Family Coach Trips - Yay or Nay?

[DisneyMan]

Hi,

I was wondering how everyone felt about coach breaks in general for families? Doing some research into what would make a great Coach Trip Operator aimed at families.
From my own experience the biggest concern I always have is cost and space, but what do you all think? Has anyone been on a family trip to disneyland for instance or somewhere similar?

Coaches make me travel sick unless I can sit at the front. DH as well.
Yes trains and planes are similar tubes of transport but largely are not subject to "traffic" and you have an idea when the hell of travelling will be over.

You would be the one trying to sell this to people, so tell us all of the excellent things about it that would have enough mass appeal to bring in profits?

The word 'entertainer' just brought the whole scenario to a new level of hell.

I think you have to look at what coach travel could have to offer compared to the other travel methods. Would you potentially get more luggage allowance?

I don't think it's an awful idea.

But your market will be quite limited I think to those who don't have their own cars or those who can't afford or don't want to fly.

Those are the people you need to find and ask. You're just going to get negative feedback from everyone else

Im not saying these comments aren't fair but they are very negative lol.

Coach holidays from my own experience offer, more luggage allowance, peace of mind knowing you jump on and off one form of transport door to door, the coaches nowadays have toilets that can be used, refreshments served on board, the upper scale ones have tvs in the head rests and offer free ear phones to keep everyone entertained, regular stops, often not that much traffic as they tend to travel outside of peak times, they sre extremely budget friendly or can be.

For single parents, I was toying with the idea of having additional staff on board and available at the destination to support single parents.

I think what might interest me is a coach trip to a place where parking or other transport might be tricky. Or else if I wanted to bring something bulky like a tent or a kayak. Without these things driving or train or plane make more sense.

Currently you are one of few OP that sees this as a good business idea. Listen to your initial market research. Personally I wouldn’t due to:

• Flying is faster
• Trains you can get up and move around
• Coaches just generally take a long time and are restrictive. Breaks will eat into more time. If I wanted to go by road, I’d drive or use the abundance of cheap coach operators currently existing

I really wouldn't bother OP. People are being negative because there are very few positives.

Toileting is the big issue. I did a lot of coach day trips with my kids now that they are bigger, but you can’t easily do long coach trips with younger children so now we have a 3yo in our care we’ve stopped. An adult and child don’t both fit in the toilet together, the steps to the toilet are dangerous with small children and there’s no space to change a babies nappy.

There are also very few 3 point belts long enough for car seats bar the front row (not ideal), the row at the toilet steps (again not ideal) and the back row (a nogo because of the emergency exits).

I would honestly rather forgo a holiday than have to travel more than an hour or so by coach.

Also your idea of having staff members whose job it is to befriend and support potentially vulnerable families (obvs not all single parent families are vulnerable but some are) is a potential safeguarding nightmare.

Honestly as someone who, in an act of enthusiastic folly, took 300 people on 6 coaches 3 hours to Edinburgh zoo for the day - don’t do it. It’s a nightmare.

i happily put up with other people on a plane because the destination is beautiful and hot and sunny - it’s the only reason I will fly because im terrified but I love being hot and getting a suntan!
I’m not going to achieve what I want from a coach trip of the same length as my flight time and for that reason Coach travel is ruled out.

Going on a coach would be the LAST form of transportation I’d opt for

I was forced to get a coach from Birmingham to London last year after a storm fecked up the trains … it was awful. Hot, noisy, slow.

I tried coach during a train strike when I was visiting someone. It felt like the worst parts of train travel, someone else sets the time and you're potentially subject to delay, and driving, you're subject to traffic jams and road closures. It didn't replace air travel but the obvious advantage of that is the time saved.

It has a lot of disadvantages so you have to really focus on the potential advantages.

I’m going on a coach trip over Easter with my kids. But fortunately it’s less than two hours to get to the hotel. I would do longer, to get to somewhere like Disneyland Paris for example, but wouldn’t exactly look forward to it.

I think a good thing for coach companies to provide would be week day term time trips to theme parks and child friendly places. They’re always on the weekends, when those places are busy, but there are lots of people with preschoolers or home educating families who would appreciate going during the week.

I think also trips to a nice seaside town could be a good option.

Are you planning to hire coaches or run your own? If it’s the latter running your own vehicles is complicated and expensive- need an operators licence, qualified transport manager. Even if you plan to hire them in, you need to think about how costs are likely to rise with fuel etc. If planning any trips you need to think about drivers hours regulations, rest periods even if you were hiring the vehicle and drivers. Transport under EU regulations which is what this would fall under are a complete minefield. I worked in the industry albeit not coaches for many years.

If you can drive and have a reliable car it’s nearly always cheaper to take it rather than a coach so the market is tiny, typically only going to work for high volume destinations like Disney and those who live further from the se so rail is prohibitively expensive.

We do use the coach btw, but only for Heathrow because it’s only 2 hours direct to the terminal from our city unlike the train and car parks are now £££. (Kids left home)

I get travel sick in cars and coaches and so does DC2 so the only option for entertainment is for us to listen to audiobooks and music. It’s not so bad in our own car, when we can stop when needed, we often take a longer break for fresh air. We don’t get travel sick on trains and planes and you can get up and wander around as well. I would never opt for a holiday by coach.

Trains and planes aren’t also full of families, you get a mix of travellers. Unfortunately I see it like the fetid pit of doom (soft play!) with lots of families, young children, screaming, moaning, whinging,smells - either from nappies, accidents and the toilets smell after a while on coaches.