monday half past nine in the evening and i'm in london outside victoria
coach station i will be taking the megabus
overnight service up to glasgow buchanan street gets in at seven o'clock in the morning why
i don't really don't know i must be out of my head uh doing this
but uh it's gonna be an experience and i can share it with you guys however
it turns out i don't know yet but we'll see how it goes i've got about another
hour and a half before the bus leaves but yeah i'll show you some of the sights on board and
yeah we'll see how it goes shall we and i'll catch you in a little while cheers for now
yeah i like to hang around the back of victoria coach station to do these introductions and then
go through the main entrance which looks a bit different in the dark doesn't it almost enticing
although i may be stretching that a bit far because once you're through the foyer
it's the usual trudge through the concourse over to the far end where
almost inevitably my coach always seems to depart from and tonight i had the pleasure of stand 19
though i was able to find one of the metal seats to perch myself on unfortunately despite
there being many services running at this time of the night the megabus office was closed i did
wonder if it ever opened to be honest put it this way i wasn't particularly surprised
i watched a flixbus service leaving for frankfurt at
2200 the n815 service apparently i thought that looked like quite an adventurous trip
mind you i was still semi-enthusiastic at that point our service the glamorously titled m11x
calling at glasgow then on to edinburgh still had an hour before departure before that another
megabus service left for glasgow at 2230 as did a national express coach bound for edinburgh
anyway we were called to board at i don't know about 2240 and i heard the words nobody
wants to hear at this point "tonight's service will be completely full" oh my god this was the first
point in the evening where i thought about just giving it a miss and heading for the nearest hotel
but then i thought no it'll probably be okay it's only eight hours isn't it and then the next
problem right it turns out what was supposed to be a megabus was yet another non-liveried coach
in white this was a vdl executive apparently which i know nothing about it to be honest
run by a company called mcleans who i think were from somewhere in scotland
first impressions were it looked really small from the outside and once i got on board it
looked really cramped on the inside and anything but executive it was already pretty busy as well
i kept on going until i reached the back of the coat this was a mistake and the selfish couple
in front had already reclined their seats to the max before anybody behind them had even sat down
as the coach filled up it became more and more tight a lady who'd missed her earlier coach and
was rebooked onto this service was asked to leave and a chap who'd reserved a seat
was asked to move so that two people could sit together he was told to speak to megabus
and get a refund just dreadful isn't it in fact it was so full they actually asked if
anybody would be prepared to sit in the crew seat at the front of the coach i mean
that is just completely unacceptable isn't it anyway the coach finally spluttered into life
and we left victoria 20 minutes late at 2320 i'd already considered putting my hand up
and volunteering to leave so that somebody else could have my seat but it was too late
now wasn't it i was literally in it for the long haul still everybody loves a trier don't they
so about the coach well it turns out megabus had you'll laugh when you hear this right 'run
out of buses' so they're obviously not that mega are they when it comes to fleet size
and whilst proper liveried megabus coaches had already left half empty to other destinations
our undersized and oversubscribed service had been stuck on the concourse for ages
while staff tried to figure out what they were going to do about it hence our late departure
talking about being oversubscribed by the way i would love to be in that
position here on my tiny little channel eighty percent of people
that watch my stuff aren't subscribed which i think is probably the norm but
if you were able to click that button then i would really appreciate that thank you very much
anyway we started to make our way through the streets of london and i was hemmed in
right at the back i'll talk about the legroom etc a little bit later
on when it gets light and that'll give you more of an idea of what it was like
in the meantime i just tried to close my eyes and hope for the best really
and the journey was a lot smoother once we hit the motorway unfortunately that didn't last long
because of overnight roadworks we were diverted off the motorway and around milton keynes
so we spent what seemed like an age just negotiating roundabouts until we finally got back
on the m1 and then the driver announced that we would be stopping at sandbach services for about
30 minutes which at least allowed me to extricate myself from the seat and stretch my legs for a bit
well guys um it's about what time is it let me let me get a proper time here for you three o'clock
in the morning and we're at sandbach services and i've got to say this this is just absolutely
horrendous um the coach is completely rammed in fact they had to boot one person off
and the people in front of me typically reclined their seats all the way back there is i would
say there's probably in terms of leg room there's probably an inch if that between
my knee and the back of the seat and the seats are so narrow it's just absolutely ridiculous it's
it's not a megabus it's some random coach company called mcleans from
airdale in scotland in mean you can't blame them um but they've obviously got these these guys
in because they haven't got enough buses apparently that's that's what i overheard and uh is it fit
for purpose well you tell me because it's just there is no comfort at all on this bus i've got
another four hours to go and i'll tell you what i will be so glad when this is over
and i was you know i was thinking because i haven't had a minutes sleep all the way up here and i
was just thinking of a worse travel experience i've ever had and i can't think of one so
i'm kind of like well nothing can be worse than this but i hope you're finding it entertaining because
er that's kind well that's that's uh i just don't know what to say at the moment um i'll
be climbing back on board and squeezing back into my narrow seat at the at the back of the
coach and just counting the hours down now i think and then i'll speak to you again uh when we get to
glasgow if i'm still awake i'm sure i will be okay guys i'll catch you in a bit cheers for now
right so i staggered off towards the coach and before the rest of the passengers made
their way back i decided to have a look at the onboard toilet which was basic to say the least
now when i say basic you know they provide a tap as a bit of a token gesture because there's not
actually any water available from it of course nor is there any alternative like hand sanitizer
so there was absolutely no hygiene in the toilet great
anyway it began to get light and by 0600 we were north of carlisle just crossing over
the border into scotland with about 90 miles to run although i was barely awake at this point
daylight had started to reveal the true horror of my experience
as you can see here there was no leg room whatsoever and granted the inconsiderate people
in front had their seats reclined but even when they were upright it wouldn't have made much difference
there was a rather flimsy seat back table available but yeah it was in my lap
totally useless and the seats themselves well they were so narrow and i spent most of the journey
pushed up against the side of the coach with the chap next to me his arm digging into my ribs
now the scenery outside gets better the further north you travel in my opinion
but inside the coach it remained a fairly unpleasant experience all round
uh one thing to note the floor heating was absolutely roasting like all night
whilst the overhead vents blew out cold air when i asked the driver back at sandbach services if
he could just turn it down a bit but then he said it only had one setting and it's like what
um in terms of other features on our chariot of dire let's have a quick rundown shall we uh
well usb connectivity and yeah that was a positive to be fair and it did work
the driver yeah he was fine actually i mean it's a tough gig this isn't it and he did give out
several announcements over the definitely loud pa um and he was also reasonably friendly when you
actually around to speaking to him um wifi (laughs) you've absolutely no chance forget about that
storage yeah there were decent sized overhead racks along both sides of the coach and now let's
talk about price and i paid £10.99 including the £1 booking fee that megabus charge
and normally for this trip i would say that that's great value for money compared to the train but uh
you know personally there were just too many downsides to the series that megabus provided
and if i really really had to put myself through this again then i would probably pay a little
bit extra and use national express so you can do a similar trip with them for about £4 more
their coaches by the way looked much more comfortable with smaller passenger loads
but um you know if you are able to sleep solidly sitting up for eight
hours then pay your money and go for it and i wish you all the luck in the world
as you can see we were right in glasgow city centre now i was really looking forward to getting
off this thing although we were late uh traffic hadn't built up too much uh so we were able to
make our way towards buchanan street bus station mercifully quickly i like glasgow last time i was
up here i had a great time looking around there's some really nice places and friendly people too
unfortunately this time i just wanted my bed
we arrived at buchanan street 35 minutes late it's a big bus station this isn't it and yeah
next time i'm up here maybe i could try out a city link service or something similar
and just a journey in the day and uh no longer than four hours in total i think
um oh look there's a national express coach there if only anyway we pulled up on stand
right next to it actually and uh yeah i was eventually able to reclaim the use of my legs
and i just wandered off into the street to have a look back and summarize the journey
okay then guys just got to glasgow on the megabus which wasn't actually a megabus at all it was
another coach company what do you think of that i thought it was truly truly horrible
with no redeeming factors whatsoever it was cramped it was smelly it was late
honestly i it's an experience i never ever and believe me when i say this
i never ever want to try it again anyway i did it so that you guys don't have to
remember that kids thank you very much for watching and as always guys cheers for now