Carousel Buses Reviews 17

Not accepting American Express in 2026 says a lot. Is this really about saving a few pence on each journey while the CEO is making millions?

The buses themselves do not help the impression. Many feel dirty and run down, which makes the whole service seem neglected.

Overall, it comes across as cutting corners at the customer’s expense rather than improving the experience.

Disgusting service, paying £125 per month and had to get others company's busses to make it in time to pick up kids from school. No services updates and no information at all ... waiting in the stop bus like they are own the customers. Shame of a company, arogant as well... they don't answer at feedbacks they literally don't care about anything than money ..

They’re awful the 102 bus was not updated on the “live” app, practically useless app. They should fix up unbelievably uselsss

⭐ 1/5 — Constantly Late and Completely Unreliable

I’ve tried giving Carousel Bus Service the benefit of the doubt, but the buses are always late. Not just by a couple of minutes — sometimes they don’t show up anywhere near the scheduled time. It’s incredibly frustrating when you’re relying on the service to get to work or appointments. There’s no communication, no updates, and no sense that the timetable means anything at all. For a company providing public transport, reliability should be the bare minimum, and Carousel just isn’t delivering.

According to at least 4 third party websites there's a 800 Henley to Reading via Shiplake service and 850 via Wargrave. Apparently though the 800 disappeared when Carousel took over 2 years ago. They're not responsible for others' out of date information. But it'd be helpful if they said on their website that the 800 is no more. As for yesterday, their 09.55 never arrived, presumably traffic in the reverse direction caused a cancellation (we noted 4 buses passing in the half hour we waited.) Again, hardly Carousel's fault. What CAN be laid at their door is the rattletrap buses, 21st century stye. I hail from (1960s) Routemaster days. If one of their new buses went into the (alas long-since closed) Aldenham LT bus overhaul works, it would be condemned on the spot as unfit for purpose. Everything rattled, especially over each and every pothole (plenty in Bucks, pothole capital of the world) from the staircase to the driver's cabin. There's hardly any suspension, a cause of the above, and the seating's horribly hard. Also it was quite cold. After a return trip of 2 hours, we emerged shakily and staggered back to our car. Hardly an experience to savour, or recommend. Heaven help anyone having to do this journey on a daily basis.

Route: High Wycombe to Uxbridge

Date/Time: January 27, 2026, at 14:20

I am writing this to express my serious concern regarding the driving standards on the 14:20 service from High Wycombe to Uxbridge yesterday. The driver’s behavior was nothing short of rash and careless. Throughout the journey, the driving felt unsafe, with aggressive maneuvers that left me feeling uneasy and at risk.

It is clear that this driver requires immediate retraining or a formal review of their driving standards. Public safety should be the absolute priority, but yesterday it felt like a secondary concern. I hope Carousel Buses takes this report seriously.

Real time tracking of services made things so easy. I could follow were the bus was and leave my home just in time to walk to the bus stop.

In both directions the buses were clean and comfortable although the seats were a little firm for my liking. WiFi and phone charging was availailable with both USB-A and C sockets provided. Both audio and visual next stop announcements worked properly.

The return journey turned out to be about 10 minutes late. A quick look at the online tracking on my phone showed that the bus arrived in Amersham on time but was stuck at the Station for 10 minutes. I don't know if this was an issue with the vehicle, passengers or traffic.

To whom it may concern:

The 34 service to Lane End is disgraceful. In particular early morning buses. The 0630 rarely runs and if by pure chance it does, it is invariably at least 20 minutes late.

I’d like to remind you that people in Lane End are employed and deserve a bus service that allows them to get to work on time. There is minimal traffic at this time of day, so you have no excuse whatsoever not to deliver a bus that is to time.

The drivers are rarely helpful and never seem to know what’s going on. Your ageing fleet which I believe was mainly the remnants of the Oxford City red buses is clearly not up to scratch. Or is it the staff who are perhaps unable to get to work on time to drive? Or maybe you will blame roadworks. However, your 34 service is constantly late and hardly reliable even when there are no roadworks en route.

Whatever the excuse, as a regular user of your service and someone who has the daily misfortune to be subjected to your sub-standard offering, I can say without any shadow of doubt that you make your predecessor Arriva look competent. That is no compliment as they were truly woeful.

How hard can it be to send a bus to Lane End, on time at 0630 in the morning?

Carousel, it’s simply not good enough.

Bus is sometimes an hour late making me late for college

The service is late by 30 -40 minutes every day and some days the bus doesn't even attend its last stop at Henley College and drops kids in the High Street which means they get to college around 10am so completely miss their 1st A-Level Class that starts at 9am. This means My Child is missing 50% of his A-level classwork every day so its completely pointless taking the A-level if he cant get class time due to a bus service that does not deliver on time.

Apparently there are ongoing roadworks for the foreseeable future which is causing the delay. The Council know about this but are totally incompetent and will not be updating the timetable even though this means students are not getting to college every day until nearly 10am.

The lack of intellect in understanding that it is a service just for Students but they cannot change the timetable for 2 months to get the kids to College on time is an Outrage! Another example of Taxpayers and peoples money totally wasted by Council and its outsourced overpriced suppliers! Ive paid nearly £900 for this service and have had to pay for alternative transport to get my son to College for 9am!!!

This company is atrocious selling monthly tickets when my bus does not show up 40% of the time and I have to pay for a train to be on time for work. They had a trainer on the bus the other day (whe it was actually running) talking about how the service was pointless and did not make money? I pay £1300 for my son to get a coach to school and this bus goes the same route for less than half that a year which would be great if his arrival time at school was optional and by the way there are 3 coaches that go that way in the morning and evening full of kids that would take this service if it was in any way reliable!!!! High Wycombe 31 service, you can't have staff slagging off a service cos it makes no money when you don't run it properly and he also started telling people the council subsidise the service????? So i'm paying tax for buses that don't show up or are 15 to 20 mins late ????

They have taken over arrival in high Wycombe, and all the bus services to a certain area in Totteridge HATTERS LANE have been diverted, no buses go there after 2pm that's an entire part of Wycombe been removed. We need the route back!!!

Bus driver took his own route and missed a whole town.

Next week bus driver crashed.

Poor service no customer service and terrible drivers.

Carousel buses is the epitome of the appalling state of our public transport system. Their services are unreliable to the point that it's necessary to add at least 30 minutes to a 20 minute journey just to make sure you arrive on time. The reason, the busses are regularly late, but not regularly that you can rely on them not to be on time. They regularly miss out busses from the schedule.

So be on time just in case the bus is on time but be prepared to wait until the next scheduled time in case they simply drop your bus.

Also, wear padded clothes. The busses are so old and rickety that when the driver realises they are behind schedule they will break every speed limit and throw you around the bus like it's a washing machine.