Booking process, service, and bus driver: David Campbell

Overall, the experience was pretty good. We were expecting 5 buses. Two arrived on time and three of them were 30 minutes late.

Hired them for our wedding a little over a year ago (9/1/24). Overall a good experience. They were nice and provided good service, and the price was amazing compared to other buses. A couple issues (if we remember right):
- We didn't get a lot of communication up to the day of. The corporate office "handed us off" to the local one, and it didn't seem very smooth. We were nervous about whether they would come on the day.
- They had questions for the bridge/groom in the middle of the wedding reception. That's a little awkward - they should have gone to the wedding planner.

Seamless experience, happy faces
We had two continuous shuttle buses for our event to off-site parking. The attendees were pleased, the kids were happy, and there were no issues at all. Great experience!

The bus came 70 minutes late--pickup time was 9:15 am. Worse was there was no phone call from the Union 70 bus barn telling us the bus driver was late or eta. Worst of all was when I called the 3 'day of' local numbers, I was either on hold 20 minutes then call dropped, or it went to voicemail and no one ever called back. Meanwhile, 35 2-3 year olds were anxiously waiting for the bus to take them to their field trip.

The only good things I can say are that once the driver arrived, the trips were done in the time we had left, the kids were safe and enjoyed the bus rides, that the national customer service person answered my call after none of the local calls were answered, and that a 50% refund was issued promptly.

Our drivers for First Student Bus are always friendly, and on top of our travels. I know we can always count on them for the days events.

Dispatch does not answer the phone if there are any trouble you have no way of can’t ing anyone on weekend bookings. Has happened to me multiple times but the bus drivers are lovely just poor customer service on the company end of things

Almost 30 minutes late for the pick up. Driver lied and informed dispatch that he been outside waiting. Driver became upset when we informed him he was not and that we had cameras. The director at the facility was on the phone with first student when the driver arrived. One of the teacher had to assist with directions. Just horrible service that day. I am waiting to hear back from First student for compensation for this trip.

Rangers camp is a unique camp where we travel farther out than most field trips . Our bus driver was on time for every trip. We enjoyed every driver on our route.

Doing business was simple, no complications.

the driver was on time, thoughtful and gracious

We rented 15 buses over the course of 4 days. (We had approximately 3-4 buses going to four different locations each day.) Out of all 15 trips, 5 of them got picked up 15-30 minutes past our scheduled departure time (from the venue). We were regularly telling parents that the bus had gotten there late, due to needing to run another route after they dropped off our group. I have no issue with the bus getting back late due to traffic, etc. But it's frustrating if our scheduled departure time is 3:30 and the bus isn't even back at the venue until 4pm.

Customer Service at Branch

Customer service remains a major, glaring issue for this company. It's been like this for years. Getting ahold of someone at the branch to confirm charter reservations is way harder than it ever should be. Why can't this improve??

The bus was timely and the driver was very accommodating. We had small delays herding the cats (visiting family and friends) and did not feel rushed in the least. It was an excellent experience.

The bus picking up our students was delayed over 1/2 hour because they had to return students to their bus stop. I believe the driver tried to call, but when I called the number, it was not answered. I had to call dispatch multiple times to find out status and arrival times. Communication could definitely have been better.

We used this bus service for our wedding this past weekend. We did like that it was a more economical bus option to ensure no one was drinking and driving! But I guess you get what you pay for.. The bus driver was unprofessional with our wedding planner in front of guest and refused to listen to the bride and groom’s wishes.

2 buses were reserved, which were quite full going to the venue and the plan was for the wedding party (which had already been dropped off at the venue by cars earlier in the day) to ride the buses back from the venue to the hotel at the end of the night. Because the numbers were going to be close going back, (I had previously called the local bus location and talked with them about one of the buses making a second trip back, and was told that would be perfectly fine to do as long as it was between the time we had the buses reserved for and that we just needed to talk to the bus driver the day of). So an announcement was made an hour before the end of the night for those that wanted to get on the bus. 15 or so people chose to leave the venue and were seated on the bus. Our wedding planner then went out to tell the bus driver they could leave to drop off the guest at the hotel and then come back with plenty of time to get the rest of the guest at the planned departure time. The driver raised her voice at the wedding planner and refused to leave the venue without a full bus load of people. After 15 minutes, the wedding planner realized there was nothing else she could do at that point to get the guest back to the hotel, she pulled them all back off and had them call Ubers and some were able to squeeze into other guest cars. It left the bride and groom feeling a little embarrassed for the guest to be sitting on the bus and listening to the bus driver raise her voice and be disrespectful and refusing service.

The only bus trips that were not messed up were the first and last. The bus arrived at the hotel and dropped our participants at our meeting location on Monday. After that, it was a mess. Monday afternoon, the bus was supposed to pick us up and take us to dinner in downtown St. Louis, wait 90 minutes, and take us to the hotel. The bus showed up a half hour late and had no idea that was the trip. No one from the company called to tell us there was a problem and the bus would be late. We had to track down the information by calling their dispatch line over and over. Once the bus arrived and after the driver agreed to do our pre-paid itinerary, it took another half hour to get everything sorted out. I had to pay for the driver's dinner AND gave her an additional $20 tip because she was NOT expecting to do more than a simple 30 minute run. She was lovely and did what was needed.

On Tuesday morning, our bus was supposed to arrive at 8:30 but didn't arrive until 9:20. By then, our participants had all taken Ubers to the meeting location. The driver was suck in traffic but again, no one called to tell us the driver was running late.

It took another hour on the phone to sort out refunds and make sure someone would be at the location for our final trip which was from our meeting location back to our hotel. Thankfully, that driver came early and hung out in the parking lot until we were ready to leave.

It was a mess. We were late for a dinner reservation and missed an hour of our meeting time because of the buses. And no one responds to phone calls!

Bus drivers were on time and communicative! Our route and needs are unique, so very thankful for how smoothly everything went! Thanks Union Branch Dispatch and Drivers!

Our customer service and our driver experience was terrific from start to finish. We went and saw holiday lights as part of a family outing and our driver was so festive, even playing holiday music for us!