good morning guys from london the last time i was sat in this square i'd just come off a
national express coach from wolverhampton all the way down to london victoria coach station
and to be honest it wasn't particularly enjoyable and so anyway that video proved
to be quite popular and judging by some of the comments that you made
i should have tried a much nicer route with a much nicer coach well here i am today doing just that
i'm going to be taking a double decker coach from here to bristol now apparently this is
this is one of the best routes with one of the best buses i've got an upstairs seat
i'm actually looking forward to this i hope my previous experience hasn't put me off too much
i'll tell you what why don't you come with me the coach station is just over there we'll wait
for the bus get on the bus and see how it goes and it's about two and a half hours i think it
takes to bristol so when i get there i'll give you a summary of what i found i'll see you on the bus
well i think the only way to enter victoria coach station is through the front of this fantastic
1930s art deco building and for a bus station it's pretty distinctive isn't it
built in 1932 the frontage is complemented by the circular foyer which has been modernized
somewhat but it still looks pretty cool with all the departures laid out in front of you in a kind
of semi-circular design and with all the barriers you've got to negotiate at the moment it's really
easy to miss this fantastic tiled floor with the compass motif right beneath your feet
staff were helpful at this point and directed me through to the coach stands predictably my
coach would arrive at one of the furthest stands stand 18 but it did give me the opportunity to
wander through the labyrinthine corridors and waiting areas that surround the concourse where
the coaches await there are lots of food outlets here including the usual suspects but quite useful
really as i suspect there's very little in terms of catering on any of the services these days
there are lots of comings and goings here as you would expect from the busiest
coach station in the uk mainly national express but i did see flixbus and megabus
neither of which i have tried so far incidentally
now apparently there are 22 stands at victoria coach station
so the other two must be out in the street somewhere beneath each stand
is the destination of the next coach and its time of departure
well i knew today that coach service 040 from here direct to bristol would
be a double decker which featured premium seating and i had planned
my booking accordingly i'll tell you how much it cost in total at the end of this video and
you know i think you're going to be really surprised at the price i paid
the coach is in fact a five-year-old scania caetano boa vista which i'm sure anyone who
is an enthusiast will know unfortunately my knowledge of the vehicle only extended
as far as establishing that the driver's name was nick well i assumed it was anyway
nick checked our tickets and interestingly performed a temperature check on everybody's
wrists well i haven't seen that before to be honest anyway i boarded the bus and followed
the sign upstairs i had reserved seat 1d for this journey which was right at the front on the right
obviously i knew this already but the guy sitting in 1a it did insist on telling me
it was a reserved seat anyway so predictably he was met with a suitably grumpy response but
of course he didn't know that i'd only had a couple of hours sleep the night
before to be fair so i do apologize if he does happen to be watching this video
my first impression was what a plushness and yeah there's definitely an area of exclusivity
attached to sitting in these front seats as well as the sticker in the window there was a cardboard
reserved sign attached to the seat belt which i thought was a nice touch the premium seats spanned
the first three rows i think of the upstairs section and they were very comfortable i did
wonder whether i'd still be thinking this after a couple of hours but i love the mood lighting
beneath the seats what do you think i reckon it's it's not a big thing to install this but
it really adds to the experience in my opinion and it would look super cool at night
above each seat was an air vent and individual reading lights which i wouldn't be using today
but again they would be handy at night i did feel an air of superiority as i gazed
down at the single decker coaches alongside yeah i was really looking forward to this
as we left victoria an automatic safety briefing was played telling everybody about
the you-know-what interestingly it started going on about using text messages instead
of voice calls to reduce the risk of spread i've never thought about this before have you
it did take some time to negotiate the streets of central london but
again there were some lovely views of the thames from the upper deck and obviously
this part of the journey must be factored into the overall time it's a bit of sightseeing at
the end of the day and being upstairs at the front of the coach was a great place to do this
anyway before too long we made out of the traffic for now and on to
the open road it was time to make some progress on the good old m4 motorway
i tried the toilet out this time it was downstairs but i would have been
able to tell if it was occupied or not by the handy indicator upstairs
it was small but everything worked apart from the soap
there was hand sanitizer in there though i just about managed to turn around in this
small space but at the end of the day it serves its purpose and that's what matters
and one thing i was glad about was not having to sit next to it i did enough of that in my
younger days in the us spending hours and hours on greyhound buses - good times though
i tried the wi-fi and this time i didn't get anything at all so i'm assuming it was turned off
i'm not going to expect wi-fi on these buses anymore i think if it works
it's a bonus in my opinion they do seem worse for reliability than the trains but
that doesn't really bother me anymore to be honest i'll just use 4g
the seat reclines a good distance and was comfortable enough for me to try and get a quick
10 minute power nap yeah i felt very comfortable in these premium seats note also the curtains here
essential at night i would say most definitely
along with the better leg room there is a really large table in front of you to put your stuff on
mainly crisps and gadgets for me so i was grateful for the abundance of usb charging points i had
the table all to myself as expected but in normal times there would still be ample room there anyway
now obviously the one big drawback with the coach is the potential effect of traffic congestion
well there's not much national express or anybody else can do about that but it is something that
may put me off if i was in a rush to get somewhere i wasn't today which was good because around 18
miles out of bristol at approximately 12 20 we did hit heavy traffic unfortunately this was due
to a serious accident on the other carriageway i really hope nobody was seriously hurt or worse
we passed the peasants in the megabus shortly after reaching bristol
our arrival at bristol was timetabled at 12 45 there was no way we were going to hit that but
quite handily as traffic slowed again we were able to use the bus lane to hasten our progress
in fact we reached bristol at 12 51 only six minutes behind schedule which was pretty good
overall wasn't it now with regards to the price i booked this direct with national express and i
paid an amazing two pounds 90 pence one way plus a further five pounds to upgrade to premium seating
which made a grand total of seven pounds 90 pence now i think that's fantastic value for money
and incidentally i've seen tickets for as low as 90 pence for this journey which is absolutely amazing that isn't it
okay guys i've just got off the coach at a bristol coach station
coming all the way from london victoria coach station it was a little bit late getting here
took about two hours 51 minutes and that was mainly due to congestion really on the roads
which can't really be helped but it is one of the pitfalls if you're considering this mode of
transport all in all though i would say um there's two massive reasons why i would do it again
the type of coach i was on this time and the price so if i did want to do coach travel again
i would definitely consider the type of coach it is before making a booking and also relevant to
the price as well anyway i'm off back down to bristol temple meads now i'm catching
another train heading north so thanks for watching this hope you really enjoyed it i
certainly really really enjoyed making it and i'll catch you on another trip soon cheers for now