US Coachways Do NOT Use US COACHWAYS, no matter what! Staten Island, New York

good afternoon!

my name is Chris Frusci and I am the owner of American dream coaches, a proud vendor of us coachways. There are a few things you should know when booking a bus with us Coachways, 

1- You're looking for a competitive, fair price, us coachways is the way to go. If you want a brand new bus, you will pay double. For example, us Coachways called me to cover their job in May of 2014 from belmar to Washington, D.C. For 1400 which I accepted, but unfortunately I could not cover it. Academy covered it and charged 2195. Yes 33% more. 

2- most of the vendors (smaller bus companies) who work for us Coachways, enjoy doing business with them and proudly accept the work that's given to us. We treat every coachways customer like they are our own. Unfortunately once and a while a customer will get a bad bus or bad experience.... I'll tell you a 100% true story and this will change your whole perspective on charter buses...

One of my own customers (a customer of my company, American dream coaches www.adcbus.net, , not us Coachways) a college in NYC, uses our buses for all of their sports charters. One day our bus breaks down in another state. It happened to be one of our older buses. Well the athletic director of the school decided that he wanted to use academy on all "over the road " charters to ensure that the buses had a small chance of breaking down....

a few months later we get a call asking if we have an emergency bus that can get to ohio because their basketball team was broken down on the side of the highway and that academy couldn't get them a bus till the next day. So we suited up and headed out there. We picked up the team the following day, looking exhausted but grateful, we took them home. They were telling me the whole way home that academy had the buses, but they couldn't find a driver to get a bus over there. The school paid 5000 dollars for 2 and a half days!!! I would have charged 3000! When you deal with smaller companies, you generally get better service. My point is that for the price you pay, you WONT find better service anywhere!

us coachways only owns a certain amount of buses and the remainder of the jobs they book are farmed out to smaller companies like me. If you're a coach ways customer and on one of my buses, you will get the best service we can offer and if something goes wrong, you will be speaking directly to me, the owner. 

To conclude this rebuttal, if you want a brand new bus, go to academy and pay double. You can still have the same problems on new, poorly maintained bus. When the bus arrives, ask the driver how much he is making per hour ($12.00) then ask him his experience. Don't be suprised if he tells you it's his first day or first month because academy is where EVERY driver gets his start. 

smaller companies pay their drivers more (20-25% of the total job)

as far as a tip is concerned, legally* my company is obligated to include part of the cost as a tip. its a very small percentage, and barely helps the driver. On a $750 job, we are talking 20 dollars. We always ask our customers to collect 2 dollars per person and give that to the driver. That's it! 

Any questions please email americandreambus@aol.com. Thank you. 

We understood that this disaster of a bus was not the fault of the bus driver. And even though our contract with US Coachways assured us that a tip for the driver was included, the driver confirmed that no such tip was ever paid by the bus company. So we put him up at a VERY nice hotel for the night AND we tipped him $100 for the trip.

Most Charter drivers do the job because they love it. I did it for a while and still moonlight on occasion.

Poor guy got dispatched in the local old clunker.

The door stuck and was a pain, yes a serious safety issue, but I bet no one before him bothered to report it because there is a easy trick to get it to pop open and no-one told your driver. Nice thing to find out in front of your Passengers.

Recirculating toilet faulty and won't flush, ouch, again the old clunker bus, probably a deferred repair because it is due for retirement or supposed to be on local short trips so the company doesn't have to fix it. 100% dispatcher error.

AC trouble, Happens without warning even on well maintained units, and this thing obviously wasn't. There is no way to fix it on the road, just like most bus break downs.

No water in the sink, virtually every bus run in Canada has this disabled, disconnected and out of service due to the fact that it would never work anyway. Water freezes and breaks the plumbing. Most companies supply wet naps and hand sanitizer instead. Where I have worked it is up to the driver to check and stock his bus for these items and toilet paper.

Charter bus drivers barely make more than minimum wage and live on their tips, Basic fact of life. This is why many charter drivers are middle too late aged persons with a sunny personality. If people like you, you make enough to survive to the next trip. Generally grey haired nice guys or Moonlighting guys like me. (I fit both categories most days)

So unhappy customers, Boss is probably mad because no matter what happens the dispatcher and terminal manager will blame the driver for not making this a pleasant trip, just a fact of bus driver life, and no tip. I guarantee you stifed him because his company put him in a untenable situation.

Poor guy.