Megabus is a service that is constantly improving. Better busses, better staff, better punctuality, more locations. It isn't glamorous, and it isn't necessarily comfortable or exciting, but it'll get you there.\n\nMy usual trip on the megabus is along the Pittsburgh-State College-New York line. The trip goes as follows: Board the megabus in Pittsburgh, get to State College 3 hours later, stop for 10 minutes while people get off and others board, stop at a Pilot/Subway for 25 minutes about 2 hours later(If you're reading this from the bus and wondering how long until you can get a bottle of water, it's exit 256 on rt-80), get to NYC about 3 hours later. There are some potential congestion points: The Squirrel Hill tunnels if you're leaving at rush hour(4:40p bus), and the Lincoln tunnels entering NYC(I've been caught up here for about 40 minutes once).\n\nLateness used to be a very common thing with the Megabus. When my girlfriend would grab a bus home from State College, we'd usually wait about 30 minutes for it to come, once it took at least 2 hours to come(Maybe longer, we left since she couldn't get a bus in Pittsburgh when she got back). Once it came and left 20 minutes early without waiting for her. Don't try calling customer service about it(This may have changed), they don't care - the phone number they give is to a call center, and you have to convince them to give you the real customer service number. I called asking for a refund for the bus that was 2 hours late and I was given the run-around. \"I'll leave a note for my manager, she'll call you back\", no call - Called the manager \"I didn't see anything about this, let me check for your reservation number, hold on\", silent hang-up. After that for some reason I could never get through to a customer service rep again, hm.\n\nLately it hasn't been late, though, and the busses have been upgraded. They used to have 1 socket per seat and sketchy wifi. The wifi is now more stable and there are 2 sockets per seat. If you have to sit next to someone, it's a lot less comfortable, but if you get the room of two seats it isn't that bad. If you sit up front on the top level you get a little extra legroom, too. However, the maximum prices have also gone up. It used to only cost $30 to go to NY, now it's $45 if you're late to the party. You can still get tickets for $1.50, and they release them a few months at a time, so I personally just spend about $10-20 on tickets if I catch them when they're just released to have the option of going.\n\nAlso the last time I went the staff in Pittsburgh was really friendly. These guys get a lot of stupid questions and complaints(On my bus home, a lady who spoke little English argued for 15 minutes that there were zero seats on the bus for the rest of her family. Sure enough, there were actually six seats and only 4 of them. Still, she argued there were zero and that they could not go home), so they really have to have a lot of patience to be in that position. Also, the one bus driver whose name is Frank, I think(He is kind of a bigger dude, wears a Steelers cap), is really funny so if you get him that's a bonus.\n\nAll-in-all it's a cheap trip from point A to point B. In Pittsburgh you board under the convention center, so you don't have to wait in the rain or anything. In New York, no such luck.
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