Checking in bags on Greyhound w/ print at home ticket

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The last time I used Greyhound I used Print at Home to get my tickets and had no issues getting bags "checked" and stored in the underside of the bus. I think what they're trying to say (but not saying very well) is with a print at home ticket, you still need to visit the luggage desk if you have under-bus "checked" baggage...which seems fairly obvious, really, but maybe it isn't. Before boarding, they had us line up in the station according to boarding numbers, basically the way Southwest Airlines boards.

The faux-leather seats with seatbelts that seem to have a poor reputation here I found to be fine. Definitely better than the seats on the Ambus I had rode a few days before.
 
Some of those new seats are OK but most of them are bad. They're OK when they're new. I rode #86536 last week and the seats were fine, but then I rode #86352 back and it was horrible. All the seats were dipping and the covers were damaged. The armrests had heavy damage, too.

I actually saw #60696 running 8307, the morning local, and it's a really weird bus that came from a Mexican company called Americanos that merged with Greyhound.
 
After all this consternation, we're not going to go. It was supposed to be this weekend, but our entire family is ill to varying degrees and by the scheduled time won't be able to make it without a lot of physical discomfort. I can get the Amtrak fare back as an eVoucher (always useful) and the hotel room in Reno was "free" save a $2 deposit. I guess I'll have to eat the $39 on a Greyhound web fare, but that's not a big deal. I don't even think it's worth trying to exchange for a later date since that would need to be done in person.
 
That happened to me last year. Really sucked. I hope you get better soon!

I wouldn't be eager to ride that Greyhound either. If I love/hate Greyhound, that would be the half that I hate.
 
There's just this: https://www.greyhound.com/en/ticketsandtravel/baggageinformation.aspx.

Overweight carried the same costs as oversize, but they generally won't care if the bag is less than 60 lbs unless the bus is packed with freight and isn't a G4500.

Actual luggage capacity depends on the bus model. On any Prevost, the bin height is 9", on MCI D-units, the bin height is 10", on MCI G4500, there should be more but I'm not sure. G4500s have ridiculous luggage capacity and haul lots of freight on routes heavy with Package Express.

Anyways, whatever you do, take evasive action against Greyhound's new torture machines and avoid riding routes that pretty much only use them. You'll be glad you did!

Avoid Los Angeles-San Francisco, -Sacramento, -Las Vegas, -Dallas, -El Paso, -Denver. Avoid Denver-Las Vegas/Reno/Portland. Avoid San Francisco-Sacramento-Reno. Avoid routes in the Northeast; ride Peter Pan or Trailways instead. Avoid Florida and Georgia intrastate routes.

You can get around a lot of the torture machines by taking through schedules. Long through schedules from far-away places usually have more freight, which means Blue G4500s, which means torture-machine evasion, more legroom, and more luggage capacity. New York-Los Angeles, longest route in the system, is a Blue G4500 every day.

I really do love and hate Greyhound at the same time, don't I? ^_^
 
hmm ok.

from anyones experience, do yout hink they would allow something like this on board as carry-on baggage?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Karrimor-Skido-65L-Backpack/dp/B00JMF8PRO

If i have to check it, then i will, I think i would feel easier not to though!
No actual experience, but from the way others tell it, probably not. Should be no problem checking it in though.

From my experience finding coach buses, the overheads might be suitable for laptop bags or briefcases. On Amtrak buses, a multi-day backpack would typically go into the baggage hold.
 
I found the dimensions online in centimeters and converted to inches: http://www.karrimor.com/karrimor-skido-65-rucksack-793014.

That one's tricky. It's like right on the line between the different bus models.

It'll fit in the G4500 overheads, which are huge: https://www.flickr.com/photos/95851032@N07/15389260553/sizes/l.

Any Prevost, you'll have to check it for sure, since they have tiny bins and the new low-mounted seats. If you get a D-unit, it might just fit in the overheads with some squeezing. The old comfortable DL3s have more legroom and more space to put it underneath, but will impede legroom. The new torture-machine D4505s have the new low seats and worse legroom; you'll have serious trouble with that rucksack on a D4505, so it would be best to check it.

Almost every G4500 ever built went to Greyhound so you pretty much won't find them with anyone else and I don't know of any other vehicle with as much luggage space. Be prepared to check it, but check the bus before checking the bag, because you will have no trouble if it's a G4500, which are these: https://www.flickr.com/groups/2729130@N24/pool/.
 
I measured mine myself and you can save yourself about 3 inches in length over what the advertised dimensions are, so that might be in my favour.

I guess i will get an inconsistent experience across my whole journey seeing as i'll be doing so many different routes also, the carrier won't always be greyhound either.

hopefully the staff at the bus station will be helpful enough to advise me anyway, luckily the first time i experience US intercity bus travel I will be staying literally opposite the greyhound station i savannah which will take some of the stress away from it, being there guaranteed early enough for me to get used to how it works over there etc.

although saying that for that particular journey i gather i'll be travelling with SES (southeastern stages?) as that was the carrier code listed on the greyhound site so i wont be experiencing true greyhound just yet!
 
Reducing the length is, unfortunately, virtually useless. You still won't be able to fit it into anything but a Model G without squeezing and even with squeezing, won't be able to fit it in some of the models.

Southeastern Stages is.....not Greyhound. Don't know how they are, no idea at all, but they are definitely not Greyhound. Different equipment, seats, drivers, "way of doing things", etc.

Staff at bus station? Don't count on it. One time the guy was friendly enough to say my duffel bag would fit in the overhead. Well, it was a D4505, and it didn't fit in the overhead.
 
Mind posting the map again? I'd like to see where you're going to find out the equipment. Got more info now that before.
 
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http://i.imgur.com/z8d69A3.jpg

there you go. it's changed since last time anyway. blue = plane, green = train and red = bus, although in some places where it says bus we may get the train if the price difference isn't too excessive (pacific northwest for example)

it's good that greyhound allow you to purchase tickets for other carriers on their site making it easier to book bus travel in general but it is weird that they don't make much of an effort to tell people exactly who they are travelling with, the only way for me to know i'm not actually travelling greyhound in that south east area was to expand the schdule when booking and seeing the carrier as 'SES'. that means nothing to an absolute beginner with their services! i've been sure to check all the routes anyway, i know quite a few will be with JL rather than greyhound also
 
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Do you start at Miami or do you start at Montreal?

Anyways, if you ride Greyhound in the Northeast, you have a very high chance of riding a painful bus. I suggest that you ride Amtrak, Peter Pan, or New Jersey Transit in the Northeast. DO NOT ride Greyhound in the Northeast unless it is a through schedule to/from faraway (I mean really far away) places. Don't ride Greyhound in Michigan. High chance of getting old demo equipment (which is crap) or getting tortured. Ride Amtrak instead.

Evade Greyhound and Megabus routes that use torture equipment. AFAIK, the only Megabus route that doesn't have Double-Decker Torture is the Lakefront-operated Buffalo-Cincinnati-Atlanta route. You might use that route, though I doubt 'cause it's north-south. Why are double-deckers bad? Well, they have terrible headroom, ride poorly because they're so tall, and have no overhead luggage storage.

I'd make a few changes to your itinerary. To save money for Torture Avoidance in the Northeast, change San Francisco-Portland. Make an overnight in Sacramento and ride the daytime Greyhound to Portland. Yeah, it's a long ride, but it's daytime with top-notch and has low chance of torture. Keep the PNW bus rides. Better watch out with Yellowstone, you'll be riding SLE and I've never found out anything about them. Salt Lake City-Denver, change to Amtrak for the scenery. NOT to Greyhound due to high Torture Chance.

In and out of Detroit, change to Amtrak to avoid torture. In and out of Morgantown, watch out, that's definitely not Greyhound. I'm not sure who, but maybe Barons'? Pittsburgh-Washington, better change to Amtrak unless you can get onto Greyhound's Chicago-Washington schedule. After Washington, you should not ride Greyhound anymore. Everything between Washington and Montreal that you could ride is Torture Daily. So go with Amtrak, Peter Pan, or public transit like New Jersey Transit. Once you get past Washington, everything "GLI" is immediately eliminated. You'll spend more money here, maybe a lot of money, so it would be best to save money elsewhere like I pointed out above.

Oh yeah, if you've already reached Austin, you might want to go to San Antonio after all. Either way, you can catch a train (Amtrak Sunset Limited) from Austin or San Antonio to El Paso, then Greyhound to Albuquerque. That'll give you some nice "Wild West" scenery. Another way is that if you want to visit Lubbock, Texas, you could take Greyhound straight there from San Antonio. Then Lubbock to Albuquerque. The former is a rural countryside ride Texas-style and you might like it.

I know you're tight on time, but you can cut Morgantown and maybe Atlantic City.

Also, since you're going up Mississippi, you could think about this rural line: http://deltabuslines.net/schedulefull.php. But beware, they only have D4505s, and you know I don't like those!

I know you won't get any overnight Amtrak sleeper rides, but when you ride overnight, you don't see anything and with all the stops you want to make, it's just not a good idea.
 
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Starting at Miami/Fort Lauderdale

As for the Northeast, we haven't really decided what we are doing as the options are plentiful, i imagine provided it isn't overly expensive we will be getting the train. the only definite bus is with c&j lines from boston to Portsmouth NH, i'm not sure what their equipment is like but anyhow it's only a short journey.

thanks for all the advice. i'm not sure how much of it i'll be able to take though because time+money are big constraints. SLE-Denver for example, flights are so much cheaper, and seeing as we will be flying out of denver to get to Fargo an airport hotel is more convenient, not to mention that the train departs SLC at 3:30am which is a bit of a killer. (my partner also wants to see the weird murals and stuff at denver airport haha)

I think Morgantown was with Mountain Line Transit, the offer twice daily returns between Pittsburgh and Morgantown, there's also a megabus that goes there i'm sure, i don't tthink there's many other options for west virginia sow e might have to keep it in, Atlantic city will probably get dropped though, it's not as if we can't easily enter new jersey from NYC.

the only amtrak sleeper right we have is from oakland to portland, i know we don't get to see much but we really wanted to do at least 1 journey and we dropped Austin/San Antonio - El Paso because of cost and time.

Th good news is though while we have been booking things, so far we are saving quite a bit of money against what we budgeted to spend, mainly on hotels so we may have some more money to reinstate some of the routes that would be better scenery wise. we are also going to apply for a Visa extension to give us an extra month rather than the standard 90 days for a UK citizen. if we get that then it gives us much more time to play with.
 
IMHO, you're really doing too much for one trip. Usually, my budget for one trip within North America is $3000 max and that would be for something as long as my 16-day planned trip to Western Canada. Actually, with the CAD exchange rate getting better for me, I'll probably need only $2000 or $2500 instead of $3000.

Frankly, as a fellow traveler, I don't think you're getting the best value for money with some parts of that itinerary. To me, travelling is like a reading a book. With a country as large as the US, it's like reading an encyclopedia. If one tries to read an encyclopedia all in one sitting, it would be tiring and would result in very little knowledge learned. Taking a huge trip and trying to see everything in the US all at once is just going to take away from the experience. If you must do it, do it with more mind on value.

If you're going to try and read an encyclopedia in one sitting, don't try to understand everything, because even if you do try to understand everything, you're not going to understand everything. I made the mistake of trying to see everything I wanted to see in Los Angeles in 2 touring days. Failed miserably. Now my new tactic is to keep things clear and not cloud things. If you want to ride a sleeper for the experience of riding a sleeper, don't do it as part of a huge 90-day trip or 120-day trip when no single experience, like riding a sleeper, is going to stand out anymore.

In Los Angeles, I went to Getty Center. But I didn't have enough time to look through everything. I didn't have enough time to do what I wanted to do in Los Angeles, I tried to do everything, finished doing pretty much nothing. Failed to finish anything except maybe the Greyhound Centennial Tour. Wasted a lot of time and money. In hindsight, I should have either focused on the Centennial Tour and cut everything else or added more time to the itinerary. Los Angeles is just one city. You seem set up to repeat my mistake, except on the much larger scale of the entire US.

My predication is that what you're doing will cause you to return to the UK feeling exhausted, confused, and empty, unable to get back into your daily routine, and immediately, you will start planning for your next trip.

Just my opinion.
 
Who knew AU would be the best place on the Internet to find info on Greyhound!

I'm traveling from SGF to STL next week (catching a flight out of STL that's 1/3 the price of one out of SGF). I had to change my date and so my e-ticket became a print-at-home ticket, hence me doing some searching that dug this old thread up.

My ticket shows "Reboard Pass Boarding # 5," but unless something has changed in the last few years since this thread was active, that doesn't mean anything, apparently.

I think I'm going to aim to show up around 45 minutes before the 7:35am departure, since I do have a bag to check.

The bus will be coming from Los Angeles (with a final destination of St. Louis), so I'm aware that it might be quite delayed (the Greyhound bustracker website showed one SGF-STL run in the last few days that was four hours delayed)...I have 6.5 hours between bus arrival and flight, and in a pinch, I'll have a family member drive me the three hours to STL and then beg Greyhound for a refund...

Greyhound's website really touts the new leather seats with big legroom and recline and everything. I'm a little less optimistic about it now that I've read @Swadian Hardcore's rants about seating.
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Anything else in particular I should know?
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
The seats are Reserved Ed, and you pay a "Booking Fee" when reserving On-line.
On the Cheapie busses like Mega Bus etc. Only a few,seats are the Cheapies and you Pay extra for Upstairs and "View" Seats!

Riding in the Greyhound Scenic Cruisers and the Trailways Golden Eagles back in the Day were sort of like riding in a Dome Car on a Train!( but not as Good!)
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
Yes, Greyhound has long since abandoned its policy of putting on an extra section for even one passenger over capacity....they now reserve all departures, although not a particular seat.

Of late, though, especially on peak travel period's, Greyhound has been suffering from an acute shortage of driver's, so even if you hold a reservation, you may be significantly delayed. There have been many news stories, especially when disturbance's result in some location's, recently.
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
The seats are Reserved Ed, and you pay a "Booking Fee" when reserving On-line.
On the Cheapie busses like Mega Bus etc. Only a few,seats are the Cheapies and you Pay extra for Upstairs and "View" Seats!

Riding in the Greyhound Scenic Cruisers and the Trailways Golden Eagles back in the Day were sort of like riding in a Dome Car on a Train!( but not as Good!)
The Scenicruiser, General Motors Coach model PD-4501, were very much like riding in a Vista Dome, especially if sitting in the front row of the upper level, where you looked ahead, over the roof of the lower level. The Golden Eagles were on one level, with an 'eyebrow' upper windshield, that gave a very limited forward view of mostly the sky...

The Golden Eagles did offer "Five Star Luxury Service", with a hostess providing snacks and beverages....
default_smile.png
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
The seats are Reserved Ed, and you pay a "Booking Fee" when reserving On-line.
On the Cheapie busses like Mega Bus etc. Only a few,seats are the Cheapies and you Pay extra for Upstairs and "View" Seats!

Riding in the Greyhound Scenic Cruisers and the Trailways Golden Eagles back in the Day were sort of like riding in a Dome Car on a Train!( but not as Good!)
The Scenicruiser, General Motors Coach model PD-4501, were very much like riding in a Vista Dome, especially if sitting in the front row of the upper level, where you looked ahead, over the roof of the lower level. The Golden Eagles were on one level, with an 'eyebrow' upper windshield, that gave a very limited forward view of mostly the sky...

The Golden Eagles did offer "Five Star Luxury Service", with a hostess providing snacks and beverages....
default_smile.png
Yes they did...and I linked to an article on that service a few years back from this board. However, to the best of my knowledge it only lasted a short time. Southwest Airlines began service between Dallas and Houston, siphoning off the well-heeled business travelers, and shortly thereafter the race to the bottom began. I'm not implying that the two are linked, now....
 
I have a nostalgia for Greyhound buses, even though I have only taken a few short trips. I guess they are part of the "America" we all experienced from the movies in the 1950's and 1960's.

In 2018, surely you get a guaranteed seat when you buy a ticket for a certain bus?

I don't know how the service can work otherwise?

Ed.
The seats are Reserved Ed, and you pay a "Booking Fee" when reserving On-line.
On the Cheapie busses like Mega Bus etc. Only a few,seats are the Cheapies and you Pay extra for Upstairs and "View" Seats!

Riding in the Greyhound Scenic Cruisers and the Trailways Golden Eagles back in the Day were sort of like riding in a Dome Car on a Train!( but not as Good!)
The Scenicruiser, General Motors Coach model PD-4501, were very much like riding in a Vista Dome, especially if sitting in the front row of the upper level, where you looked ahead, over the roof of the lower level. The Golden Eagles were on one level, with an 'eyebrow' upper windshield, that gave a very limited forward view of mostly the sky...

The Golden Eagles did offer "Five Star Luxury Service", with a hostess providing snacks and beverages....
default_smile.png
Yes they did...and I linked to an article on that service a few years back from this board. However, to the best of my knowledge it only lasted a short time. Southwest Airlines began service between Dallas and Houston, siphoning off the well-heeled business travelers, and shortly thereafter the race to the bottom began. I'm not implying that the two are linked, now....
That Dallas/Houston market, was one of the very few ones, that bus service could hope to compete with airlines for business travel. The few trains of the day, took longer, than the dash down new Interstate 45. While the plane was still much faster, "downtown to downtown" times at least made the bus competitive for those looking to save a few dollars....
 
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