Learn my tips for what it takes to be a seasoned “Red Rider.”
As the semester winds to a close, many college students in Florida will decide how they will be getting home for the holidays, with one option being the Red Coach. This bus service revved its engine for the first time in May of 2010 and has since taken over one million passengers to major Florida cities such as Fort Lauderdale, Gainesville, Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee, Tampa and more. Red Coach also expanded to its second state, Texas, last year. These motorcoaches offer a wide variety of benefits from outlets and free Wi-Fi to bathrooms onboard. Different classes like economy, business and first-class are also available to choose from. Overall, it’s nice to be able to relax or do schoolwork instead of focusing on the road and is a much cheaper option compared to an airplane ticket.
I’m speaking from experience on all this as I’ve taken the Red Coach to Miami, Orlando and Gainesville. Here are four of my tips for having the best Red Coach experience possible!
No One Pays Attention to the Seat Number on Their Ticket: Take Advantage
Other than getting to reminisce on your line leader days from preschool, there’s an important reason to be at the front of the line as you wait at the bus station, which is the “first come, first serve” nature of the seats. Let’s face it, with so many people getting off and on at every stop, there isn’t enough time to make sure you correctly count to an aisle in the 30s like your ticket states. Download your Red Coach ticket to your Wallet App for easy access and have your ID ready to board the bus so you can grab a seat at the front. Even though the back of the bus is usually regarded as “cooler,” the four seats in the front have the most leg room. Disclaimer: all the seats cost the same amount, so you aren’t cheating the person who bought the seat in the front row out of what they paid for. It would be a different story ethically if that was not true.
The Bus is Usually Late, but Beat it to the Station Regardless
In my experience, Red Coach does not operate by “the early bird gets the worm.” Push the double standards aside on this one, though, and make sure to be there at least ten minutes early (especially so you can follow the previous tip). Red Coach does send an email with a bus tracker two hours before your departure time, but sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle of other spam emails. Nevertheless, I’d hope you would rather sit on the sidewalk for a few more minutes than miss the bus completely. On my most recent trek back to Gainesville from Miami, this unfortunately happened to some passengers at our stop at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I saw it go down from my coveted front row seat. The door squeaked close just as the palm of the unfortunate soul outside slammed into the glass. It was like a scene out of a coming-of-age movie where the late protagonist runs next to the school bus. The bus driver and the guy played a game of frustrated charades through the window before the driver had the last words of “We’re moving, we’re moving!” complete with some cursing that I won’t include here. That bus may have arrived later than anticipated to Fort Lauderdale, but it’s not wasting any more time at each respective stop. The crazy part was that this happened not only once this trip, but three times along our seven-hour route. Let’s make sure that number doesn’t grow any larger, capiche?
Bring Hand Sanitizer Onboard
As you make the walk of shame toward the bus’s caboose, use the top of the seats to propel your way to the bathroom. It’s much less embarrassing to accidentally brush someone’s shoulder than faceplant on the floor that’s seen who-knows-what. And just as an airplane bathroom is during turbulence, be prepared to get flung around inside and hold those handles on the walls for dear life. I swear if you placed a boxed salad on the floor in there, it would come out all shaken up with the dressing evenly distributed across each piece of lettuce. Depending on how many hours you’re on the bus, you’re going to have to make a visit to the bathroom whether you like it or not. Make sure you have some hand sanitizer in your bag to use when you get back to your seat just in case the one in the bathroom is out. It’s good to use before you munch on some snacks back at your seat, too.
Make Sure You’re Paying Attention Even When It’s Not Your Stop
At each stop, the bus driver will announce when you have come to a halt to awaken the drowsy passengers that need to get their things together. If it’s not your stop, you’d think headphones don’t need to exit your ears, yet it’s good to always be listening. At certain stations, everyone may be required to get off the bus for drivers to pass off their baton to the next one that’ll take the wheel. The vehicle could also need cleaning or maintenance for a few minutes, or everyone will need to reboard a new bus altogether. Certain pieces of luggage in the undercarriage may need to be moved to a different bus depending on final destinations. You don’t want your suitcase going one way across the state while you travel in the opposite direction, so have your ears perked each time the bus is put in park. My last Red Coach had us all get off at the Orlando station, each passenger given a laminated red ticket to reboard another bus. If my roommate and I hadn’t been paying attention, we could’ve hopped on the incorrect coach or not doublechecked that our luggage was being relocated with us.
For those who have read this far, I have a reward for you. For anyone with a student ID, Red Coach offers a student discount of 10 percent off! It’s a little tricky to find because you’d think it’s applied at the end of your purchase, but you must change it under “number of passengers” that usually has “adult” auto-filled when you are initially searching through destinations and times.
The Red Coach buses will do more than transport you this holiday season: they’ll give you both tall tales to tell and a chance to sit back and relax before arriving at the chaos of wherever you get off, whether that’s your hometown or your university when the new year hits.