There are lots of things that I can think of to do in NYC for two hours that would be quite enjoyable. Museums, shopping, pizza eating…. Waiting in line for over two hours for my bus to show up? Not one of those things.
I suppose I brought it upon myself when I pleaded with the universe to make my bus just a couple of minutes late. I cut things a little close when leaving Brooklyn (something about soft baby cheeks and nephews in Superman costumes made it oh so very difficult to leave). And then things got even closer when my subway car sat in between stops for what seemed like a million years. So, I was understandably a little panicked when I ran up to the Megabus stop outside Penn Station hoping that I wasn’t too late.
It was 1:13. My bus was supposed to leave at 1:15.
It turns out, I shouldn’t have been so concerned.
My bus didn’t leave until well past 3:15.
I asked for a couple of minutes and I got a couple of hours instead. Apparently somebody up there sucks at math. Although, geologically speaking, I suppose that two minutes and two hours aren’t really all that far apart.
The worst part was, they never gave us a straight answer. They claimed that they had to give our bus to the folks who had tickets for the 12:45 bus, because that bus never showed up. Except… there is no 12:45 bus on the schedule. Which would probably explain why it didn’t show up. Why they had to give our bus to people with imaginary tickets for an imaginary trip to Boston, I have no idea. All I know is, there were a lot of angry people at around 1:30 when we realized that the bus sitting there was about to leave with all of us still standing there on the sidewalk.
I don’t know if our bus didn’t show up because it broke down or because there wasn’t a driver or if it got attacked by a pack of angry badgers and had to make an unexpected detour through New Jersey. They wouldn’t tell us. They implied mechanical issues, but who knows. They also kept telling us that our bus was “on its way.” So, you know… liars, liars, pants on fires.
If someone had told me that we were going to wait 2 hours for our bus to show up, I would have had so many options. I could have gotten a proper lunch. I could have used the bathroom. I could have sucked it up, eaten the cost of my ticket and headed on over to Port Authority to catch a bus that wouldn’t get me into Boston two hours after I had planned for. Instead? They just kept teasing us with the promise of a bus of our very own. And we just stood there and watch bus after bus pull in, pick up passengers and then depart for Philadelphia.
I’m sure that Philadelphia is a lovely city (in fact, I know it is), but I’m honestly stymied by the fact that they apparently have buses that leave every five to seven minutes for the city of brotherly love. At least that’s what it felt like. I’m a little fuzzy on details what with the cold and the hunger and the needing to pee and the unremitting rage.
It finally got to the point where I confessed to the girls standing around me that I desperately longed to run down the street to Dunkin Donuts… But I was terrified that the bus would choose that moment to show up and then leave me stranded. One of the girls was nice enough to take my cellphone number and promised to call if the bus pulled in. I rewarded her generosity with a donut. Which I allowed her to give me a dollar for. Hey, I’m nice… but I’m not that nice.
We needn’t have bothered. My hot chocolate and donut were but a mere memory by the time our bus showed up.
In some ways, I suppose it was kind of fun. I got some good people watching in. And I made friends with all of my fellow would-be passengers. Nothing brings people together like pure, unadulterated hatorade and a common enemy.
In other ways, I sure could have had a lot more fun if my evening had gone as planned. I planned to eat something delicious for dinner instead of a heaping pile of nothing. I planned to be home by the time my iPhone battery died. I planned to do my five mile run outside with the dog instead of in our basement on our treadmill at 9pm. I planned to have time to watch the Patriots game on El Tivo.
The best laid plans of mice and men…
… Have no chance in hell when you take a discount bus. Apparently.
Megabus sure does take things seriously. They sent me a generic email apologizing for the incident and assuring me that this will never happen again. You’re darn straight it won’t happen again… because I’m not going to be stupid enough to take their buses ever again. They did send an email that was unique to this incident. Well, I can only assume that it was a unique email. What with all of the spelling and grammar mistakes. If this is the email that they send out anytime they fuck things up, you’d think that someone would have taken the time to correct all of those words with the blue and red underlines.
The best part? After our bus finally showed up and we were almost to Boston, I heard the unmistakable sound of tires rolling over rumble strips. What now? Was our day being capped off with a Fung Wah-like breakdown on the highway? The bus driver got out of his seat, silently made his way to the back of his bus… and walked into the bathroom to use the facilities. He was in there for quite some time. I imagine that he was pooping.
Yes, you heard it correctly. Our bus spent quite some time sitting in the breakdown lane of the Mass Pike because our driver couldn’t hold it in for the 15 minutes that we had left in our trip to Boston. We pulled into the station at Back Bay and the actual 3:15 bus was sitting there already. “Wow,” someone said, “we got beat back to Boston by the bus after us.” “Well sure,” I replied, “They didn’t have to stop for their driver to use the facilities.”
Next time? I take the Bolt Bus. Or Greyhound. Or I make Kristian drive.
and the sad part is. this happens often. i took the megabus from chicago to minneapolis.
everytime i called they told me that the driver was sick, and another one would be there in 15 mins to 30 mins.
it took 2.5 hours.
Are we feeling better now?… Have a great Thanksgiving despite the hassles, Dave.
Dang, thanks for the info. I’ve thought about using MegaBus for a trip to Chicago so now I know either to drive or not plan for exact times.
Angry badgers are really becoming a problem.
At least it didn’t catch fire like the Fung Wa buses like to do.
These comments are quite old, since then, perhaps they have gotten better. I’ve been on mega bus at least five times over the past year in 2015 and I never had any of these issues going from p.a. to / NYC. It’s an 8 hour trip. Anyways been on time, always got dropped off on time, never any issues. The only issue I ever had was passengers like this teenager in front of me that had horrible bus manners lol. That’s about it!