Gallus1

For a seasoned traveller and blogger, I�m fascinated as to why you�re itinerary wasn�t more prepared. I�m not throwing shade, I�m simply curious.

Jagboi

The US blood alcohol limit is quite a bit higher than the UK one, but I think you were smart to not drive. When I arrive in the UK and am picking up a rental car I generally have my day planed so the place we are staying overnight is no more than a 45 min-1 hour drive from LHR. Having little sleep from an overnight flight and then driving on the other side of the road to what I am used to takes a lot of concentration.

Getting out of LAX isn't exactly a quiet road to get used to being on the other side of the car and the road. Even if you followed CWS's lead and were teetotal it would still be a stressful drive.

PoincianaKings

Interesting report. The weather in the Bay Area has been awful for the last couple of weeks and it is set to continue- multiple atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones.

My immediate thought was 'just drive' it would have been doable- we typically do West San Jose CA to downtown LA in around 5 hours. But taking into account your lack of experience in driving in the US you made the right call. The 5 up to the Bay Area isn't the greatest road- its a dull straight road drive at the best of times once you get past Santa Clarita. Add in driving it at night, the odd weather we've had (fog can be bad on the 5- it was on 12/29 when I drove back from San Diego) and the other drivers, you 100% made the right decision.

You would have stopped at Kettleman Station I think. It's pretty much half way on the journey up to SJC.

Not that it will happen again but I would have looked at other carriers into the Bay Area (though WN were in a spot of bother even before the weather). I would have even checked whether you could get into MRY and then take the SFO airport shuttle up.

Once in the Bay Area on Flixbus, I would have also considered getting off at San Jose and jumping in a Lyft or connecting onto the CalTrain at San Jose. It probably would have been quicker than going all the way up to 4th + King in SF and back tracking.

One other point as Flixbus drop off at 4th + King station in SF, you could have jumped on the CalTrain and gone one stop to Millbrae. At Millbrae you are a stones throw from SFO. There is a free airport bus or you could have transferred to BART for the 2 min journey.

guv1976

Are you sure about that? The limit in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland seems to be 0.08% BAC -- the same as in California.

Jagboi

I looked and I was getting units mixed up. I have watched some of the "Motorway Cops" shows online and they are always referring to 0.035, whereas in the USA/Canada it's 0.08. The difference is breath vs blood and I hadn't realized that until just now. I just assumed the UK limit was under half the US limit - which given the traffic density and the narrow, fast and curvy roads in the UK seemed perfectly reasonable.

bisonrav

I'm just going to answer this from my perspective, which is that planning contingencies creates quite a lot of overhead in time and money and usually they're not needed. Mostly travel works. I did a lengthy round the world trip on low cost carriers on separate tickets for each flight, and my only contingency was having a couple of days free here and there to allow me to catch up, plus a bucketful of avios and a joker to get me home if needed. The only actual issue was the first flight which had a significant delay, but that turned out ok (plus I got EC261 for it).

I will sometimes book a throwaway backup if I feel there's a significant risk, these could be redemptions or cheap OTA booked flights direct or to somewhere I can take a redemption from. And I will tend to be more careful at the start of a big trip than the end of one.

What gets you is generally not what you plan mitigations for anyway, that's true in most aspects of life. So you can look at alternative flights for example, other ways of getting to places (last year included a ferry from Tiree when the weather closed in on a day trip, also trains), just so you know where to start looking. But if you got into detailed contingency planning for every trip, you'd end up going mad with anxiety I suspect, and there'd still be something that clobbered you.

corporate-wage-slave

I was limbering up to say something similar actually. I meet KARFA quite frequently (and I've had the pleasure of your company too) and I know that we are roughly in the same spot of not over-thinking stuff in this area, there is an element of "if something happens then that's an opportunity as well as a problem". Something will always come along. It was interesting to see the process that led to Flixbus, I think I was aware of the train limitation, but I would probably have started with Greyhound or consider something like ONT-SLC-SJC or OAK on the day. I certainly don't advance check bookings that regularly and I've been known to only select seats at OLCI. It's just an inefficient use of time to over-plan and one can rapidly get stressed out by minor details not working out.

NickB

Never been on a flixbus or greyhound in the US but I once ended up doing ATL to MIA on a coach. This was many moons ago and I can't remember what the issue was (vague memory of an AA strike but cannot remember for sure) but there was major meltdown with AA at ATL and my AA flight and subsequent flights were cancelled. AA was meant to have rebooked me on DL but, turning up at the gate, I was told that my AA had not validly rebooked me and the flight was full (as were subsequent flights). Running out of options, AA offered to put those of us who wanted on a coach to go the same day rather than wait for a flight the next day. Departing the next day would have messed up my onward schedule so I took the option of a bus. I think there must have been about 15 of us choosing that so we ended up on a coach with plenty of space for each of us. AA also provided various dry snacks+water and soft drinks. It was a standard Greyhound-type coach so not the most comfortable journey I have ever been on but it did the job given the circumstances, got me to MIA early the next morning and enabled me to continue my journey normally after that..

Yahillwe

OMG there is Flixbus in the US? I HAVE to take it when I am in LA.

Long story short, I went with friends from Paris to Bruge Belgium on a day trip, using Thalys. the return, we missed the train back from Brussels to Paris. All because I couldn't find a very good Moules-frites. (I tried several places and nothing was good). So in Brussels we had 3 choices, stay overnight (nahhh) rent a car (way too expensive and would take way too long), the car rental agent suggested Flixbus, he helped us book it and off we went to a very strange part of town, where drivers were screaming, Milan.... Barcelona... but nothing Paris. My friend was talking to her husband and he heard all those calls and wondered which city we would end up at. After asking it turned out the one going to Barcelona stops in Paris. Interesting bus drivers (got upset with one passenger because her M&Ms rolled down the bus), the stop was away from any taxis etc etc. Anyway we arrived home around dawn.

It was a memorable trip, lots of fun.

So, knowing there is Flixbus, I need to take it to Santa Barbara.

KARFA

I really can�t recommend it for you Yahillwe

Yahillwe

You know me, but you don't know what I sometimes take, and frankly, those out of the norm trips are the most fun ever. Had I been with you, we would have laughed our hearts out.

KARFA

So just to add to the story based on some of the questions. I did very briefly look at flights but tbh considering the disruption in the Bay Area I wasn�t convinced anything I booked to SFO/SJC/OAK would get in that night or even early next day. I am not sure there were many seats available anyway. I probably could have looked a bit further in terms of airports tho. Possibly over cautious I guess.

I had in my mind that greyhound, flixbus, and megabus all operated in the US. When I did a simple search for coaches to SFO it was flixbus that came up first and they had a service at a time that would work so I basically just went with that. I must admit I didn�t spend time also checking greyhound as well to see what they had instead.

rapidex

Having nearly missed a FT do thanks to being on a flight with KARFA, I made it policy to never travel with him again. This saga re-affirms that policy
At least your alarm clock wasn't needed this time

NickB

I suspect I would have reacted the same. The difficulty with seeking an alternative flight in that situation is that, while it may look like it is running at that point, it could very well be cancelled at a later point, and at that point, there may be no alternative left. In those kind of situations, alternatives such as car rental, trains or buses offer greater certainty if being at destination by a certain time is essential.

TedToToe

I'd love to know how the FlixBus seats compare with BA's Recaros at the back of a NEO!