Some people might have seen the Megabus advertisements
for travel to Paris/ Brussels and other European destinations for the low price
of £1 each way ( plus 50p booking fee), gone onto the Megabus website to have a
look then discover the prices are higher than anticipated.
It is possible to get a ticket for this price,
you just need to know how, there are only a limited number of seats sold at
this price so you have to be quick to get them when they go on sale.
I managed to grab a return journey from
London to Brussels in the Megabus sale for £2.50. Even if you don't get the tickets on sale you can get them for £5 - £18 each way depending on how far you book in advance.
As i couldn't really find any information online about what the trip would entail i thought it would be worth making a blog post.
London to Brussels - 8 hours
- First off I'll quickly cover the facilities you get on the bus which are; free wifi (Just in the Uk). A toilet, which is in a cubicle you can't really stand up in but worked fine on the coach i was on, and there are also UK plug sockets and slots to insert a USB cable next to each set of seats, so you can charge your phone, ipod etc.
- The journey starts at Victoria coach station, which is just around the corner from the Victoria train station, which can be reached on the underground by heading to, you guessed it, the Victoria underground stop. You need to get to the station about an hour before your coach is due to depart, so you have time to check in and collect your ticket.
- As you can see from the two side-by-side pictures, it's great if you can get the back seat, as you can stretch out and have a sleep.
- The bus took about 2 hours to get to the Dover ferry port then about an hour
wait for the ferry. The bus drove onto the ferry and parked on the lower deck.
As the lower deck is lock you have to go onto the passenger deck above. There
was a bar, toilets and lots of chairs and sofas to relax on. After an hour and
a half we arrived in calais and went back to the bus. It's also worth noting
the stair number you take up, as the lower deck is quite big and was full of
lorrys when i took the trip, so you can't see where the bus is. The coach then
took the trip to Brussels, stopping off at Ghent on the way, taking about 3.5
hours to get from Calais to Brussels.
As i couldn't really find any information online about what the trip would entail i thought it would be worth making a blog post.
London to Brussels - 8 hours
- First off I'll quickly cover the facilities you get on the bus which are; free wifi (Just in the Uk). A toilet, which is in a cubicle you can't really stand up in but worked fine on the coach i was on, and there are also UK plug sockets and slots to insert a USB cable next to each set of seats, so you can charge your phone, ipod etc.
- The journey starts at Victoria coach station, which is just around the corner from the Victoria train station, which can be reached on the underground by heading to, you guessed it, the Victoria underground stop. You need to get to the station about an hour before your coach is due to depart, so you have time to check in and collect your ticket.
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| Coaches waiting to leave the station |
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| Victoria coach station |
 |
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- As you can see from the two side-by-side pictures, it's great if you can get the back seat, as you can stretch out and have a sleep.
-
The bus arrives at ' Rue de cardinal mercier ' which is a street in Brussels
next the the train station, which is used as a coach pickup/drop off point.
Which can be seen next to the red pin on the map below. This is the same place
were you will need to go for the return trip, it's worth noting there are no
signs to say it's where the megabus stops, but there are usually other coaches
there on the street.
The
return trip - Brussels to London - 7.5 Hours
- The return journey
departs where you get dropped off at ' Rue de cardinal mercier '. My coach
arrived 10 minutes before it was due to depart, which was plenty of time
as there was only 15 passengers. The trip to Calais took the same time as the trip to
Brussels.
- Something i didn't know until we got there was that the channel crossing was with the Eurostar, which only took 35 minutes. The coach drove into a big carriage, which was pulled along by the train, and transported through the tunnel very smoothly. A few pictures of the journey across can be seen below. The trip from the port we arrived in (Folkstone, Kent) back to Victoria coach station took an hour and a half.
- Something i didn't know until we got there was that the channel crossing was with the Eurostar, which only took 35 minutes. The coach drove into a big carriage, which was pulled along by the train, and transported through the tunnel very smoothly. A few pictures of the journey across can be seen below. The trip from the port we arrived in (Folkstone, Kent) back to Victoria coach station took an hour and a half.
If you don't mind an extended journey, the Megabus is a great deal. I don't mind long journeys and usually just listen to some music and fall asleep easily so I had no complaints. You can book tickets on their website http://uk.megabus.com/.
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