I have posted this on "the other" Dover site as well, but hope you don't mind the copy - I need to rant!!!!!!
Mr Bern and I went to see the Stoppard at the National today - checked the trains on the web etc etc. When we got to the station we found that due to engineering we were to be bussed to Folkestone, train from there. That was not on the web. But Fair enough - engineering has to be done. However, the only signage was on the monitors, there was nothing to tell us where the bus would be or which bus, and people were back and forth to the ticket office or nabbing passing workers to find out what was happening - it was a muddle. If one were sensory impaired or a foreign visitor one would be stuffed.
The bus was outrageous! Filthy, fag ash on the window sills, hadn't been cleaned for months, possibly years as it still had British Rail signs in it, last seen circa 1989, and the grease lining almost everything was easily as old. It rattled like it would break up, had a gale howling thorough it and smelled like a very very old dustbin. Made my flesh crawl. The driver, who could barely manage a grunt, added insult to injury by playing a crap radio station just loud enough to irritate with its faintly audible inane prattling. It dropped us a good walk from the Folkestone Station without either telling us where the station was or any signs there to indicate. I am not clairvoyant and neither are visitors. Same on the way back, except this time the train we wanted was cancelled, an announcement was made with the addition "please listen for further announcements". There were none and we had to guess when the next train was coming, if it was running, and whatever the reason was that the earlier one was cancelled - might have made a difference if it was serious or not. In addition, when we were on the train the written signs said we were in carriage 2 of 7, the announcer said the first 4 carriages would go to Dover and the last 4 carriages to Ramsgate. 7 or 8 carriages- you guess, especially if you are in carriage 4.
When we emerged from Folkestone Station for the bus, again no signs or information - anyone not local, or even those local who had not had the earlier experience, would not know it was around the corner and a bit of a walk away, would probably have waited at the station, and would have missed the filthy hovel of a bus. If we are told a bus will take us to and from the station, it is probably fair to assume it will take us FROM and TO the station, not near to it and around the corner a bit.
This is customer care at its absolute worse. There was not one thing, not a single thing, in this experience that indicated any valueing of customers at all, no incentive to use the public transport and a real reason not to line the pockets of the people who think this deserves the word "service". I will take the car in future when we go to London. I am sure I have told you before, but here goes again: My son and I went to Live8, London and Edinburgh. When we went to Edinburgh, we left the house at the same time as my husband, who was catching the train to London. We were driving to Manston, getting the plane, and getting a taxi to the hotel in Edinburgh. We were in our hotel unpacking before my husband ever got to London. Rail Service? Don't make me laugh. I don't know why people get so exercised about nationalising it - it couldn't be any worse!!!!!!
Rant over.
