Worst Bus Experience

Good day,

I would like to complain about your service, that is to say the complete lack thereof.

I had booked 2 return tickets to Midrand from Port Shepstone and back on the Mainliner. The departure date was for Friday the 22nd and return was for Monday the 25th in the morning. The entire fiasco of a trip started on Thursday the 21st. I received an sms that my bus was cancelled, no other information other than it stating it was my responsibility to contact your call centre. When your company cancels someone’s trip, surely you should contact them with more information, not a stock standard message. When I got through to your call centre, I was informed that my return ticket had been cancelled and that I need to select a different trip. I have a job that I need to get back to, and cancelling a few days before is not helpful. The lady stated that I could use the budgetliner on Monday night instead. When I asked her why it had to be downgraded to a budgetliner, I received no explanation, other than the next mainliner is only available on Thursday. I asked her if there was a ticket price change and if I would receive the difference back as I was not the person who cancelled in the first place. The ticket was then changed to Monday night at the Big Bird Engen at Midrand.

Friday Morning came and upon entering the bus, we were nearly overwhelmed with the stench of urine. It was nauseating and unfortunately there were no windows or airflow to ease the smell. Just past Durban, while we needed to exit the bus to try get some fresh air, we were informed that the circulation system was broken and we had two choices. We could either wait for an engineer or have the vents opened that were on the roof. None of us wanted to wait and the vents were opened to allow some airflow. After the stop in Harrismisth, the circulation system miraculously became repaired and the air finally seemed to be clean. The journey was uneventful until we entered Park Station. Upon arrival, when people were leaving the bus, a gentleman came onto the bus and informed us that the bus had just broken down. This was while the bus was still idling with us inside it. We were told to get off the bus and into a smaller budgetliner for the rest of the journey. No other explanation after that. We all got off the bus and watched as they transferred the luggage to the new bus. When we boarded, the bus was already full and some of us had to stand in the aisle as there was no open seat available. When they saw this, they told us that everyone standing had to get back off the bus and onto a new bus again. It turns out the “new” bus was the broken down bus we just departed, imagine our surprise when we had to get on a “Broken” bus. The driver sped through Johannesburg and we finally reached our destination approximately 30 minutes late. We had to wait for the second bus to arrive as it still had our luggage on board. We finally were able to meet our lift and vowed we would never book another bus after this again.

Monday night comes and we head off early to the Big Bird Engen 1 stop where our ticket states is the pickup point. Just past 7pm, a mainliner bus pulls up. I approached the driver, who had headphones on, and asked him if this was the bus heading back to Port Shepstone. He took off his headphones and while barely acknowledging me, said “No” then turned around and put his headphones back on. This could have been handled differently and had he bothered to actually pay me any mind, possibly avoided what happened next. We waited some more, and at 7:35 a budgetliner arrived. There were quite a few of us at the stop and everyone immediately made their way over to the bus. When we enquired if this was indeed our bus, the driver stated no and that we should go to the other side. We asked him what he meant as our tickets stated that this was the stop. He became sarcastic and said what don’t we understand. This is Northbound and we obviously needed to go South, so surely we should know that we were on the wrong side. We begged him to please phone the bus and let them know that we were all on the way. We got to the next stop, at approximately 7:45 but by then the bus had already left. We found it funny that the bus left so many of its passengers behind. I spoke to the lady manning the counter and asked if the bus had left, she said it obviously had if it wasn’t here. We said that the ticket makes no mention to a southbound or northbound pickup point, and her answer was. “We know, we fight with the company all the time about this. It happens quite often, but they said it would cost to much to change.”. I couldn’t believe what I heard, so the company is aware of this issue, yet when many of your clients are not there you still don’t afford them just that extra bit of time, even when you are late all the time. I asked her how the bus could leave when so many passenger were not onboard and she stated “Well most people were obviously here and the locals know what route they’re supposed to be on” How on earth would non locals like us, who booked the bus because we don’t know the area, supposed to know what route we were supposed to take? She said we must phone the call centre if we wanted to do anything. There were a bunch of us, now trapped at nearly 8pm on Monday night with no way to get home. When I asked if there were any other busses available, she said no, only tomorrow morning.

How can your tickets not tell us there is a different bus stop? We are not local to the area, and have no idea where we are supposed to go, hence why we use google and your tickets to tell us where to go. This has been the worse Bus and travel experience I have ever had. I want a refund from the trip back, as the tickets were R675 each and I couldn’t use them in the end. I had to pay for alternative transport to get home on time.