Category: Krakow

  • Flixbus – Krakow to Katowice

    I keep saying that I won’t use Flixbus again, but I’ve decided that I think I might. They’re so bad that their incompetence is proving to be quite amusing and I rather like the challenge of guessing where their bus might leave from. The element of jeopardy makes for a much more exciting wait for the bus.

    Actually, to be fair, the initial instructions in the bus station say to go to stops G14 or G15. This isn’t really difficult at Krakow, as the Flixbus stops are all together. However, obviously they’re not actually going from the stop they say they will, it was instead going from G16. This isn’t a problem, it’s the next stop along and is clearly signed.

    Anyway, who needs that level of certainty? Of course the driver decides he’ll leave from another random platform where there are precisely no other passengers waiting. Fortunately he drives by the correct stop so that everyone can see they’re waiting in the wrong place, I consider that quite thoughtful to be honest. In Katowice the bus driver didn’t do that, he just parked in the wrong place and was quite subtle about it.

    One thing I quite like about Flixbus is that most of their buses seem to be empty, which is primarily probably because most of their passengers are still likely standing at the platform or are actively trying to find the bloody bus. I think I’ll use Flixbus again, it’ll give me more to blog about.

     

  • Katowice to Krakow – Flixbus

    My experiences of Flixbus last year weren’t great to say the least, but I decided to give them one more chance. This is using the logic that an intra-Poland trip might be run along the lines of Polskibus (now subsumed by Flixbus), which used to be fantastic.

    The booking process with Flixbus is actually very good, it’s easy to book and my fare was under £3, so that’s entirely reasonable for the journey from Katowice and Krakow. There’s also excellent tracking, so some significant money has been spent on the infra-structure.

    There are more positives, the driver on the bus was polite and welcoming, the bus was clean and comfortable, and it’s clear that money has been invested in this too.

    However, I find the service entirely unusable. Above is a photo of the bus stop that my ticket says it departs from, bus stop 9. It didn’t, it went from another part of the bus station. The tracking system saved this situation for me as I could see on the app where the bus was, but it didn’t save the trip for others. The bus sailed off leaving some passengers behind (I only realised this when it was too late to stop the driver) at the location it should have done.

    It’s fair to say, solely judging on my experiences, they’ve definitely ruined Polskibus. Such a shame.