9 though. 

[Brock Landers]

If anybody is organizing a private coach you need to get on that shit now though and book a slot. 

[jonodillieono]

 

3 hours ago, Brock Landers said:

If anybody is organizing a private coach you need to get on that shit now though and book a slot. 

Thanks we'll get on booking the slot tomorrow

So is gate A much closer than gate D from bronze? Can we even walk to gate D from bronze gate?

If we go through A I know we'll end up camping in bushy again and I really don't want to

[Brock Landers]

When we got off the coach we were basically directed towards gate A by staff. I'm unsure whether this was down to general conditions though (fuck loads of mud). As per Cerv's message above, I would assume that you should be able to walk over to gate D from there though.

[Brock Landers]

I think I'll be camping a bit closer to park / dairy ground this year so will also hopefully have the option of walking through gate D.

[jonodillieono]

On 3/3/2017 at 4:49 PM, Brock Landers said:

I think I'll be camping a bit closer to park / dairy ground this year so will also hopefully have the option of walking through gate D.

Yeah most of our group wants to camp in Dairy but a vocal few are intent on camping in Bushy. If we go through Bushy they'll almost certainly just throw their stuff down and refuse to move and I don't really fancy an argument so want to not have to cut through Bushy at all

[Brumbot]

I don't know if they changed how it works but when I got a private coach in 2015, they directed us, all other private coaches and people getting dropped off by their mum to a drop-off point way outside the festival. The spot was actually so far away from the festival that we had to queue for a shuttle bus, along with thousands of others. The queues were insane - we got to the drop-off at around 7am and didn't get on the shuttle until about 1pm and we were crammed in shoulder to shoulder the whole time. By the time we finally got to the pedestrian gate it was 2pm and any hope of getting a good camping spot had gone!

By the looks of the other replies in this thread, it looks like they have improved on it, but my experiences from that year have put me off private completely so we'll be getting a National Express.

[jonodillieono]

3 hours ago, Brumbot said:

I don't know if they changed how it works but when I got a private coach in 2015, they directed us, all other private coaches and people getting dropped off by their mum to a drop-off point way outside the festival. The spot was actually so far away from the festival that we had to queue for a shuttle bus, along with thousands of others. The queues were insane - we got to the drop-off at around 7am and didn't get on the shuttle until about 1pm and we were crammed in shoulder to shoulder the whole time. By the time we finally got to the pedestrian gate it was 2pm and any hope of getting a good camping spot had gone!

By the looks of the other replies in this thread, it looks like they have improved on it, but my experiences from that year have put me off private completely so we'll be getting a National Express.

Had you booked a drop off time or did you just turn up and wing it? We're paying £100 in total for a drop off time as bronze gate.

Maybe you weren't allowed to go there since you hadn't paid for a slot there?

[cerv]

Has anyone had any response in the last week from the private coach email address? Been trying to book our group in for this year and have had nothing back (not even an auto response) for about a week. Conscious the deadline is approaching.