Victoria Coach Station — Local services in London

Its like the United Nations here, my wife and I just love to people watch and there are plenty of people too watch. The place is split into 2 parts, bays 1 to 8 or 9 I think then the other side, the bigger one the bays go right up to 20. There are plenty of electronic notice boards to check your coach bay, oddly, for such an international focal point, not multi lingual. Maybe the many visi vested people on hand to help may be able to converse in another language other than English but I don't know for sure.

We usually have a couple of hours to wait for our connecting coach after having travelled from the North of England, so any delays do not bother us much, but we are surprised at how many leave things until the last minute, and often too late, to find out their designated departure bays. Food and drink are available, from a couple of outlets, tasty and not outrageously priced either, there is a cafe' in an upstairs part, but we have never tried it out. Anouncements can be quite garbled above the hubbub of the place, the more people there the less you can hear the announcements, the public address system needs updating.

Toilet facillities are on hand and staffed, 30p entrance fee, there are ticket offices or kabins, and besides National Express coaches that travel the leangth and breadth of the country, coaches also depart for the continent, mostly France for what we have seen but not always. Megabus also run from this terminus and overall the system works well, coaches leave on time, mostly, if not delay maybe somewhere else. But inevitably tempers do get frayed, often by people who are mortified to see their coach leave the terminal and they are too late to get on board. The place itself is tucked away down a small street where all coaches enter then exit out into a wider roadway then, depending on where they are heading, go through the centre of London or around the outside.

Plenty of coaches to the various airports, not too far away, Heathrow, Stanstead, Gatwick and Luton are well served and many large cities seem to have regular services. Some improvement to the place have taken place but it is what it is, as terminus for millions of people criss crossing the UK and beyond, and for the amount of times we have been there, around 20 or more, there has been nothing more than panic and tantrums from frustrated passnegers. The staff are on hand to help, but they can't help people's stupidity, and that is often the cause of much of the frustration. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, bad weather, accidents or traffic breakdowns on road or rail, then get there early for your connection and it should be ok. Sometimes people are their own...

We have a bad experience in this station. Around 12/22/2016, I bought 3 tickets, from London to Paris, at online with 60 GBP. On 1/13/2017 afternoon, it was first time, we arrived Victoria Coach Station around 1:20 PM, we directly went to Gate 19 which was told by a front-door officer. When we came to Gate 19, one officer did not let us in because we did not check in yet. OMG, i.e. we needed to get new tickets based on printed QR logo. We just recognized the location of check-in desk which is at a right angle direction against of Gate 19. We went to only one-open line and waited for a while because of the server down. There was no way to make a progress. I realized we did not have time for wait and then went to the front of next empty line to ask for help because the ticket states that bus leave at 1:30pm. The Chick in office said the bus leaved already....OMG....The next bus would be at 8pm. Anyway, we had to somehow exchange next tickets. The unhappy things were that the check-in guy asked we go to Gate 0 for change, the Gate 0 guy ask for 66 GBP or go to Gate 11 because it is International Euro bus. We went to Gate 11, the guy ask us back to Gate 0 again. We were really unhappy with kicking issue ball. Finally, we back to Gate 0 window, one lady said we need to pay 66 GBP for update fee. I was surprised that the fee change so high. I asked for escalate issue to a manager. Kati is nice manager come to window explain the policy. However I realize she did not have authorization to reduce the cost. We complained that the online printed instruction does not clearly mention at beginning, easily-miss at small font paragraph, require one hour early check in. And we also complain we came to station around 10 minutes early, station office should communicate with bus driver someway to notify other customers will on board 5 minutes.....

The Station services are real not good for first-time-visit-from-foreign-country customers :

1. If there is a bus check-in process, it should be clearly mentioned at beginning of online ticket. Usually bus do not have check-in process. Even some train does not have one, e.g. GW Express.
2. The bus period is very long, miss one bus, customer needs to wait for 7 hours. Which indirectly miss other bus/train/hotel check in.
3. The change ticket fee is too high. It is more than the price of...

Large, busy, overcrowded indoor coach station in a centre of London within 10 minutes walk from Victoria train station and 15 minutes walk from Victoria tube stations, crossing busy roads, which is annoying when you have large heavy bags. Also it is difficult to drop off passengers here next to the station, nowhere close to stop for taxis. We had some nightmare times here. Always overcrowded and busy with limited seating near your bus departure area: it can be no available seats at all and one might have to stand near their bus departure exit for 30 minutes, with no place to put heavy bags (all space on a floor might be busy too) while pushed by people and their bags. Awful! It is awfully cold in Winter to wait here for your coach. The doors open often and let cold air in. I waited arrival of a friend there once and could not feel my legs. I have used this station's service many times. It is devided in two parts: national coaches and international coaches services. It is usually long queues for passport control check in (for international coaches), and it's recommended to arrive here at least 1 hour in advance or more for passport control, being prepared to stand in very overcrowded small area for 1 hour or so. What about people who cannot stand for such long time? Advice for travellers: Inside the station there's cash machines, small snack shops, WCs and cafés. Sandwiches/ coffee places, cafés are not cheap, of course, which is expected in central London & stations. There is a cheap large cafe upstairs but food/drinks quality might be not to your expectations. (In London one has to pay more for good quality food and place.) Some cafés and pubs outside of the station. There is Sainsbury supermarket nearby, inside of Victoria train station. Also there are McDonald's, Costa and many other cafés inside the train station, which is only 10...