Travel rule #593: never Google information about Greyhound the night before you have a bus trip with them.
Seriously. You’ll be unable to tear yourself away from the tales of agony and woe that proliferate on every message board, and there’s an approximately 0% chance that you’ll come away feeling any better about the experience ahead of you.
But every good rule has an exception, and here it is: if you’re travelling with Greyhound Express, you have far less to worry about. Greyhound Express launched in late 2011, and has several important differences from regular Greyhound services – not that anyone seems to have told Greyhound’s employees or web developers yet.
Here’s what you need to know.
There are no stops! (Except when there are)
The most confusing thing about Greyhound Express is that the ‘Express’ part is by no means the most important differentiation from normal Greyhound service.
The idea of ‘Express’ is that there aren’t any stops, so you get there quicker. But on our journey (NYC to DC) there was a stop. So go figure.
For some reason Greyhound focuses on this part (despite it not being true, and not that much of a big deal anyway) and the ‘from $1′ fares (which is a gigantic stretching of the truth), and not on the actually impressive bit: holy hell, you get a guaranteed seat!
Speaking of which…
You only need to arrive 15 minutes early (but Greyhound will lie to you about this)
Disregard anything Greyhound or its employees tell you. While we’re here, this is a pretty good general rule for life – up there with “avoid jokes around immigration officers with guns” and “never eat in an Aberdeen Angus steakhouse” (if you don’t know what an Aberdeen Angus steakhouse is, trust me on this one).
But yes, Greyhound’s confirmation emails will lie to you and say you need to be there an hour before departure. Greyhound’s own employees will carefully scrutinise your Express ticket and advise you that two hours would be a safter bet to guarantee a seat.
You don’t. 15 minutes is ample, and your seat is guaranteed. Congratuations! You just saved yourself 45 minutes at a bus station. And you’d be surprised by how much bad stuff can happen to you in 45 minutes at a bus station.
I’d now rather travel by bus than be out-stared by a freaky child on the subway
There’s free wifi! (But bring a book)
I can find a near-limitless number of things to be annoyed about when it comes to buses and trains, but a lack of wifi isn’t one of them. I mean, the very idea of it seems like magic to me: how do they keep the phone cable from getting tangled around other vehicles, for one thing?
But Greyhound will lie to you again and say that Express services have free wifi access. Sure, they have a network ID that comes up in your list, but good luck connecting to it.
So, no wifi. But a Greyhound bus is one place where you’ll routinely see things even weirder than anything you can find on the internet.
You don’t need to go to bag check
Again, Greyhound will tell you that you need to check your bag at the bus station. You don’t – just carry it to the bus, and an employee will delicately fling it under the bus for you. Or in the storage area under the bus, on a good day.
You can print your tickets at home
Will Greyhound’s confirmation email tell you this? Heck no! But haven’t you remembered the “disregard everything Greyhound tells you” rule? (and wait, is that steak sauce around your mouth?)
So avoid waiting in line and print your tickets at home, if by some miracle your printer has both paper and ink and doesn’t jam for no reason. When our alien overlords arive they’ll still be amazed we can’t just show a ticket on our smartphone to board a bus, but it’s a step in the right direction.
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So, to sum up, Greyhound Express is actually pretty good – it just seems like Greyhound themselves don’t know it. It means bus travel is now above ‘getting a root canal’ on my personal Hierarchy of Experiential Pleasantness, but still a couple of notches below ‘being stared at by a child on the subway’. We’ll get there!
Dare I ask for your memorable Greyhound experiences? Cancel that session with your therapist and vent in the comments below.