It’s been such a warm spring this year. Winter ended early, and the winter coats and boots all went back into the closet.

I’ve been tracking this since 1984, and my professional opinion is that as soon as spring hits, customers start booking their summer trips! That is happening now.

This year, however, there is an additional bigger circumstance that will affect booking availability, especially for Friday, Saturday & Sunday summer traveling plans:

The economy!

Unfortunately compared to last year, there are almost 10% fewer existing charter bus companies. Sadly, some have gone out of business, and others have merged and consolidated with other companies. Many tour bus companies that previously downsized starting in 2008, have not again expanded to serve the increased recent demand for service which is especially prevalent in the Northeastern part of the USA.

It’s not too late to still make plans, but if you are concerned about the summer availability of your desired dates – now is the time to secure your trip early.

Deposit Options When Booking Your Charter Bus Trip or Vacation

Here’s a word of wisdom – don’t make the required timeframe an issue when booking now for a future trip. Your invoice from the charter bus company typically states the need for the deposit to be paid within 30 days (or less) of solidifying your travel dates. As they say on Broadway, “It ain’t necessarily so!” – because as they also say in the Bible, “Ask and you shall receive!”

Discuss the deposit time frame with the tour bus company you select, and hopefully an alternative can be implemented that will work for both parties. Customer service is the ultimate priority for almost all of the reputable charter bus companies, and your business and ease of booking is an important component of that relationship.

Unavoidable Booking Changes

What if you change your mind and can’t actually proceed with the booked trip? Things happen and situations can often change. That is why it is smart to know the cancellation policy of your tour bus company. Get it in writing and confirm that it is a firm and clear statement. You need to know the date you can still cancel by to receive a full refund, and what will happen if that date has already passed by. Often one can cancel if that same deposit is transferred to another trip, assuming the new trip is re-booked in a reasonable amount of time. Within this scenario, be cognizant of the fact that different seasons have price ranges, and comparative prices may change if the booking is modified.

Certain things like the cost of fuel, taxes and labor can change with the season as well. You may get to reuse your deposit but it may be at a higher cost in the fall, or possibly even a lower cost if you decide to reschedule for some time during the winter.

Finally, If you book more than 4 months in advance – make sure pay your charter bus trip deposit with a credit card!, That will protect you if, for some reason, the company isn’t there when you call back with the trip details. It will also give you peace of mind if there is any dispute in your billing or scheduled plans.

Hope your summer trips are just fabulous!! Coach travel is a great way to see the country as your move towards your destination.

The Northeast is one of the most beautiful and fun filled areas of the country. From our centrally located Coach Tours home base we have a premier overview of all the cities, towns and attractions around us. Motor coach day trips, weekends away, and extended stay luxury charter bus travel – are all ways to get to your destination while seeing all the beautiful countryside, urban areas and points of interest along the way. There are a variety of favorite places to go, seasonal attractions, and all the little nooks and crannies in between just waiting to be discovered. If you plan well, and time it right, you can find great travel deals in every direction.

Travel Planning Tips in the Northeastern Area

Your group is planning a trip to New York City? Planning a tour of Washington DC? Perhaps your group is planning a trip to a Casino or even to Canada. You’ve decided the destination, what do you do next?

Find Great Travel Deals: Planning a Trip to Washington DC?

First, you must choose the most economical time to go. If you are planning a trip to Washington DC in April, you’ll be paying top dollar for the bus and the rooms. If you go to Williamsburg, VA, you might get a bargain on the hotel, and you can stop in DC or Philadelphia for a few hours on the way down and back.

When is the Best Time for Planning a Trip?

Everyone wants to go to the Casino in the summer, but the best bonus is in December and January through Easter. Make sure you can move the trip to another day at no charge if the weather forecast is bad. Most motorcoach companies will let you cancel at no charge if the weather is bad. Some will even let you pick an alternate date in advance, and not charge a cancellation fee. Perhaps some in your group feel a little skeptical about traveling long distances in the winter. If so, then a day trip might be the answer. Plan a NYC museum trip, a Broadway show, or an exciting sports event. A day trip to Philly or Boston takes advantage of our Northeast closeness of major cities. If your group is young, think about winter ski trips for either one day or a weekend in New York, or Vermont. When the summer sun is baking, take an easy luxurious bus charter to your favorite beach spots. Relax after your long action packed day – as experienced professional drivers watch the road and take you home, or to your next destination.

How You Can Find Great Travel Deals?

Explore your proposed destination for off season pricing and see what’s available. Cape Cod and Maine can be as much as 60% less if you go in the Spring or Fall. If you are planning a trip during the High Season, how can you find great travel deals? Try booking Casinos on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday and avoid the Weekend if your group can. Some places are just the opposite. Montreal, Toronto and Boston are cheaper for hotels and attractions on the weekend (Friday thru Sunday) in the summer because their populations like to get out of town on the weekend and the business travelers are not occupying the high end hotels.

Go on state travel commission web sites and see what’s new in the adjacent areas. These sites often have good information on Music and Theater, as well as Flea Markets and interesting regional Fairs that will be of interest to many of your group members.

If you’ve got a younger crowd, look into amusement parks and see what specials are available. Your bus company can get a group rate for you, or in some cases you can do as well or better if you pick up enough ”2 For” tickets at your local handy mart or gas station. There are also online discount offers available to the savvy internet user.

Our final travel planning tip is to remember that lots of places to see are free or very inexpensive. Within the current economy that is often a big consideration when traveling with a group or family. State or Municipal Museums or Art Galleries are just two types of attractions that can be very reasonable and make for great travel deals. When you call your motorcoach travel, ask your charter bus company if any particular days are discounted and take advantage of it. Finally remember to check the National and State safety rating of the bus company you are considering in order to have a worry free trip for you group. We pride ourselves in putting your safety first and many diligent tour bus companies do exactly the same. The info is readily available to the public and should be viewed.

We hope that you and your group enjoy your trip! Let us know your travel planning tips by comments below! We would love to hear from you.

The following are a few tips for investigating your children’s travel safety.

Looking into Bus Safety

The first place to look into travel safety is to start with the company that is transporting your child on their school field trip. All bus companies in the US are kept track of by one of two agencies. If your trip is staying in your state, your State department of Transportation has control over the bus company. Most state agencies don’t have information available on a web site so you’ll have to call and ask questions. Call your local school district transportation department and ask if they have the “out of service percentage” for the company that they are using for the trip. This percentage indicates if a bus has been put off the road for a mechanical defect and what that defect was. You need to keep in mind that you are looking at raw data and that a bus that is put out of service for a blown out tail light is different than a bus that has defective tires and an exhaust leak.

School Field Trips Across State Lines

If the trip is going across state lines then the bus company is regulated by the Federal Authorities and for this, you need to go to a different place to find out the data you’re looking for. This site is called safersys.org and once you get there you need to scroll down to the middle bottom of the page and locate Company Snapshot. Put in the appropriate information: either the DOT (mc) NUMBER, COMPANY NAME, or the ICC number (make sure you check the item you are using to search). Once the site comes up you can click around and check out the company accident rate, inspection pass/fail numbers, and their insurance.

Travel Safety and School Field Trip Locations

When you are satisfied with the bus company, it’s time to check out other parts of the trip. If the group is going to an amusement park you might want to contact the appropriate state fire marshal’s office and make sure that they have a passing grade on their safety inspection. If your kids are staying at a hotel somewhere, it doesn’t hurt to call the local fire department and see if their certificates and inspections are up to date. If you are interested in the crime rate at the hotel that the group is staying at, call the local police department and ask for the community relations office and see if they can tell you a little about the neighborhood that the hotel is in. It also doesn’t hurt to inquire of the school principal if the group has arranged for security on the individual floors at the hotel.

Want to know about what they will be eating on their school field trip? Call the city health department and ask about the rating of the restaurants. Most important, ask your school officials what’s in place should a child get separated from the group. Is there a phone number that they all know and that will be answered 24 hours a day if the child gets lost?

Last of all, don’t let this blog worry you, 99.9 % of all school trips go off without a hitch !

Need a Coach for your school trip? Check us out at www.coachtour.com

Most folks who charter a bus only know that they want to get from point A to B and back. Very few of them realize that there is a tremendous difference in the quality and safety of the bus company who transports their loved ones and friends.

Are You Planning to Charter a Bus? First Do Some Research:

The federal government (as well as some states) rate bus companies on safety. It’s easy to find how the bus company is doing, just go to this website: SAFERSYS.ORG

• go to the center of the screen scroll down and click on COMPANY SNAPSHOT
• Once there select the search criteria you want to use, in our case by name COACH TOURS LTD, our name will come up.
• Click on the name and watch the company statics appear.

Once you have inspected the company statics you can also look at several other safety reports.

• Scroll up on the screen you have open and on the upper right will be a box with “SMS results”
• click there and you will get more info and a graphic that looks like a speedometer.

The lower the number on the speedometer the SAFER the company operation has been rated by the FEDs.

If you want to see how the company you are considering rates in New York State you can check it out at DOT.NY.GOV

• click on safety,
• then scroll down to Bus Safety Network (BUSNET)
• click there and scroll to Carrier Profile for the latest year.

These results are alphabetical so you can click down to Coach Tours (or any company with a New York address) and see their “OUT OF SERVICE PERCENTAGE” anything below 10% is considered a good rating.

Charter Bus Inspections

Some charter bus companies would not welcome an inspection of their maintenance facility. That is a clear red flag regarding how reputable their operation is. A good company welcomes the scrutiny of the regulations and bus inspections – because they have their equipment functioning at the top safety level, their facility reflects that, and they are diligent about their customers safety.

Another consideration is the manner in which they answer the phone. If the phone is answered with the company name you can be pretty sure that they only operate under one name. If however, they answer “BUS COMPANY” you might want to check out the address to see how many names they actually operate under. More than one name is a warning sign.

If you go to the company and find several buses with different state license plates parked there you might want to pass them by, this usually means that one or more states in the Tri State area failed to pass the bus when it was inspected. That is a major concern. In our tri-state area, buses with Pennsylvania plates that operate outside of that state generally indicate that they have lost their operating privilege in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey which have stricter standards. Look on the windshield of the bus and see if it has a nationally approved “Diamond” shaped inspection sticker that is current. All properly licensed Buses in the U.S. also have a USDOT number on each side and the city and state where they are registered. Ask if they are an approved Military Carrier and also if they carry Professional Sports teams, these companies generally carry more insurance and have good safety and reliability ratings. If all else fails and you still aren’t sure if you’ve made the right choice – ask for a list of references, and then give them a call.

Remember, you want a reliable, safe company – not one who just says they are.

If this bus safety information was helpful, please comment on this blog post – and tell me what you think.

Bus Tours – Big or Small / Far or Near

The first thing you need to decide is how large a bus you need. This depends on how many people you have for your trip, how far you are going and amazingly enough how big your friends are. It also depends on what you plan on doing on the bus, whether you intend  to show movies, home videos, sing karaoke, or drink large quantities of beer and other alcoholic beverages during a bus tour pizza party!

You also need to know that some companies are reluctant to travel to destinations where safety inspections might be performed by state and local officials. These places often include amusement parks, casinos, race tracks, large museums, national monuments, and other bus tour favorites.

Let’s tackle the easy questions first:

Motor Coach Travel Bus Size – Comfortable Minibus or Luxurious Motor Coach

Tour bus coaches come is about 3 or four sizes, and mini buses in about five sizes. The smallest mini is 18-20 passengers and has regular suspension. They are good for local trips (20 miles) on good roads, and most have air conditioning – but it’s always best to ask. The small mini buses generally do not have rest rooms or space for luggage.

The next size mini has luggage space and is good for the same type of local trip, perhaps a bit further up in range to about 50 miles, and it seats up to 26-32 passengers. These bigger mini’s may have small restrooms, air conditioning, and reclining seats. You should inquire about the amenities, which vary between tour bus companies.

The most luxurious category is the Full Size Motor Coach. They seat from 43 to 57 passengers and vary in length up to 45 feet. These coaches are the Luxury Highway Coach. They have reclining full width seats, full luggage compartments underneath the coach, additional space for carry-on bags above the seats, rest rooms, video monitors, DVD players, public address systems and some have power outlets for computers and Wi-Fi.  They are considerably more comfortable and quieter than the smaller mini bus and are operated by professional coach drivers. Full size luxury motor coaches are much higher off the road, have large capacity heat and air conditioning, reading lights, air vents at each seat, and are designed to be operated at highway speeds. All these features combine to make full size motor coaches the most comfortable of all the available buses. For adult passengers of medium to large size, the extra seating capacity and width of the Highway Coach should be considered. It’s also the ultimate choice for long trips if you are planning destinations 200 miles from home, or want to spend multiple days away.

Pertinent Additional Questions for your Charter Bus Company to Insure a Great Tour Bus Experience

• Can your group drink alcoholic beverages and eat on the coach? You have to ask! Don’t just assume you can. If you are allowed, you might want to take a ride to the company garage and make sure that the bus doesn’t smell like last night’s beer party or that old pizza from the last week won’t be part of your new trip.
• Ask if there is an extra charge for cleaning up upon return if you and those in your group drink and eat. And ask who decides if you have to pay for the cleaning.
• If your group is going for more than one day ask where (or if) the bus will be cleaned and where the rest room will be serviced, it will make your trip much more pleasant and comfortable for all on board.
• It also is wise to ask what will happen if your bus has any mechanical difficulty, who supplies and pays for the replacement bus if yours isn’t fixable and who arranges for your group to get home.
• Make sure the bus company has a contingency plan if you miss things you were scheduled to see. If you end up needing twenty cabs to get your group to the play, track, game, casino, hotel, or whatever destination – who pays for them? If you pay, will the bus company reimburse you?

All this pre-planning should not be frightening –  it’s all to insure that your motorcoach travel will be memorable for good things.  In the end it will make all of your fantastic plans much more relaxing if you know that you’ve asked all the right questions. So before your get on the road. make sure you are totally comfortable with the answers you received.

Motor Coach Travel Assistance from Coach Tours

Do you want a helpful checklist of what to look for and how to plan your motor coach travel?

Call Coach Tours and we’ll be happy to email one to you – at no charge – no matter what company you end up choosing  .(…of course we’d like you to choose Coach Tours first!)

In future blog posts we’ll look into how to plan your daily itinerary when you decide to take a trip, so your passengers can survive to the next day, and see more wonderful sights and events. Our experience can also assist you in choosing the right time of the year and best price for your bus tour to any destination.

Happy Motor Coaching!!!