So, guys, let me tell you about my little adventure last weekend. I had this spontaneous idea on Wednesday that I wanted to go to Paris. And you know what? I made it happen! I hopped onto Omio to book my tickets and they suggested BlaBlaCar as the cheapest way to get to Paris, and Union Ivkoni for the journey to London.
BlaBlaCar was smooth sailing, except for the missing seats 2A to 2D. But let me tell you about Union Ivkoni – they really showed me a tough time. I received an email at 4:30 pm saying that the 6:30 pm bus was delayed for 45 minutes to a whopping 1 hour and 15 minutes. When I reached Bercy, it was a mess – nobody knew where the bus stop was. I had to resort to texting the bus company on WhatsApp to find out that the bus would be at platforms 50-55.
Just when I thought the drama was over, I got another email at 7:30 pm saying the bus was further delayed to 8:30-8:40 pm. The bus finally rolled in at 8:45 pm. And the surprises didn’t end there. For a 9-hour journey, there were no toilets on the bus, and only one charging spot for all the passengers! Can you believe it?
The route they took was bizarre. We even made a pit stop in Lille, and they loaded a bunch of bags from a random hotel – no passengers, just bags. We were supposed to reach London by 4:15 am but it was already 3:00 am and we were still stuck at Calais waiting to board the ferry.
Let me tell you, I’ve learned my lesson. TLDR; never, ever travel with Union Ivkoni. But hey, if you ever find yourself in that unfortunate situation, make sure you have WhatsApp handy, a power bank fully charged, and take that last bathroom break before you step foot on that bus. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.