Interior, Greyhound HQ Exec: Sir, someone posted a video having fun on a Greyhound trip, technically. CEO: Ok damage control. Delay all busses five hours regardless of where they are right now. Remove all the walls around bus lavatories. And increase bus cabin stench 50%. Exec: Do you think that will work? CEO: We can only hope.
Several years ago, my wife and I traveled from Seattle up to Victoria on the "Victoria Clipper" ship and then, the next day, went from Victoria over to Vancouver on a Wilson's motorcoach, which also travels on the ferry. We were able to book both journeys through Amtrak. The Wilson's staff in Victoria had never seen an Amtrak ticket before but they didn't give us a hard time. Wilson's buses now run in B.C. Ferries livery. When Greyhound still operated in Canada, they also ran buses between Victoria - Vancouver and Nanaimo - Vancouver using B.C. Ferries. This was the tail end of our trip, which started in Miami six days earlier. Traveling from Miami to Vancouver, we changed in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and, of course, Seattle and Victoria. We REALLY despise flying.
Dungeness Line is actually a state subsidized services. Like essentially air service but for bus. You can buy their tickets directly, via Greyhound or via Amtrak. For example, if you buy a ticket on Amtrak from Port Angeles, you will be on that bus too. Some of the stops your bus skipped is "on demand only" stop. If you have bought a ticket starting or ending in those stops, bus will go there. If no reservations, bus will skip those stops.
You found the Travel Washington system! It’s unique and really cool, and takes you to some interesting places. While Greyhound operates this route, there are three others opersted by different providers - all under contract to the Washington State Dept. of Transportation (WSDOT), which funds and/or runs the ferry system (WSF), the state’s major train line (Amtrak Cascades), and obviously maintains the roads and bridges you were riding on. Travel Washington exists to ensure the most rural of Washington’s communities have intercity bus service available that connects them to other transportation networks and critical services. That’s why the route starts at SeaTac Airport, connects to Amtrak, and can stop (if booked) at all the major hospitals in Seattle. WSDOT pays roughly $1 Million a year for each route, which is basically a rounding error in their budget. That covers all the capital costs of the program, with the contracted operators providing drivers and ticketing, coordinating their own networks to connect, and keeping a part of the ticket sales. You can learn more by looking at the latest system report: wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/PT-Report-TravelWashingtonIntercityBusProgramStudy.pdf
Miles: Are you a Greyhound bus? Dungeness Line: *Well yes but actually no* Ah yes, AMC...all you need now is Nicole Kidman emotionally telling you how great it is to be on a ferry. This Eugene guy sounds great! We should offer him a better paying job if he works for the Pyongyang trolleybus system
Your sister rode a Gillig Low Floor Suburban powered by natural gas ;P Ask her how the 574 trip went. BTW, Federal Way is where the Tongan royal family resides.
I took the bus from Belfast to Glasgow. That ferry portion is 2 hours long and the ferry has slot machines, gaming consoles, a spa, and movies playing on all decks. Ferries are cool.
I did the ferry from Thurso to Stromness in Scotland and it also had slot machines and gaming consoles! Scotland seems to really know what it's doing when it comes to ferry amenities...although coming back from Orkney we did a ferry to John O'Groats instead, and that was a tiny, rocky little boat. But that was also a blast!
As a Port Angeles native I’ve made this trip many times. Between the Hood Canal Bridge closures and the ferries the Olympic Peninsula is an isolated place. Thanks for visiting!
You can book this through Amtrak too? Well that’s neat. I’ll never use the route, but still neat! Also, that’s the nicest minibus seat I’ve ever seen...when I lived in Jersey City, there were these private Spanish shuttle buses that could take you to Journal Square and Newport...and the interiors have seen better days. But hey, three of these showed up every few minutes, more often than the NJ Transit buses did (though the shuttle fare is a bit more pricey). Welcome to Jersey City where buses are actually convenient!
Haha dont worry, the other Washington shuttle buses (Apple/Gold lines) out east are quite different. I would never have ridden this line if I hadnt seen Miles' video.
I read that most minibuses are built on a truck chassis and that's why the ride is so rough. On a company shuttle bus I used to ride, I was lifted out of my seat when the bus hit bumps.
It kinda depends on where in the world you are, what make you're using etc. But body-on-frame (classic truck construction) doesn't have to be super rough or anything, it just costs more to do nicely. And B-o-F is used because it's cheap to build maintain and operate, so... you have some conflicting interests in the design there.
This line is also state-sponsored. There's 3 more lines like it in Washington (I think they're the apple, gold, and grape lines) and they're pretty much the only way to get around many parts of the state without a car, especially east of the cascades. A lot of the towns these busses stop in don't have amtrak or greyhound or even local bus service.
Yep! WSDOT does a study roughly every two years looking at parts of the state not well connected by intercity buses or trains, and uses Travel Washington routes to fill in the gap. Most of the routes in question run at least two Round trips a day, and connect with intercity bus lines and other critical connections, but only carry around 5,000 riders a year. The line you took is the busiest at 15,000 - but in any case all of them are critical.
So this was why I had two Trailway buses a day between Pullman and Spokane. It was convenient since it was an early morning and evening bus, so it made day trips possible. I was even able to get a direct connection with greyhound to Seattle from Spokane.
The Dungeness Line is such an interesting line - it actually used to be a mainline Greyhound service (I believe), and used to be a lot more important. However, Jefferson Transit and Clallam Transit operate their own regional services that are cheaper and more frequent than the Greyhound. For example, to get from Seattle to Port Angeles, you can walk on the Bainbridge ferry and take the 123 to PA ($10, 3 times a day). Dungeness is definitely cool for the getting on a boat factor though!
thats a super low tide! The area to the north of the ferry dock is an underwater park/marine sanctuary. All the buoys you see are marking sunken boats for marine life to use. Welcome to the NW you two!
just noticed while re-watching this that the boat you two were on had the gold strip on the central smoke stack representing that the boat has been in service for at least 50 years, thought you might like that "Fun Fact"
Dungeness started as an independent line. When Greyhound took over the ride they raised the price and increased the length of travel despite taking a shorter route- locals hated it.
I am SO proud of you for pronouncing Sequim correctly! As someone who grew up in the PNW, many locals can’t even get it right. +10 internet points for you.
Love this! My friends and I took the Dungeness Line more than a decade ago, also to get to Victoria. I remember the driver being super nice and giving us delicious chocolate chip cookies. It's great to see that hasn't changed under Greyhound!
@@MilesinTransit Yes! No transit on the Point itself, but you can take a Translink bus pretty much to the border on the Canadian side. Check out my talk and feel free to contact me, happy to help with arrangements ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0EkCAuF6vrY.html
Took the Flixbus from Oslo to Berlin a couple years back and it had about a 90 minute ferry between Fehmarn and Denmark and that included a full restaurant, a gift shop, and a casino. All of which were closed because it was like 11pm. :(
Miles, you make really solid videos; thanks for making them! Edit: $25 dollars! Double edit: oh, I mean ~$17 Triple edit: Another solid video and review!
Glad you had fun in Victoria. If you're ever back there the 72 has some amazing views from the top deck on a nice day and takes you to the Vancouver ferru
Love that you got to ride the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. I did that ride a few years back, and it was a lot of fun. Victoria was picturesque too!
It's so strange to me how rare large RoRo ferries are in North America, they're just so common in Europe but there's so many fewer densely used routes in the US and Canada that would benefit from them. (With notable exceptions.)
This is probably the largest system of these type of ferries in the US, it's just where it's concentrated in our continent. The Washington State DOT runs these, and I can't see it being much more benefifical in the other parts of the country. BC Canada has a few for Canada that intermingle with this system, then Staten Island Ferry is another one that comes to mind, but it doesn't even hold a candle to the complexity of the WSDOT ferry system.
In my neck of the woods in the Northeast, you've got a decently busy network of ferries serving Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as well as some busy ones from Connecticut to Long Island, but yeah, it's nothing compared to Washington State Ferries!
Washington State Ferries is absolutely the biggest system in the US, and traded back and forth with BC Ferries for which is the busiest *vehicle* ferry system in the world. Europe has a lot of ferries, yes, but rarely are they the ONLY option for getting to a given location, and even then it’s usually just a handful of lines. The only exception I can immediately think of is Caledonian MacBrayne in Scotland, which has more routes but desperately needs more ships and service. I’ve always wondered how a Jumbo Mark II would fare in Scotland….
just an off hand observation about the boat you two were on, if you noticed the gold stripe around the smokestack and didn't know what that meant, it means the boat has been in service for at least 50 years. Also I love that the Galley was open for your trip as most have been closed due to staffing issues related to Covid, I know it sucks. Also just so you know how bad the ferry services are right now the Seattle-Bremerton route is only running 1 boat and departing about ever 2h5m or so and the Seattle-Bainbridge Island round is every 30-45 minutes right now and it's also the busiest route here in Seattle. so if you need to go to Bremerton its actually faster to go via Bainbridge Island right now and that kind of sucks for Transit as if your taking Transit that means unless timed right you'll have to take 3 buses from Winslow on Bainbridge Island to downtown Bremerton and that's not fun as that is over 1.5-2 hours between the two terminals by bus.
Some years ago I did a trip almost the same as this in the UK. Well, the bus didn't get on the boat (although tourist coaches do), but it took me to the boat. Between 2009 and 2015, Greyhound's UK owners, Firstgroup, started to use the Greyhound brand in the UK (as a premium express coach brand on some shorter intercity routes, and I recall the ticket included water and a free newspaper). US Greyhound seems to be like Megabus in the UK, but the wider network is National Express (which is better run than US Greyhound), and Greyhound's current owners, Flix, also run some routes. One of the routes they ran was London to Southampton; at Southampton you can take a ferry to the Isle of Wight. The bus stopped a short walk from the ferry terminals, where there are car ferries (big enough to take several full coach buses), the car ferries also take foot passengers. Smaller fast passenger only catamarans are available, and one way to get to the Island is on one of the few commercial passenger hovercraft routes still running in the world, but that's from the nearby city of Portsmouth. The main Isle of Wight car ferries (Southampton & Portsmouth) are about the same size as the Cape May-Lewes ferries in the US, but cost quite a bit more at peak periods; the one used in the video is similar size as the ferry from Yarmouth, IoW to Lymington on the English mainland. At the London end, Greyhound used the "Greenline" coach station in Victoria (Greenline being a London regional express bus brand with a long history, and run by Firstgroup's rival, Arriva). Greenline coach station is across the road from the main, art deco styled (and hence protected), Victoria coach station, where most long distance coaches use as a terminus for London. Both coach stations are a short walk up the road from one of the major London rail termini, Victoria. Some routes use London airports as a terminus. There used to be a 3rd station in this area, next door to Greenline--this was in the Imperial Airways/BOAC/British Airways building, where you could get a direct bus to Heathrow airport (you could even check in for your flight and check your bag in this coach station). The glorious building is still there, but no longer used by British Airways and no longer has coach service.
If I ever end up going to the Isle of Wight, I'm DEFINITELY taking the hovercraft one of the ways! I have heard of Greyhound UK, but I didn't know it had been more of a "luxury" company!
@@MilesinTransit I wouldn't wait too long for your hovercraft trip--the current ones are getting old and really only military hovercraft are being made (hobbyists still make and race small ones). Side bonus: the IoW runs old London Underground trains--the current ones are reworked "D" stock (ex District line), newly introduced (built and marketed by Posner Vivarail as "D trains" in BEV, DMU, EMU, and hybrid configs) The IoW has an old sleepy seaside sort of feel, a bit like South New Jersey.
This was my FIRST ever bus journey in the USA! I'd crossed Canada and taken the ferry from Victoria BC to Port Angeles.I knew that the bus took the ferry and wondered if the fare was included in my Ameripass (it was). However the least interestng boat of the 3 that I took at that time (after the Vancouver to the island and the earlier one that day).
Greyhound (or Flixbus) should extend their routes from Falmouth to Marth'as Vineyard and the Hyannis one to Nantucket via the ferry if they can do it here. The Nantucket part would be harder since there is only 8-9 car roundtrips daily.. Greyhound buses on more ferries would be a nice thing.
Discovered your content about 2 weeks ago and I’ve enjoyed watching you travel all over the east coast. I was curious if you’ve ever come out to Victoria and this video popped up a few minutes later. Enjoying the content. You should come again when you can stay longer and admire our lack of passenger rail service on the Island! 7:26
Thank you! We stayed a couple nights in Victoria and loved it, but I didn't film any videos there because, as you said, there's not much to speak of transit-wise. The bus system treated us well though!
There's actually a two-seat normal transit journey from Seattle to Port Angeles. Ferry over to Bainbridge Island and then ride Clallam Transit's "Strait Shot" for $10.
Weird you didnt do Greyhound from Seattle to Vancouver. you should totally checkout the public transit in Vancouver, its 2nd or 3rd best in North America.
holy shit dude i was watching ur bart video and i clicked on ur channel only to see that u passed thru my town in ur most recent video!! glad to see that u had a safe trip and spent a minimal amount of time in pa❤️
What a beautiful and unique Greyhound experience. As I would imagine would be the case with most others, I had no idea such a route existed. Among everything you shared I always enjoy the more quirky aspects of your videos such as the random Radio Shack sign. One question I have is what is a foamer shot? Thanks for sharing this experience!
@@MilesinTransit it think its from the term "foaming at the mouth" also more from the railfan meaning of the word where engineers would make fun of really exited fans of trains by saying they were said "foaming at the mouth" over engines and railcars in the last days of steam at least from what ive read about it
Oh wow, I also traveled to Seattle and Victoria last summer! I flew from Seattle to Victoria, and it was a beautiful flight, but it’s cool to see another way to go! Looks fun!
I recently took a car ferry across the Sea of Marmara in Turkey and I refused to buy a coffee because it was about $2.50 when the coffee in town is usually $1.25. This sort of puts that in perspective.
There’s a build-your-own rail/subway game? This is my dream come true! Used to sketch out alternate T maps when I was a kid. You’re living my dream, Miles.
You me of the shortest Greyhound routes is Port Authority Bus Terminal to Hempstead Transit Center via Hempstead Tpke. Essentially an MTA Express Route, but for NICE BUS. As I call: NM1- Hempstead-Jackson St. to MIDTOWN-PBAT/42nd St.
That's on my list to ride sometime! There used to be a shorter one from Port Authority to Brooklyn that I did a video on a while back, but they've gotten rid of it.
@@MilesinTransit well yeah it was utterly useless as in NY the trains are faster and more direct I won’t be shocked if they eliminate the LI run too as LIRR no longer has the restraint on reverse peak service.
I wanted to try the Black Ball Ferry Line to Victoria but unfortunately it was just too far from Seattle, so I made the trip from Vancouver via a connecting flight instead. I got to check out Vancouver's transit during the layover though, so not too bad.
Before COVID, Wash State Ferries was running service to Sidney, BC (where the Victoria airport is) from closer to Seattle, but that was suspended. They may be restarting it now that Canada has loosened its travel restrictions.
February 2014 we did the “Mail route” from London to Dublin, Virgin trains from Euston to Holyhead (high speed until Crewe (or Chester), then we got stuck behind a local train in Wales for a while. Thankfully they pad the schedule so you don’t miss the ferry (we had extra time as our ferry was cancelled and we had to use another company (they exchanged our tickets for theirs for free). Unfortunately it was not the best day for going across the Irish Sea as a storm was nearby, and all the way we rocked like crazy. My wife was sea sick the whole time (I’m usually good on rough seas, but there were a few swells that made me choose to skip lunch). Then the boat pulls into Dublin… port. So we had to burn £5 (didn’t have Euros, there’s no place to exchange money in the ferry terminal, and no taxis) to take the shuttle bus into a random spot on the south side of the River Liffey (which was right near a money exchange place, convenient) and then walk like a kilometer to our hotel.
Fantastic scenery. Made a similar trip to Sequim (where family lived) and Victoria via Port Angeles 7 years ago. Just got back from a trip to Quilcene and Port Ludlow a month or so ago. Took the ferry to Bainbridge and drove up across the floating bridge. I ❤️ Washington State!
haha, finally a nice trip except for the suspension being crappy. Looking forward to your next vlogs in Victoria! But to be fair, crappy disaster trips are more entertaining content, hahahaha. I am sure they will come! :D
@@vinniezcenzo Now they just need to extend Jefferson Transit Route 7 to the BI Ferry Terminal so that riders don't have to risk missing their short transfer window due to traffic on SR-305.
What you should have done is take the light rail up to the Coleman docks walk on to the ferry to Bainbridge island, and then taken the clallam county coach bus to Port Angeles for about half the price.
I've heard that's a good way of doing it! I wanted to do the Greyhound for the bus-on-a-boat experience, but the Strait Shot is definitely priced better.
generally, there is a commercial/larger vehicle line that gets priority over passenger cars. it helps with the weight distrucbution and ecomonics of the area; i'm not an expert in that, but i've ridden hundreds of ferries in this system that that seems to be the way it's setup.
Yes, but not substantially - our Airbnb was in Richmond so we just took the Canada Line into town and back, and then to the airport. I absolutely need to go back to Vancouver to spend a more substantial amount of time there! (But Skytrain was of course amazing from our brief time with it)
At what point should the boating company just host this route? Might need too much infrastructure yet they could make it more optimized and increase profits.
In a way, they already do: Travel Washington is the lifeline intercity bus service funded by WSDOT, who also run the Washington State Ferries. WSDOT contracts out the operation of the four TW lines, with the concessionaire providing the drivers and keeping some of the fares. WSDOT pays for the equipment & maintenance along with schedule coordination with other services like Amtrak Cascades (which, surprise, is funded and overseen by WSDOT).
