Let me ask you a question. What do you do at 3am? Some people would be asleep in their beds. Some would come home from the local nightclub totally drunk. Some people could be getting out of bed to host a weekday morning breakfast show, like that guy
Tom Campbell. Nope, never heard of him either. As for me and my mother. We were awake at 3am on Saturday morning to journey down to the island of Jersey for a week's holiday.
She decided to book the holiday via the travel firm Just Go Holidays. They cater for coach trips within and outside the UK. Where I say "coach trip", you might think correctly. They cater for the "older generation". I still find it a joke where their feedback cards ask you to tick your age group, with the minimum age group starting at 40+. I'm still in my 20s! We first traveled with them in 2011 for a three day break at
The Seabury in Babbacombe, Torquay. Back when my father was alive, he enjoyed every minute of it. When my father suddenly passed away in June 2012, we needed to have a holiday away as we didn't have a proper break that year. Therefore, we went to stay in Eastbourne in September 2012. That turned out to be the holiday from hell. Put it simply we both came back with food poisoning, I will talk about that holiday in a future blog post. The original plan was to go to Jersey as a family in autumn 2012 but my father's sudden passing, it couldn't be arranged. After the problems we've had at Eastbourne in 2011, we thought we would give Just Go, one more chance.
When booking the holiday they informed us it would be a selected hotel in Jersey. When asked which hotel, they said it will be one of three hotels.
Fort d'Auvergne Hotel
Merton Hotel
Hotel De Normandie
When we received the letter, confirming our travel plans. It still not confirmed which hotel we would be staying at. After another phone call to Just Go, they confirmed the hotel will be
Fort d'Auvergne Hotel.
I bet you're wondering why get up at 3am to travel to Jersey? Reason that is the holiday company have a number of pick ups en route to Weymouth Ferry Terminal via coach. Their website lists 25 potential towns and cities for any coach or coaches to pick up guests. Going back to the letter I mentioned. This was our coach's prepared route and timetable, including all scheduled stops to collect passengers.
01:00 - Lincoln
01:30 - Newark
02:15 - Melton Mowbray
02:50 - Leicester
05:05 - Worcester
05:50 - Cheltenham
08:10 - Bridgwater
09:05 - Yeovil
10:00 - Weymouth Ferry Terminal
and then travel directly to your destination (St Helier, Jersey).
Therefore we have to get to the coach park before 5am where our coach will collect us. Looking at the timetable, I do fell sorry for the folks living north of Birmingham. As they have to travel up to nine hours on the coach compared to five from Worcester. We decided to pre-book a taxi who arrived on time at 4.40am. Luckily, he came in one of those taxi mini buses, rather a private car. Probably because the taxi firm knew we had luggage to carry. We arrived at Croft Road coach park at 4.50am, spot of drizzle in the air. Hopefully there will be no rain at Jersey. There was a number of people who already arrived to get on the coach. From what we were told, there were twelve of us boarding at Worcester. Me and my mother made ten. Few minutes later two more people arrived, making it the full twelve. It's worth noting, this is 5am in early October. Meaning the sun has yet to rise and apart from the odd street light, it's pitch black. Before 5am, I noticed a green coach with the lettering Redfern Travel coming around the corner. Guessing it would be our coach. Turns out the coach missed the turning to the car park and had to drive around the one way system by the river. When coming back, the driver stopped at the end of the road rather than driving down the road onto the car park. Meaning all twelve of us had to pull our luggage to the end of the road for the driver to load everything onto the coach. I noticed the coach driver had a fag hanging out of his mouth with a piece of paper. He simply asked us the surname the booking was under, loaded out suitcases underneath the coach let us board. Once on the driver headed to drive outside Worcester, southbound towards the M5. No introductions by the driver, not even a name. We didn't even have a safety brief to wear seat belts. I know the driver was on a timed schedule but a quick "hello, my name is XXX and I'm taking you down to Weymouth" would help. We didn't even have that! I noticed the coach had noisy hydraulics. Probably because it was a smaller coach (45 seater) and was sat nearer the back. I also notice when boarding the coach the driver was using satellite navigation to get to Worcester.
I know for a fact, Just Go does a cheap thing with their coach arrangements. Unless I am mistaken, they haven't got a massive fleet of coaches to take people around. Instead, they pay other travel firms (in this case,
http://www.johnsonstours.co.uk/) to borrow their coaches and coach drivers.
We managed to leave Worcester on time and headed down to Cheltenham for the next pick up stop in the schedule. This is quite a short trip as it only takes about thirty minutes down the M5. When arriving in Cheltenham town centre I suspected the pick up point would be Cheltenham bus station. Given I know some major roads in Cheltenham. I suspected the driver would drive past Waitrose, as that would lead him straight into the bus station. Instead, he went through the one way system and actually missed the entrance to the bus station. He decided to drive back down the Promenade, ran over a red light and entered the bus station. Where I mean "ran over a red light". I actually mean he drove the bus whilst the traffic lights were on red, not from amber to red, a solid red light. Luckily, no vehicles was coming in the other direction, given it was half five in the morning. Like Worcester, he barely spoke to any of the guests, ticked them off his list and once everybody is on board, onto the next stop at Bridgwater. This is one of the further legs on the journey, a three hour trip. The driver decided to make a comfort stop before we reached Bridgwater.
There are three services between the motorway junctions of Cheltenham (10/11) and Bridgwater (23). Michael Wood, Gordano and Sedgemoor. The driver decided to take the comfort break at
Michael Wood Services. It's been years since we visited Michael Wood. The last time was way back in the early 1990s, where my father would take us to Weston Super Mare in a red Morris Marina. Given long distance driving was new to him, we would stop at Michael Wood as it would be the half way point. Back then it was owned and run by Welcome Break, who was the top motorway services company in the country. It seems in 2013 that is no longer the case. When going to the loo, the cubicals were very narrow you could barley stretch your arms and the tap handles were mostly rusted over. The original visit in the early 1990s had their south bound building as a massive building. Now it's all compact and small. Given the time was around 6,30am in the morning, both Burger King and KFC was still shut and only the main coffee shop and WH Smith were open. I will confess I am not one for comfort breaks. When my ol'man decided to drive further for our holidays, we would stop at a services if we had to. Our lengthy trips to Devon would force us to stop at the infamous Taunton Deane services. Only because we left at 9am on a Saturday in the summer season and it's always queuing on the M5 when we reached Avonmouth Bridge. When we stopped at Taunton Deane or any other services, it would be a short stop. Literally for 10-15 minutes. Now and again where I would have a day trip from work to London or Liverpool. Commandry Coaches would also apply a small time limit. About 15 to 20 mins. It is to my annoyance the driver said the comfort break would be for 40 minutes. Given only the coffee shop and WH Smith were open and neither of us wanted a drink or something to eat. It was a drag waiting for 40 minutes. Even the driver didn't rush as both of us and other passengers going back the coach 5 minutes before had to wait for the driver to unlock the coach door. Turns out we left Michael Wood 5 minutes later than planed. I always had this phrase when making comfort stops. It should be 10-20 minutes maximum for "a pee and a poo, away we go". We left around 7.05am, the sun began to rise and we could finally see daylight for the first time on Saturday morning after an hour or so in darkness. I noticed when we got off at the services I spotted the list of names for the coach. It looked like about 5 couples getting on at Bridgwater and 3 at Yeovil.
The driver got off at Junction 23 and joined the A38 to head towards the Somerset town of Bridgwater. I had no idea where the pick up place would be but I did question his navigation, as we ended up driving through an industrial estate. Surely the direct way is not driving through an industrial estate. Still, we ended up at Bridgwater Bus Station. Not without the driving driving past the bus station entrance! Yes, he drove past the pick up point once again. This time he ended up in a short stay car park, and had to end up reversing and making a u-turn into the bus station. Finally at the bus station there were numerous people over the road, simply waiting. It would've helped if the driver got off the coach, walked over the road and introduced himself for anybody waiting for him. This is the driver who barely chatted we're talking about here. Obviously he didn't do that, it took the folks a few minutes to work out the coach was here for them. About five couples got on board. Once on the driver decided to drive through the town centre and head towards the final stop, Yeovil.
Some people who know me, I've got a knack of remembering things. I know where Bridgwater is and I know where Yeovil is. If I was driving a coach or a large vehicle, the most direct, best and safe route would be to join the M5 and junction 24, get of at junction 25 and take the main A-roads to Yeovil. I decided to boot up Microsoft Autoroute to see what is the best route from Bridgwater to Yeovil. It worked out the most direct route is exactly to what I said, as you can see below.
But this is a driver who constantly uses a sat nav. He ended up crossing over the M5 and taking another A road, leading to a B road. The fact is, these roads took us right out in the sticks and the majority of the roads he used were single track roads. Safe to say, this part of the journey was a bit hairy as the driver had to navigate through narrow roads, without bashing any brick walls or houses. I also noticed, he kept pressing on the sat nav touch screen to direct him where to go. I could hear the beeps and I was sat nearer the back of the coach. The coach drivers route can be seen below.
I am an old fashioned person who relies on maps and updates from the BBC's Travel website. My father was the same. He never used satellite navigation on the basis that we live on an island. We managed to get to Yeovil unscathed. Three or so couples got on at Yeovil bus station and we were on our way to Weymouth Ferry Terminal. Finally, the driver spoke over the PA system. He first went on to say he's relieved he managed to get everybody on board after a ten hour driving marathon. As with most coach drivers, he decided to crack a joke he heard when he stayed at an Eastbourne hotel. Problem was the joke didn't make any sense and I do get the punchlines in most jokes.
We finally got to Weymouth Ferry Terminal at 10.15am, 15 minutes later than scheduled. Probably because the delay was the driver taking those back roads travelling from Bridgwater to Yeovil. Upon arrival I noticed the ferry was already in dock to cruise to Jersey. We were asked to stay on the coach until the driver came back with a representative from Condor Ferries. He stated the ferry wouldn't depart until 12pm as scheduled. This annoyed both of us as the letter stated we would depart directly to Jersey, thinking we would leave Weymouth around 10am-10.30am. A female representative boarded the coach who had a bunch of boarding passes for us to board the fast ferry. They were in alphabetical order. Given our surname, we would be towards the bottom of the pile. When the representative started to run out of passes, we asked if they had our passes. Turns they didn't have a boarding pass for me or my mother. The posed a massive problem. If we didn't have a boarding pass, we wouldn't be allowed to board the ferry. As with all the passengers, we would be asked to gather our cases and to put labels for the journey to either Guernsey or Jersey. Whilst the other passengers carried their luggage into the terminal, we had to wait whether they can find a solution to our supposed, missing boarding passes.
