I’ve frequently traveled between Boston and New York for the last 15 years, and I’ve tried every mode of transit from car to bus to train to plane. Recently I’ve been choosing travel options based purely on convenience from/to my end/start point, so when I’m off the West Side, I take the Greyhound or Amtrak; otherwise I take the Chinatown bus. I had a disastrous experience last month with Vamoose, the Hasidic NY-DC bus, which seems to have suspended service between New York and Cambridge. Turns out the licensing issues that sunk an HLS classmate’s efforts to set up a similar service in 2000 sunk what could have been an innovative alternative. (C’mon, Cambridge, it’s time to get with the program: world-class cities need a direct connection to New York!).
My last trip to NYC put me at the exact departure point for LimoLiner service to Boston, the NYC Hilton at 53rd and 6th, so I decided to give it a spin. I found out that good, courteous service is still alive somewhere in the transportation sector.
LimoLiner emulates air travel back when air travel was something to look forward to. The interior is laid out like a plane, with half the number of seats as a normal Greyhound and a large service area in the middle like on a 737. Seats are laid out in two rows, one with double and one with single seats. They are large and presumably comfy, though smaller folks like myself often find larger seats misproportioned for our shapes. The comfort of the seat itself is high, though — nothing like the 1″ thin “cushions” that I’ve noticed recently on many, many flights.
The main feature of LimoLiner is the dedicated attendant, who brings drinks, a light meal, and anything else you need. I’m not one who normally likes having a servant do stuff for me, but the particular individual on this trip was so graceful that I didn’t feel quite so embarrassed as I usually do handing him my trash. Certainly the free drinks were a nice touch; I was so used to the usual trip that I ran over to a hot dog stand to get a Coke before getting on board, only to find that it was totally unnecessary.
For business travelers the two onboard wireless routers might very well be decisive: service was decent through most of the journey, though after a while I gave up on work and started watching the movie and a movie I had on my laptop. Probably any real road warrior would already have the same EV-DO access that the bus taps into, but for those who don’t spring for that kind of service (I’m sitting on the fence for now), it might be worth the price of admission.
On the negative side, the overhead lights on my entire row of seats were broken. Also, as on some planes, the electrical outlets are car adapter types, not the two-prong plug you’ll find on Amtrak (both regional and Acela). (The 4.5 hour trip is probably just within your laptop’s battery life, though).
LimoLiner is priced to match Amtrak almost exactly: $89 each way. Compare Greyhound at $20 to $30 (depending on how you buy the ticket) and Fung Wah or Lucky Star at $15. With TSA the way it is, and poor transit linking to La Guardia, I no longer consider airline shuttles viable unless I’m heading out to Long Island (in which case, actually, I’d rather drive and have a car. One day I will test taking the bus to NYC and picking up a Zipcar for the duration). The dropoff at the Back Bay Sheraton worked fine for me — I took the 1 bus (about 3 blocks away — only a tad farther than the subway from the horribly laid-out South Station bus terminal) home rather than the Red Line — but being out of the main hub might be an inconvenience for those heading somewhere off the Green Line.
All else being equal, I would probably opt for Amtrak next time myself, as a bus is still a bus, no matter how well appointed, and I got off with the same tired feeling with which I debark the Fung Wah, except $74 poorer. However, anyone who values service will probably find their money well-spent, as I suspect did the older lady in front of me who needed help with her luggage. LimoLiner is, I believe, truly luxury for those who seek it, but IMHO, a gilded cabbage is still a cabbage.
dude, i did limoliner once. GREAT service. internet connection was weak so i used my own EVDO card. cool service overall, but still victim to unpredictable road traffic on NYC’s bridges and tunnels. amtrak will always have buses beat in this regard
now that I’m hooked up with EVDO, I’ve got that covered too. So prolly back to Fung Wah for me!
If you want unreliable transportation…feel free to take the risk. I was scheduled for 6:15pm bus back on Monday and there was no communication from limoliner that the bus was not running at the time. The only reason why I found out that there was no 6:15pm bus was during my conversation with an attendant on duty on Sunday who told me that 6:15pm on Monday was no longer running and for me to check with the office Monday morning. By the way- this is my 3rd time taking the limoliner and the attendants on the bus are always very nice and friendly so at least i give them credit.
When I called the office in the morning, customer service had no real helpful solutions for me but to take an earlier bus, get a refund or take the next day service at 11:00am. I then requested to speak to the manager and the manager suggested that I take the train home….
Needless to say, I had to rush through my afternoon meetings to take the earlier bus (to return back to NY again at a later time because I could not finish everything in time). It turns out-Gary Messina who is the VP of sales called me to let me know that limoliner forgot to call people about cancellation due to superbowl game distraction (“which is shitty” quote on quote by Gary)and informed me that there was a bunch of people waiting for the bus on Monday night at 6:15pm in NY. I am rather lucky that I was able to find out about the cancellation on my own and make it home…I could have been one of the people standing in the rain waiting for the 6:15pm bus to arrive…
What did the management team suggest as their excellent level of service? 25% off the trip…woohoo~ no consideration for cancellation of my afternoon meetings and causing me inconvenience of rushing through work and feeling stressed that I may not make it home that day. I should have taken acela for the same price and less stress! I don’t recommend limoliner for business travel at all. Now, i have to go back to NY for follow up meeting and that’s a waste of another full day for me because of limoliner’s mistake! I guess that’s the price i have to pay for being stupid enough to rely on limoliner’s management team.
Wow, thanks for sharing that experience… really shitty, to quote Mr. Messina. (Passive aggressive Giants-Patriots tension?). In your shoes I would have taken the refund and the train home, I guess.
In all fairness, Amtrak has also failed to deliver in terms of timeliness enough that I don’t count on them either. The truth is that for reliability, nothing beats Fung Wah in my experience. But it’s definitely a hell of a lot less comfortable.
Passenger beware! I just took a trip on the LimoLiner and had a very bad and very costly experience. When I boarded the bus, I took my wallet out of my zippered tote bag to retrieve my license for the attendant, put it away, then I settled in. My seat tray wasn’t working, so I asked the attendant if I could switch seats. She agreed, but told me I couldn’t move my tote bag (which contained my wallet) myself. She said only she could move my bag, which incidentally wasn’t that big, to the new seat because it is LimoLiner’s policy that a passenger can’t move a bag to another seat when the bus is in transit. This policy didn’t make any sense and the attendant was acting very odd, but I went along with her and moved to a different seat, then she brought my bag over a few minutes later. That was the only time I didn’t have my tote bag in my possession; in fact, I rested my feet on my bag throughout the whole trip. When I stepped off the bus to retrieve my keys, I noticed my wallet was missing. After I checked the contents of my tote bag in my car with no luck, I tried to return to the bus to look for my wallet but the bus was already leaving. The on-call manager (also the CEO) didn’t get back to me until the next afternoon. When he called me back after checking about my wallet, he said the attendant didn’t know anything about my wallet (What a surprise!) and they were not responsible. When I spoke with another LimoLiner attendant at their lot in Framingham, she told me that LimoLiner does not have a policy that a passenger can’t move their bag to a different seat — that that was ridiculous. I guess it was my fault for trusting that LimoLiner has honest employees.