Dont trust Salfreds. They are the worst bus company

We booked a luxury 65 seater bus from Salfreds, in Retreat, Cape Town, for a family function in Kimberley. Date of travel was 12 to 15 July 2018. We were shown different buses and chose one that suited our needs. We were promised to get the bus we chose and full payment was required and was paid for.

To our horror on the eve of our departure for Kimberley the bus arrived at our doorstep but not the one we chose and paid for, rather a much older version thereof with broken seats and with the aircon out of order. To add insult to injury the bus was not cleaned and it was filthy with bubblegum on two of the seats. The overhead panels was loose and rattling. A real damper to start your journey. It was such a put off as there was so much effort and planning that had gone into this family trip.

We called the bus company, complained and the manager's response was: Send the bus back and find yourself another one. He was so arrogant and did not care. I suppose he knew that he had our money and he made it clear that he would make it difficult and expensive for us to get refunded our money as well as that it was to late for us to source another bus. We needed to leave in order to be in Kimberley on the 13th of July to attend the function.

We chose to accept our bad luck and vowed to never use Salfreds again nor recommend them. We left Cape Town at about 10pm on the 12th July with a bitter taste but hoping to have a pleasant ride regardless of the initial feelings of anger and deceit. After about an hour two hours we passed De Doorns on route to Kimberley and we observed a sticky coolant liquid flowing out at the rear panels. We stopped in Laingsburg and pointed out the problem to the drivers, they told us to call the office, once again a horror response, The manager he cant understand why this happened as it has never happened before. Eventually for the last few hours we had to sit crunched up in our seats as there was so much water on the floor resulting in damage to some of the personal goods of the passengers.

The drivers did fix the leak in Kimberley also cleaned the bus but we still had to travel on the return leg with no aircon and in a stuffy bus. We are gratefull that we reached home safely but will never use Salfreds again and definately not recommend this company to anyone.

Very disgusted and disapointed passenger of the bus.

Nasheer