In Indonesia, for 9hr 30min journey, you have choices of bus classes. From standard seat with no leg rest, with leg rest, or even sleeper bus, equipped with blanket and pillow, just like on an airplane, Economy, Business, or First
I took Flixbus many times (7 or 8) when I spent a year and a half in Antwerp and used it to travel to Paris. Antwerp-Paris is only 115 mins by train, but I preferred to take the midnight bus (00.15 usually) at Antwerp train station which takes the slow road to Paris so you arrive at 0615 or 0625 at Bercy. That gives you a good night's rest in comfy seats that don't look anything like you had, Paul Lucas, and you arrive at the perfect moment to see the city come alive, have a hot chocolate and croissant, drop your stuff at a hotel and enter your first museum of the day at 0900. With the morning train that would be impossible, you see. For the return trip we usually took the train at 2000 or 2100 and were in bed 150 mins later.
Interesting video Paul. Spotted a Flixbus up here in Northumberland the other day, never heard of them before. I was a coach driver for many years and having people in the seat right behind the diver can be a nightmare on a tour bus. People pay premiums to be able to sit and tell the driver how badly he’s driving lol. Love the idea of paying to be neighbour free. Interesting seeing a coach in the 3rd lane of a 3 lane motorway ( quite illegal). In all my years taking school groups to the EU I was fortunate never to have the rigmarole of disembarking all the kids at Dover, had it on the return at Eurotunnel, but that’s well organised. Makes me miss my driving days. Thanks for sharing Paul.
(EDIT: all seems well now!) RU-vid is having a great afternoon I see. I can see all your comments in my analytics - but they aren’t appearing here! They’re not stuck in spam, so it’s a mystery where they all are. Perhaps they are stuck on a Flixbus and will arrive later 😃 I’ll see what I can do to give the old RU-vid machine a kick! Thanks always for your comments 🙌🏻
My main issue with traveling on buses is most are not designed to support additional crews to support the driver who should be seperated from the passengers to be able to focus on driving... and with the large number of passengers there has to be more bathrooms, but, to make a bus more accomodating they need to request these options from specialized coach fitters ... "You need to spend money to improve your postential profits and improve services". I would like for you to revisit Saud Arabia as a tourist ... since your last video there many improvements have occured with regards to transportation and support services using airplanes, trains and bus services. Atitudes with regards to welcoming people there is the mainstay.
I tried out this service for the first time as part of a longer trip I was taking from London to Prague. Not a great start when I got a text message saying "Your coach is delayed by 210 minutes". The coach was due to depart Victoria at 10:30 but left at 15:00 (I killed time at the London Transport Museum in between). To make matters worse it was a leased coach, so it had no WiFi or charging ports, similar to your journey. The M20 was smooth going despite Operation Brock being in force, but we still got to Dover even more behind schedule. Thankfully, passport check was done in 5 minutes, but still, by 19:00 - the original arrival time in Paris - we had only just left the UK on the ferry. So, driving through northern France at midnight, I had to call to change my connecting coach, and do the same for the 75 year old gentleman next to me who was having issues remembering his details. We arrived in Bercy Seine at around 03:00, and it was hardly a friendly atmosphere, more like a dingy basement crossed with a back alley. However, with my new connection at about 08:30, and despite the offer of cover for an 80 euro hotel (but no guarantee of a room), I thought with the possible 3 hour sleep I was going to get I may as well stay awake. Luckily, someone on the coach was also heading to Prague so they stayed with me as I napped for an hour on the solid stone bench. We were the first customers of the morning in a nearby patisserie. I had a much better sleep and journey on the connecting coach, but got into Prague also behind schedule (by 2 hours this time), arriving at 01:00. It was not fun trying to find a hotel I did not book (a friend did), in a city I've never been, in a country I've never been at 1am. Mercilessly, the journey back was *much* better.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I did this trip from Paris to London back in February 2020 (on Brexit day) and I sat in the same seat that you did. We went through the tunnel rather than on the ferry.
In 2015, I took a Flixbus from Berlin to Munster (a 542 km 6-hour ride) and back to Berlin 5 days later. That was a great experience. In 2018, I bought a Flixbus ticket to enable me to travel from Munster to Arnhem. Guess what, the bus did not show up. I ended up taking the train. For the Berlin-Munster trip, the bus seats were comfy with descent leg-room and the German-speaking driver was pleasant. We made a 45-minute stop in Hannover for dinner and there was a driver change shortly thereafter. The second driver only spoke German as well. Would I take Flixbus again? Definitely yes. A cheap and decent way to tour and view Europe. One cannot get the sights and sounds of Europe when traveling by train.
Great video, always wondered what the ferry part of the trip is like, the interior looks surprisingly modern and well laid out. I regularly take the flixbus and blablabus between Brussels and Paris, I haven't yet done the bus option and any trip to London usually involves onward journey to Scotland unless I'm staying over so it's a bit long. I do note that the difference between the bus and Eurostar pricing often isn't far and so rail is more appealing to me. At least on mainland Europe I've found the buses to be packed at full capacity and things like reservations go out of the window; people will argue with you if you try to take your allocated seat and often the driver doesn't want to get involved, so I never book these extras. Thanks for the video!
I did the same journey a few weeks ago but from Manchester to Paris. Nice coach swap at Cambridge, and not that many people on all the way to Paris. Coach drivers were brilliant as well! The only thing is that being over six foot and with someone reclining their chair into your legs, it’s not the vibe but for £35 I couldn’t scoff!
Brings back some memories, I took Europlines a lot when I was a kid. I recently made a trip-report where I departed from London Victoria railway station, however I couldn't leave it to show a bit of the Victoria Coach station. Great video! By the way, as far as I know flixbus doesn't have a lot of busses themselves, the busses are mainly being operated by contractors, however because a bus company needs to have busses, they do own some of course.
Some years ago we took a coach from London to Paris via channel tunnel and I seem to remember it was a lot faster , if I remember correctly it was between 3/4 hours and we thoroughly enjoyed it .
3-4 hours to drive to Paris from London? Did your driver engage the warp engine? 😆 It takes two hours to drive London to Folkestone and three hours to drive from Calais to Paris. Tunnel check in is at least one hour before departure and the crossing takes 35 minutes, so impossible to complete the journey in less than about 6 hours and 30 minutes, and that is assuming zero traffic!
I used Flixbus from Paris to Geneva, then Marsellie to Lyon about 5 days later, both was fine, although it was a little nerve tingling waited for them, but over all I found them good. The Paris to Geneva was especially as the spare driver/conductor was really nice and helpful, even when her English was limited and my French was much much worse, but that is only two journeys out of the hundreds a day they do.
I did an overnight bus once from London to Amsterdam... never again, it took 15 long and painful hours... did the eurostar in 3.5 hours the other day, a total no brainer
Great vlog as always! First and last time I took the bus from the UK to Paris was in summer of 1986. I was in Brigthon on a EF summer school. DFDS is THE most expencive ferry company in Northern Europe. Prices in their restaurants costs more than a fancy restaurant in Oslo! The DKK to the NOK are 40% more. DFDS is no value for money if you ask me. I was forced to travel with them back in 2005. No bueno. Keep up your good work. Be safe!
I recently got a leased "FlixBus" from Utrecht to Brussels, which I was forced to take during the Dutch rail strike. It had an out of order bathroom, no WiFi, and no plugs. FlixBus positions themselves as better than regular coach buses, but don't deliver.
Nice to see a different mode of transport from you 😊. I can no longer take buses, owing to my disabilities, but it was great to watch and hear the review anyway. See you next time!
There was a gd kebab place just outside Victoria coach station that served big portions. Thnx for showing this i will be taking this journey roubd trip from Galicia in NW Spain to Manchester,decided this as had flixbus vouchers to use so ended up paying far less than flying.
Paul if you ever get a chance you should try the MarcoPolo Explorer buses in South America. Pure luxury bus travel. Bus Fredes out of Buenos Aires or ETM bus on the Chiloe peninsula in Chile we’re our favourites. Great video as always 💪🏽
Flixbus don’t actually own or operate buses. They work a bit like a ticketing agency and handle booking, branding marketing etc. The routes are operated by partner bus operators from a number of different countries. Even the branded buses are operated by partner operators. The model has allowed them to grow crazy quickly throughout Europe. Once got a flixbus from Krakow airport to Bielsko-Biała (about 85km 90mins) in southern Poland for €2. Nice new bus, comfy enough seats. You really can’t argue with the value for money
used to drive this journey myself back from my days on the coaches. school kids into Paris and Disneyland etc. I know the station you arrived at well. coach got burgled there one night
took it once from the Netherlands to the UK, it wasn't a good experience, seats are tiny, but the biggest issue canceled first ride, and then had to wait for a long time in the hope another one would come. it's cheap, but not comfortable. When I returned I sat at that same place you were sitting, so I guess they all leave from that 1 single spot.
A non-liveried coach running a Flixbus route is rather odd. Flixbus operates axclusively through subcontractors, and so does both Ecolines and formerly Eurolines. Hence why there's really no way for Flixbus to know the state of the onboard power or WiFi equipment, due to the shear amount of subcontractors they have. That's why they tell you to ask the driver.
Tbh i love traveling with flixbus. i went to Brussels with my sister for an event and we took the bus there from rotterdam. we payed 40 euros round trip. great value in my opinion!
this is probably better for last minute travellers, last time i checked if you book for in advance getting the high speed train from st. pancras to paris is only £40, however you need to book at least two months in advance (i imagine summer travellers need to book even futher in advance due to increased demand) but still an under 10 hour bus journey is pretty difficult to handle for many
I didn't know you can book a seat next to you for such a low price. Thought you should buy two tickets in this case. Maybe its only on the Paris-London line?
Funfact: Flixbus doesn't own any busses, they're all owned by third party bus companies. Your bus was a replacement maybe, because the regular bus broke down or was not available at this time. So, IT has no WiFi, etc. and no green livery.
Nice video, thank you. You could save a small fortune making your own sandwiches and taking a flask of tea or going continental, some coffee. Hope FlexiBus appreciate your advertising. Best Wishes.
Flixbus... NEVER EVER again. I'd sooner walk than go on one of their buses again. Like the person below, EVERYTHING that could go wrong went BADLY WRONG. No Wifi, no toilet, broken seating, hours delays without explanation, rerouting without explanation, missed connections, not enough room (and I'm small) ...... that;s just the start of it... I've travelled a lot in South America and most of Europe by coach and never had such a terrible experience as I did on that London to Paris route. ... Flixbus... NO!
Thanks Paul for sharing this nice video. It is a good experience that worths trying. You mentioned that FlixBus also uses trains for the route between England and France. Do you know which routes use ferry and which routes use tunnel?
