good morning guys from riga latvia and i'm just outside the bus and coach station and this morning
i'm going to be taking a coach up to tallinn in estonia and it's with a company called lux
express and in business class yes you did hear right apparently they've got a business class
on this coach and it looks really nice so i'm going to get on board in a bit
try it out and i'll let you know what i find when i get to the end of the journey
it's going to be about four and a half hours i think something like that never been to estonia
before i'm going to enjoy it hope you will too and i'll see you in a bit cheers for now
okay so riga international coach terminal to give it its proper name
was built in 1964 and it's right next to riga central railway station in the middle of the city
as you enter the main concourse you have the ticket office right in front of you
with this massive digital clock so you've got no excuse for missing the bus
there are detailed timetables on the wall to your right and a large and easy to read departure board
on your left there are also several food outlets and other shops in this area including a large
narvesen kiosk you can find these all over the city and they're great for stocking up on things
especially if you've got a long journey ahead and you need random stuff like hot dogs for example
as you walk through to the rear of the building you find yourself in the main coach and bus
area of which there are 33 stands and our coach was due to arrive on stand one which was handy
and here she is a scania irizar i8 looking very smart in a red grey and gold colour scheme
the colours are that of estonian company lux express who since 1994 have grown into the
largest international coach network in the baltic region and there are over 100 coaches
now operating routes connecting estonia latvia poland russia finland lithuania and belarus
first impressions of the interior were yeah really positive
this was a lux express lounge coach and as such was divided into two classes standard at the
front and relax at the back relax is their kind of business class offering if you like
15 seats in a 2-1 seating configuration which is compared to the standard 2-2 layout
beyond the curtain dividing the two areas you get a lot more space in relax class bigger seats
and absolutely massive legroom we'll take a closer look at the seats a little bit later on
oh incidentally before we could board the coach the driver had
to check all our travel documents and entry requirements for estonia
but after that we were ready to go and the coach departed bang on time
we made our way through the city streets alongside the tram lines at this point with the
fantastic stalinist latvian academy of sciences building in the background it reminded me a bit
of my visit to warsaw in 2020 anyway it was now time to relax and just enjoy the ride
okay so we can have a look at the seat area in a bit more detail i mentioned leg room earlier and
yeah this seat certainly doesn't disappoint just look at this for space now there's a foot stool
if you need it and plenty of storage for your free bottle of water in the seat back pouch above
overhead luggage racks stretch the length of the coach and there's plenty of room for bags up there
a coat hook on the side of each seat doubles as an earphones holder for the
seatback entertainment system below that are instructions for the wi-fi
and below that is a reasonably sized strong drop down table
and it pulls towards you with ridges and a cup holder to prevent spillage
although the guy across from me managed to spill his coffee all over the place
it's not quite as smooth as the train is it so you do need to be aware of that
and incorporated into the luggage racks are the individual reading lights and air vents
just to note you get two of these if you're sitting on the single seat side
another look at the seat pitch here as you can see
there's so much room it's not really worth pointing it out is it
it's also worth noting that the floor area was very clean as you can also see from here
curtains on the windows can be drawn and beneath the armrest on this side are two
usb charging points and a conventional plug socket
there is also another usb socket on the display and
two 3.5 millimeter headphone sockets to the left
and beneath the right hand armrest is the seat recline button
it took me a while to find this to be honest but it worked absolutely fine
the seat itself was very comfortable with the leather padded headrest certainly helping in
this respect there was also shoulder and arm padding and overall a perfectly good
seat for long distance journeys even i could probably have a quick nap in one of these
one more thing of note the seat belt was a lap belt only
but we were all instructed to wear it before the journey commenced
okay so let's get on to the onboard entertainment system and
when you start it up you have to watch a safety briefing about the you know what
which really does last for about 45 seconds and after that you've got a choice of movies tv shows
music games audio books internet or the moving map it's just like an aircraft really isn't it
i had a look at the movies and yeah there's plenty on there to
keep you occupied similarly with the music you're not going to be stuck for
anything to listen to unless you're really picky about stuff like i am
the internet section didn't really work that well on this occasion but i thought it
was pushing my luck a bit to try to get the bbc app to work but it didn't really do much anyway i
chose to play a few games of angry birds instead much more entertaining in my opinion anyway
and after that i had a look at the moving map which also worked pretty well whenever i used it
wi-fi was really quick and strong i managed to get youtube up and running so
i could look at some of my favorite channels although for some reason it didn't seem to
want to connect to non-stop eurotrip's channel maybe it's because i was on a bus
anyway back to the scenery and we crossed the border into estonia here
without stopping and continued on our way towards tallinn
all right so it was time to do another loo review on a coach
a large mirror was in situ and there was soap and paper towel available and plentiful
a toilet brush is provided and there's a litter bin toilet roll a large flush button along
with what i think was probably a small heater handy for longer stays in this area i guess
there's a handle there which is absolutely essential for coach isn't it
and the sink was clean and the tap worked just fine there was a bit of splashing around the
seat area but i guess that comes with the territory really on the coach doesn't it
right so immediately outside the toilet area just up the steps is the coffee machine
and i hadn't seen anyone use this yet but I just had to give it a try didn't i
and yeah it's just like any other coffee machine i guess only on a coach
it made me a coffee and i took it back to my seat to drink after that everybody started using it
i paid 28 euros for my relax class ticket one way compared to 16 euros in the standard seats
would i pay extra again um maybe but to be honest the standard seats are excellent value
themselves and they also have access to the entertainment system and the coffee machine
standard class pricing is fairly comparable to the train but the coach is much much more
convenient my journey back to riga on the train will be coming up on this channel soon
okay guys i'm in tallinn just got off the bus behind me there or should i say deluxe
coach because that was quite honestly the best coach journey i have ever made yeah fantastic
coach i hope you enjoyed watching my journey and just seeing what kind of facilities that coach
has got to offer lux express is the name and yeah absolutely fantastic would recommend it
to anybody it's actually yeah about half an hour early we got in just about just past
two o'clock and we were scheduled to arrive about half past i think so absolutely brilliant i've
got to go into the bus station now and try and find myself a three-day travel card which is
going to get me around Tallinn for the next few days obviously so yeah wish me luck with that i
hope you enjoyed this journey thank you very much for watching and as always guys cheers for now