Bolt Bus?

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I'm going to the new York Comic Con next month by bus, and am debating taking the Bolt Bus over the Chinatown bus.

Has anyone had a good or bad experience with the Bolt Bus?

Comments

[gingernoname.livejournal.com]

I took the Bolt Bus to NYC last March. It was clean, quiet and filled with college students. The WiFi and power outlets both worked consistently. I'd use them again.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This makes me feel much better.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

They are essentially the same. I think Bolt Bus would drop you off closer to the con, which might be nice. It may have changed, but Bolt requires advanced ticket purchases, where Lucky Star and Fung Wah lets you just show up and pay. Fung Wah still didn't have internet the last time I went, but that was a long while ago.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Meh, NYC's transit system isn't that hard to navigate, and I always buy tickets in advance.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

it's not hard, but it is certainly time consuming.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Bolt does not *require* advance ticket purchases, but it sells out rather quickly (especially for weekends) and it's free to get an account with them (giving you priority seating, and if you use them a lot, free rides) so I suppose it's recommended.

To the OP: Use Bolt! They have never been anything but wonderful to me, and I and the boy I was dating in NYC wound up using them a LOT last Semester. My only recommendation is to allow extra time for NYC traffic (I feel I usually get in at least fifteen minutes after they say I will, and occasionally as long as forty-five)

~Sor

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I never buy advance tickets for the Chinatown bus. I just show up 5 minutes before. They know how many buses to run, because the bus almost always fills up with last-minute passengers, with nobody left behind.

[upsidown.livejournal.com]

Actually, you can show up and pay with Bolt, too. You get in the standby line with $20. If there's room on the bus, you get on. In my experience they always take from the standby line, and 9 out of 10 times I get on for the next bus.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

when bolt first started someone told me you had to pay in advance. as a result, they were dead to me forever ;)

my experience has always been I show up at South Station and get on the first bus to NYC.

[upsidown.livejournal.com]

yeah, i love the freedom of just showing up with money and getting on the next bus... but without the sketch factor of the Fung Wah and with free wifi. no idea when they started it, and it means you don't earn free rides, but the flexibility for me is worth it.

[marphod.livejournal.com]

All of the NYC buses now go from South Station; the Chinatown bus (Fung wah) is no longer an exception to this.

Mega Bus and Bolt Bus are cost competitive, and offer WiFi service en route. If you don't care about the WiFI, the big difference is where in NYC the buses will drop you off. Pick the one that is closest to your target destination.

As for the buses, Bolt is a 50/50 owned operation of Peter Pan and Greyhound. Mega is an operation of Coach USA/Canada, all of whom are long running professional bus companies with decent accident/travel records. Fung Wah is much more suspect in that field.

Bolt and Mega average 5$ more per one-way, but have early bird seats (sometimes) that you can get online for much less.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've been taking the Lucky Star bus, but the lack of shocks on the buses makes me rather sore and grouchy after a ride.

[ron_newman]

I've taken Mega and been generally happy, but one of their double-decker buses had a horrifying low-clearance accident in Syracuse last month, when the driver took a wrong turn and ended up on a parkway similar to Storrow Drive.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Right. No Mega Bus for me. Thanks for the heads-up!

[tober.livejournal.com]

While that was certainly a terrible incident, it is probably not indicative of a systematic problem with Megabus. No equipment problems were involved and, although it is conceivable that the driver received inadequate training or was not permitted adequate rest, I think it's more likely that the driver's training and scheduling were adequate but that he really screwed up for reasons not known to us.

[skexy.livejournal.com]

I've taken either bolt or mega bus once and it was fine.....its a bus.....I generally pick my carrier based on where they pick up and drop off in NY, the one problem I had with them is that the pickup is outdoors; so if the weather sucks; you're all wet. Usually I just do greyhound as port authority is convenient for taking a single train to my brother's place, and well, its always indoors.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I love Bolt Bus. Sign up for their membership, it's free and they seriously never email you. The trick is, signing in automatically puts you in the "A" group which boards first. To me it's totally worth it. Haven't found the alleged $1 fares yet but I hear they do it in the dead of night and only briefly. Still...bigger seats, clean, on time, I like it.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I've gotten one or two one dollar fares --I follow them on twitter, which is occasionally a little spammy, but often tells me when they open up the new chunks of fares --they do it in two or three week blocks, a month or two in advance.

~Sor

[placeboweek.livejournal.com]

I've only taken Bolt Bus to NYC, but I like it just fine. The buses are comfortable, quiet, and clean, and the wifi is a nice feature.

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

I've taken Fung Wah once and hated it. They were driving at an unsafe speed, it was extremely dirty (my seat was covered in peanut shells, wtf) and loud.

I was in a Boston-NYC relationship last year so I took Bolt Bus every other week. They are fantastic. Love the Wifi. If you're waiting in NYC, the stop is indeed outdoors, but it's in front of a theater that has an overhang that you can wait under if it's raining. Like the others said, make an account. You get to board first, and after 8 one-way rides, you get one free. The drivers I've had have all been great, they are nearly always on time leaving the origin, and they are only late arriving at the destination when there's traffic (which tbh there usually is). I'd count on being a half hour to an hour later than their ETA. Some drivers are awesome enough to remind everyone to keep quiet, including ringtones off and iPod volume down.

Megabus has given me nothing but problems and I would never recommend them. I've taken them four times and there was always a huge problem.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

I've taken Bolt bus twice. Nice, clean buses, has free wifi, and it drops you in midtown Manhattan, a short walk from Port Authority (if you need a bathroom when you get off the bus) I highly recommend them!

[sindrian.livejournal.com]

I just talked to a bunch of people with the exact same question. The consensus was that the chinatown bus, while sometimes a little faster, has a tendency to catch fire (literally happend to someone I talked to twice, and was mentioned by others I spoke to as well). The Bolt bus however has extra legroom, free wifi, and outlets at every seat, which is why I'm on one right now.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

++

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

This person you talked to must be very unlucky, since there have been only two reported Boston-NYC Chinatown bus fires: Fung Wah on 8/16/05, and Lucky Star in December '08. Also, on 2/18/07, a Sunshine casino bus subcontracted to Tremblay Motorcoach caught fire. Nobody was injured in any of these incidents.

If there had been any other fires, I'm sure the media would have been all over it.

Nationwide, Greyhound had at least 3 fires this summer.

Conclusion: stuff happens.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

my fung wah caught on fire and I am pretty sure it wasn't those dates--it was a minor engine poof that killed the bus (we did see actual flames shoot out), forced us to get off, but otherwise was pretty low key. It also happened right in new haven so a few of us just got a cab for the train station.

anyhow, minor fires happen a lot and don't necessarily get reported. I've only had 2 breakdowns in maybe 50 boston-nyc round trips, both with fung wah.

Lucky Star, on the other hand, has always been a decent experience for me and the drivers are swift without being frightening. They also bypass all the NYC traffic more or less. The ones going near Port Authority often take an extra half hour or more because of that. The last time I was on Lucky Star it still had new bus smell.

[tober.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, and I've only taken the various buses a small number of times, so I don't know how systematic this is, but I'll mention the following differences I noted between Lucky Star and Megabus:

Lucky Star winds up in far lower Manhattan and gets there via the Brooklyn Bridge. Megabus winds up near Penn Station and gets there by driving down surface streets from way the heck in upper Manhattan. Other things being equal, Megabus is likely to spend more time than Lucky Star in NYC traffic. Depending on exact circumstances, you might very well be able to take Lucky Star and then get from Chinatown to Penn Station (if that's where you were going) by subway in less time than it took Megabus to get to (near) Penn Station.

Lucky Star drivers seem to have little respect for speed limits whereas Megabus drivers seem to be reasonably scrupulous about obeying relevant traffic laws including speed limits. Megabus's equipment seems to be in generally better repair than Lucky Star's. Sometimes in my experience on Megabus the wifi was not functioning or they substituted a DATTCO-liveried bus that didn't have wifi - although even then the bus itself was just fine.

I think what I have said about Megabus probably holds true in general for Bolt as well (except I have heard that the wifi more often works on Bolt) and what I have said about Lucky Star probably applies to Fung Wah but my impression is that in general where Lucky Star is sketchy, Fung Wah is perhaps even sketchier.

At one point, Megabus (but not Bolt) was using the bus loop at Back Bay as its drop-off/pick-up point in Boston, however now I think all four services are using South Station.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I would not be happy if I got stuck on a bus that obeyed the 55 mph speed limit all the way from New Haven to the NYS line, and the 65 mph limit on I-84.

[ron_newman]

Yes, Megabus has returned to South Station, after they moved some overhead pipes that had previously been too low to allow double-decker buses into the station.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

I took the Chinatown bus twice. I have regretted it heavily both times.

Bolt, on the other hand, is very nice, for the reasons everyone else lists.

Megabus is similar to Bolt. Not as nice as Bolt, but still better than the Chinatown bus by far.

[teko.livejournal.com]

I've had nothing but good experiences with the Bolt. Clean, efficient, fast, and the wifi & power plugs have always worked.

Having gotten to NYC many different ways, my order of preference for buses is:
BoltBus
Megabus
Greyhound/PeterPan
Fung Wah

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Yep, that is my bus order of preference also. The Fung Wah and Lucky Star buses certainly get you there, but the actual vehicles tend to be older and have less legroom than the others.

Also, I am allergic to many perfumes and colognes, and I find that more of my fellow passengers on the Fung Wah and Lucky Star buses have been wearing enough scent to trigger my allergies than on the BoltBus and Megabus.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

A friend and I took Bolt down and back a few months ago and I was very pleased with the experience. Well maintained equipment, friendly staff and comfortable (for a bus) seats. Certainly better than airplane seats, fwiw. On time both ways, too :-)

Recommended.

[upsidown.livejournal.com]

I agree with all the positive things about Bolt. The only negative thing is that sometimes they make a pit stop partway through. While this is nice in that it allows you to get something to eat and pee in a structure that isn't barreling down the highway, the choice of place isn't always great. Once they stopped at a Burger King. Nothing else. Twice, they stopped at a place that had a Roy Rogers and a Sbarro. It was just odd! It's much better, in my mind, when they stop at places with several food choices.

[eredien]

I took the Bolt Bus to NYC a year ago. It was great--good Wifi, comfy seats, good air circulation, cheap, quick--until we hit a fish truck in heavy traffic in NYC. But a subway stop was right nearby, so there were no problems getting into the city.