To wonder how it can cost over £1000 to hire a coach for a day?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

DDs school trip. Going to London (about 2 hours away) to art gallery places (so free entry).

Costing £30 per child (voluntary contribution of course).

So if about 40ish pupils go that's over £1000 ish.

Surely a coach doesn't cost that much. Correct me if I'm wrong but.......

WOW that is alot.....

I've just hired a coach to take us approx 4hr round trip for our parents group summer trip.

Cost £350 for the largest coach they had, i'd be asking some questions and making some phone calls if I were you.

Coach hire and insurance is very expensive now.

We did an exercise recently at work to determine costs for bussing our labour, and it is expensive.

It's not just the bus driver for the day and the bus, you've got the fuel cost, cleaning, taxes, MOT, insurance, overhead to cover in the office and costs of maintenance etc.. These would all be built into the rates they charge on a per day basis.

that does sound expensive.

YR5's at our school are having a trip to London (all free stuff they're doing) it's about 1 1/2hr on the coach to central London. The cost was half of that.......

My dd2 is going to London - about two hours away - train fair £11 the rest of the day free as gallries and musems are free...

I would get back onto the head and ask why the train isn' being used and a breakdown of costs?

Maybe some parents are paying more as some parents can't afford to contribute? Cause that does seem way too high.

That is about what we had to pay for a school trip. £1000 is a huge amount of money though.

coach will have to stay with them and return but even so it is expensive

it is a voluntary contribution and not all parents will choose to pay it

it's hardly a money-making thing is it?

Have you not had a breakdown of costs?

I assume that insurance will be factored into that cost too. Will there be other fees having to be covered, such as tube fares perhaps?

It does seem an awful lot of money just to cover the cost of a coach for one day.

after beinh involved in organising trip it be the insurance that is bumping it up plus theres also the cost of coach parking added

I'm sure coaches are a hideous price and insurance bumps it up and the coach driver will need paying for whole day and petrol costs the earth so it all adds up.

For our recent school trip the coach cost £400. But it only had to go about 20 miles (so less petrol) and the entire trip lasted from 9-3, so the driver could do school runs either side.
£1000 for a lengthy journey to London sounds fair to me.

IME there is usually an extra member of staff or 2, even when parents go. £70-100 ish each. Can't make it add up to £1000 though

Sometimes they have to factor in cover. As others have said hiring coaches is very expensive. Lately we have been doing trips to London on the train instead.

We're about an hour away and a coach would be about £350-£400 for the day on the proviso that the coach had been able to do the secondary school run in the morning and would be back in time to do the school run after school.

I imagine they would whack the costs on big time if they were unable to cover school runs.

Saying that, £1000 is horrendous! Has it got a dvd and sat nav?

Sat nav would be useful for our coach drivers - last week a driver taking YR to Whipsnade Zoo couldn't even find our school to collect the children from in the first place.....!

Then there was the time we were stuck on the motorway (puzzling why were were actually on the motorway), when we found we were en route for a different school...

oh yes, and the coach-wide country lane we got stuck in because the driver had put the wrong destination postcode in his sat nav (yes, that one had sat nav and still cocked it up!!).... oh.... there's more... believe me!!!

Maybe you pay extra for brains.