Bolt Bus - 1, Crash - 0

After reading about it on Joe's blog, I decided to try out Bolt Bus for a trip to Philly this weekend. Well, not to Philly, but using Philly as a stopping point on the way to visit the family. By taking the bus instead of Amtrak, I'd save myself around $70.

Only problem, for this to work I had to catch the 5:30 bus, so I could catch a train in Philly to take me to the folks' house. If I caught the 6:30 bus, I'd get to Philly when the train I needed started running hourly and it would have been really, really late by the time I got home.

So I left work early. Made it to the bus with plenty of time. Only, no one was getting on the bus. They were just waiting around. Then the driver stepped out and said something that I'm sure was audible to the people standing within a foot of him, but was lost on the rest of us.

A few minutes later, a second Bolt Bus arrived. The first one backed up and left without taking any passengers. No problem, I thought, I'll get on the second one and we'll leave a few minutes later. Big deal.

Then the second bus drove off without taking any passengers.

Some people left, some stuck around. I waited for 20 minutes and walked over to Amtrak to get a ticket to Philly. All the evening's trains were sold out.

I'm sure I could have figured out a way to get home on NJ Transit; I've done it before. But I was so fucking pissed off at that point that I just called home and said I'd come next weekend.

So, in case Joe wants another review of Bolt Bus for his site, it sucks.