Couple's fury at 200-mile coach marathon

They were left shattered when their round trip to the famous Minster city took a staggering 12 hours—after coming home via Cleethorpes and going ten hours without food.

Marlene Poole (65) and husband Trevor thought they were going for Christmas lunch in York, around an hour away.

But the coach driver took a detour to Leeds and came home via Cleethorpes, taking five hours for the return trip.

They finally arrived home exhausted and angry 12 hours after setting off.

The couple left from Rotherham bus station with Travel Style at 10am last Wednesday.

Angry Marlene, from Kimberworth, was told moments after getting on board that the lunch was at the Merrion Hotel in Leeds rather than York, which was not stated on the company brochure.

After finally arriving in York at 1pm, Marlene and her husband enjoyed a few hours taking in the Christmas atmosphere, but things were about to get a whole lot worse.

Tired from their day in York, five minutes into the return journey home the driver delivered some more bad news.

He had received a call from his boss to drop other passengers off in Cleethorpes first, almost 70 miles away from Rotherham.

Four hours later the coach made another stop at Doncaster services as the driver had to make a rest stop.

Mrs Poole said she just couldn’t believe it. “I was fuming, I was so angry it was just one thing after another,” she said.

“First we were told the Christmas lunch was in York but we ended up in Leeds.

“And then it took us five hours to get from York to Rotherham when it should have only taken one at the most.”

Marlene, who was one of 50 other passengers on board, said that people were getting restless and one lady even missed her last bus back home.

“I complained immediately to the driver who just said he had received a call saying he had to drop the other passengers off first.

“They didn’t even tell us that we were taking a different route until we were on the coach. We paid money for this trip and weren’t even told what was going on.”

Marlene made an official complaint the day after her trip. 

A Travel Style spokeswoman told her they understood the driver of the coach had to make the detour to drop his other passengers off in Cleethorpes first.

They said they were looking into the incident and would write to Mrs Poole in due course.

Marlene said that the people on the coach didn’t have a chance to eat after the Christmas lunch in Leeds at 11.30am.

She said: “Because we didn’t know the return journey would take so long nobody got anything to eat, so the last meal we had was at the Merrion in Leeds.

“The next time we were able to get some food was at the services, nearly ten hours later.

“Some of the ladies were ringing the head office complaining, even when we were still on the coach.”