Greyhound Shop — Local services in New York

Can't complain about the buses as they are clean and comfortable, especially the newer models. Seats and leg space are better and more comforable than on your typical flight. They also have free wifi and charging points, which is a great benefit. Overall, excellent value for money, and a nice way to view the country as you travel to your destination. However, actual customer service is terrible. For a start, buses are never on time. We used them twice, both times from the starting point at Port Authority Terminal, so there is no excuse, you can't even blame the traffic. Whatever time is stated on the ticked as boarding and departure...add at least 30 mins at best. Also...if you buy a ticket, you are not guaranteed a seat. As such, you need to arrive and start queuing at least an hour before departure. It's not like you are allocated a seat number....so it's basically first come first served. If you miss out near the back of the line....tough. You end up wasting so much time getting on the bus, and the more popular the destination, the more time you waste. Its not clear when you print the ticket as to which terminal you need to go to to board the bus. There are a number of terminals in NYC so if it would be handy if there was the information and address available on the ticket at a glance. Confusing especially if you are not familiar with the area.

The website not exactly straight forward to navigate or user freindly. We purchased tickets from NYC to Atlantic City...ok so far so good, got the email confirmation.. everything was fine. Next day we purchased tickets from NYC to Washington...no email confirmation. Looked like nothing went through. To be on the safe side I waited a few days to be sure...nothing came out of our account so I assumed it didn't go though. We then purchase tickets again and got the email confirmation. Then they deducted two amounts. Getting hold of customer services took nearly a month.

You can pay for priority boarding, which is what we did, but there were no indication of where we should go, and no one had a clue when we asked them. You then have to take your chances on the next bus. The drivers are grumpy. If you ask questions then they snap back at you. OK, they do this day in day out and they are not tour guides so that's understandable. but it speaks volumes in terms of adding to poor customer service.

So to sum up, fantastic experience and good way to travel once you do get on and very enjoyable ...but rubbish customer service. If they can sort out their customer service experience, then...

For context, my first ride with Greyhound was mid-December. My return ride is early January.

The Port Authority Greyhound service station on the ground floor was closed, so we were left with no directions of where to go. The sign that was next to the Greyhound station only showed the arrival gates. We were able to locate the Greyhound machine to print our tickets (again) in hopes that it would show us our gate number, but it did not. We then had to ask another company on the whereabouts of our gate and thankfully they were able to direct us downstairs (back towards the entrance of Port Authority, taking the first escalator/stairs down).

In the basement, we were able to locate a Greyhound service station that was staffed. We found our gate, did not receive a tag for our under the bus bag (guess I don't need a tag?) and waited to start boarding. The bus was scheduled to start boarding around 8:10a.m, but we did not start until around 8:27a.m.

The ride was alright, but there was not much communication between the bus driver and the passengers. The driver did not communicate the lateness/earliness (and break times) of the bus which made it confusing at times. The itinerary timings were not followed as sometimes we would just stop for 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes (as written). Which, I understand as the driver is trying to get on schedule. What I do not understand though, is the fact that at Syracuse our bus that was supposed to leave at 2:16p.m, left at a very delayed 2:51p.m with no communication.

I arrived at my destination early, which was a plus.

As the severe weather hit New York this late December, Greyhound canceled my bus back to New York the day before I was supposed to leave. This was EXTREMELY inconvenient and unprofessional from Greyhound. They sent an email citing "Unfortunately there had been a change to your trip. Please call customer service (to find out why your bus is canceled)..." I reached out and learned that the next two days of busses to New York were canceled due to the weather.

I was unable to find any other method of transportation back to New York that was not over $1,000 or not sold out. But, the customer service agent was kind and allowed me to reschedule my bus. Due to this short notice of cancelation, I missed my work shifts. Sub-par...

The station was clean but it was our first time there. The guy from the booth told us where the elevators were.We had a black man follow us and try to direct us where to go but we got that information already. The man tells us he will get us a cab but there were 2 cabs already there and it was own pouring. I got in the cab while my wheelchair was being put in the trunk of the cab. The man following us reached in the cab and asked to be paid so I looked in my purse but the cab driver told him to go away. He yelled at my partner but he ignored him because we had no money on us. The cab driver told us don't pay that man, he is a hustler. When we returned to the terminal later that evening the man approached us but my partner told him we didn't carry money and we don't. During our wait to get home the port authority police checked our tickets and made the ones with no tickets leave. We had a long night but I met several people and started a charging cell station for others because the pole had 4 plugs but 2 were broken. We were able to charge 6 phones at a time but then a young man I called ( surge) pulled out a outlet stick, lol. We now had 10 charging and another person came with another 6 port to charge cells, tablets and backups to charge. I enjoyed meeting a lot of people and was happy to see they cleaned there station every night. I wouldn't travel alone but time went by as we traded where we were from and why we were there. We had ( Florida - 5 kids at home) tell stories and we even had someone from the UN from somewhere in Pakistan who struck up a conversation with a young African man that had things in common with him. My partner didn't want me to share my story but the UN asked but just about the wheel chair, the others new my partner was upset but it was my story and maybe they knew someone who could help me. The last 2 1/2 hrs was long and boring but we had more people join us like, that laughing boy. My partner said why is he laughing? I said he is watching something funny on his cell. I just want the others to know that I am dying unless I find a surgeon with experience but I enjoyed myself and others sharing. I am bedridden so going out even to the Drs is a joy for me but would like to find one soon, funds are...