National Express from London Victoria - how early to arrive before departure?

[SophieBee]

We're getting the coach for the first time this year - NE from Victoria on Wednesday morning. There isn't much in the way of helpful guidance in terms of when to arrive - usually it recommends ariving 10 minutes before departure time, but I'm assuming that for festival departures that's cutting it way too fine. Does anyone regularly make this trip? How long before your departure do you usually arrive? Are there separate queues for each departure, or one big long mess of a queue?

Our coach is at 10.30am, so we've got a half-formed plan of getting to the coach station for around 9.30am (trying to avoid getting on the super-busy commuter trains before 9am if poss) - does that sound about right? I've looked on Twitter for previous advice from NE and they rather unhelpfully suggest 'as early as you can', which doesn't really give much guidance.  Grateful for anyone's experience of doing the coach trip from Victoria!

[giantkatestacks]

Whatever your coach time you get in the long winding queue and so as long as you're not taking the piss you will be find whatever time you rock up. 

[SophieBee]

1 hour ago, giantkatestacks said:

Whatever your coach time you get in the long winding queue and so as long as you're not taking the piss you will be find whatever time you rock up. 

Perfect, thanks that’s super helpful!

[chazwwe]

I'm also getting the 10:30. Staying in London the night before a friend's. Will be there a little bit before 10 just so I can relax and not worry about tube issues.