Going from Ottawa to Peterborough on Thanksgiving Greyhound managed to oversell all the buses they had scheduled for every route going out that day. Not one employee in that Ottawa terminal knows which lineup is for which bus. Not only that but they were rude when I inquired about the right line for my destination. Once I was in the terminal it became apparent that they had drastically underestimated the number of people traveling (hint: maybe it's time to actually start counting travelers and trends in travel). Someone had clearly thought far enough ahead however to realize they needed crowd control and there were two very nice, very confused police officers essentially pointing the way to the ticket counter.
Because of the mob of people, every available bus owned by greyhound was used. So, yellow school buses where brought in. Designed for primary school kids on 20 minute rides you can imagine that this was not comfortable for a 4 hour haul. Not only that but it was, just like on field trips from hell, two to a seat for every seat including the wheel seat that I had the luck to land on. Baggage got chucked into the back two seats regardless of size or crushability. The bus itself was so old it didn't have a backup beeper; something that has been mandatory on buses since the 80s. My knees where wedged into the back of the seat in front of me and I'm 5'8, by far not the tallest person on the bus that day.
As recompense for bumping over the Canadian shield for hours we were all given 2 "greyhound bones" in 5$ denominational bills. When I tried to use those 10 free dollars I discovered that you can only use one at a time and that the terminal I was leaving from had just implemented a new 5$ terminal fee.
If you have a choice never use Greyhound. If you don't, rethink, and if you find you do have to go somewhere via greyhound then take the extra time off and walk or bike.
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