What To Do If You Miss A Megabus Ride & How Was The Ride

- April 06, 2016

The Megabus stop in New York City: West 34th Street between 11 ave & 12 ave.

As an ESL teacher, it's a dream come true to attend the legendary TESOL convention. This year, it's in Baltimore, Maryland. Look me up if you're there too!
As a grad student, money is scarce & any kind of travel will need to be bootstrapped. So, I'm travelling by bus (4 hours) & staying at a hostel (in a bunk room).

Rushing from my last class of the day to the bus stop after saying goodbye to my beloved missus, I missed the bus by minutes. I actually watched the bus leave the stop with my friends (who were there much earlier) staring blankly at me behind the large windows as the bus bustled by. I was pissed. I was also wondering... what's next?

I looked online saw that the next bus would leave in 45 minutes. I also saw how much a new ticket would cost & it was much much much more than what I paid for my current ticket many moons ago. In order to figure out what my options were, I tried calling the number on the website. It was a wrong number to another shipping company! After waiting for a Megabus employee for a bit, I walked up to one of them & asked what my options were. Fortunately, the cost of catching the next bus was extremely affordable.

If you missed your bus, you can catch the next bus. But, they'll charge a changing fee. New York to Baltimore was $5.
You can pay with cash or card & you'll get a receipt.
It was a late-afternoon in early-Spring & my bus had plenty of seats so you shouldn't have to worry about not having a seat on the bus if you missed your bus too.

I was pleased that the bus looked & smelled clean.
The double-decker bus had an open-roof which was pretty neat. But, when the sun was high & bright, I regretted sitting on the second floor.
The interior of the bus was pretty bright as the windows were only lightly tinted. This made it difficult for me to sleep in the bus during the day.

There's free wifi available on the bus BUT it was so slow that it was frustrating to use.

Nonetheless, I'm glad that the have power outlets on the bus to charge my phone/laptop.

Overall, if you've had a long bus ride before, you'll know what to expect. Motion sickness & boredom is a large part of the package. My Megabus ride was significantly cheaper than other means of transport even with the extra charge so I'm pretty satisfied with my experience.