Last month I wrote an article here that compared the different ways that a family could to travel to France, which included Train, Drive or Fly – I failed to note that you could in fact also travel by coach – and we are talking about luxury, state-of-the-art, travel by coach.
On my recent visit to the North-East and Scotland, I visited Siesta holidays, a tour operator that offers camping holidays in the south of France and Spain. Siesta also run their own coach business and I was privileged to be given a tour of one of their three, new half-million pound coaches that take coach travel well into the 21st century.
I often recall the coach journeys we took as a family going to Spain every summer when I was young, departing from Victoria Station in London to Burgos in Castilla y Leon; so I am very familiar with what coach travel was like in those days.
The new Siesta coaches, have two decks with steps at both the front and centre of the coach to the top deck. As I walked on the coach I noticed that the lower deck has a small kitchen area, [this is used by a hostess throughout the journey for your benefit] and the back of each seat has a TV monitor.
I take 10 or so flights each year, so the first thing I wanted to test out was the seat space and, as I was reliably informed, the minimum space offered to each passenger (seat pitch) is 35 inches. Compare* that to Easyjet and Ryanair flights with 29 inches and 30 inches respectively.
The TV monitor turned out to be an on-demand entertainment system, with over hundred films to watch, games to play, cctv from the front of the coach – so your kids can pretend to be the driver and sat nav so you can track your journey.
OK, so the coach journey takes longer than flying, but with pick ups in many major UK towns and cities and drop-offs at your campsite in the south of France and northern Spain – avoiding the tiresome wait at the airport and the cost of transfer to your resort – this is a very viable family travel option.
For more information, please see www.siestaholidays.co.uk
Photos courtesy of Siesta Holidays.
*Comparison with airlines taken from SeatGuru
