I’m pretty hacked off with three negative experiences of hotel courtesy buses within a one month period. I think that hotels which are in less accessible locations think that they can easily overcome this problem by claiming to have run a courtesy bus service which lulls potential guests into a false sense of security.

The first hotel was the Holiday Inn,  Perugia where we stayed for two nights during our touring trip of Umbria and Tuscany at the end of May 2008. The hotel is located just off a dual carriageway around 4 miles from the centre of Perugia. Now is some ways that why I chose the hotel because it had a large free car park as well as a low room rate of 65 euros a night including breakfast. I also thought that because there was a courtesy bus to the historic centre of Perugia that it would be easy to visit the centre one evening. Unfortunately the bus only ran three times a day at 09:00, 15:00 and 18:00. Therefore you either had to be up early to catch the first run but then you’d have to spend six hours in the centre to catch the 15:00 bus on its return journey. If you took the 15:00 bus you’d be in the city in the heat (37 degrees celsius) of the day. If you took the 18:00 bus you’d have to find your own way back to the hotel.

Next, another stop on our Italian tour up was the Hotel Planet situated around 7 miles south of Arezzo again advertising a courtesy bus. I phoned reception from our room to ask the times of the bus and was asked what time I wanted to travel into and back from Arezzo. I replied that we were flexible and would like to visit Arezzo for 2 – 3 hours in the evening, so a 19:00 departure and 22:00 pick up was agreed. Five minutes later the phone rang, reception apologising that it would not be possible for the courtesy bus to run.

I had to fly to Amsterdam a day early to make the start of the press launch of the citizenM hotel on 24 June 2008 and citizenM arranged for me to stay at the Ibis airport hotel on the night of 23 June. I checked the Ibis website to get the details about the hotel and realised that it was located around 3 miles from the airport but that there was a free courtesy bus. As there was no timetable on the site and after my recent experiences with courtesy buses, I phoned the hotel to get the details. The hotel assured me that there was a frequent service and gave me directions on how to reach the courtesy bus stop. On arrival at Amsterdam airport I sauntered to the bus stop and according to the timetable there should have been a bus in 15 minutes. After 40 minutes the bus appeared.

The next morning there was a courtesy bus scheduled to depart for the airport at 09:00 and as the minutes after nine dragged and the crowd (certainly not an orderly queue) waiting to board the bus swelled, I was beginning to doubt that we’d all fit on the bus. As I was keen to get into Amsterdam to spend a few hours there before the citizenM launch, I took up a strategic position in alignment with the position I judged that the rear doors of the bus would be and settled into my starting blocks. As a Dutch fellow would-be passenger who’d adopted the same position as me remarked, in perfect English, “We’d better hope that the driver opens the rear doors.” the bus appeared and we surged forward and yes my position was spot on. It was worse than a Ryanair scrum because at least with Ryanair you know you’ll get on the plane even if you hang back.

Suffice to say I’ll think very carefully before I book at another hotel with a courtesy bus. Have you had any similar experiences with hotel courtesy buses?

photo by lorentay