Reviewers have complained about the long travelling times on Shearings coaches and here is the reason. Shearings Coach Depots (in our case Normanton in Yorkshire) have a closed barrier across the entrance until 4.30 pm and coaches are not allowed in, regardless of how near the holiday destination is, so drivers have to kill time on the motorways. The alternative would be a long queue of coaches waiting outside the depot until 4.30.pm until the barrier is lifted. This is so that all the drivers are back in the depot together and can then drive the feeder coaches and mini buses taking passengers home, getting twice the work from the drivers of course.
For instance a friend went to Liverpool with Shearings. The hotel "threw out" the returning guests about 10.30 and their coach spent all day ambling across Lancashire until they reached Normanton at 4.30. The journey would take 2 hours by car at most.
Before we knew this, we stayed at the Shearings Burlington Hotel in Eastbourne for a week. We booked 8 months before and paid extra for a sea view, expecting a really smart room, but instead got a tiny scruffy room on the top floor, with just enough space for a double bed, a bathroom and a tiny wardrobe. Our small room was even partitioned off to make a shower for the room next door. Wallpaper was peeling off, and the paint was full of scuff marks. The corridors between rooms were tatty and the lifts were filthy and slow.
I spent much of the week at the chemists, first for earplugs to sleep through the noise from the Discos on Eastbourne Pier which started at midnight until 3.pm three nights a week. I complained to reception but the staff lied and said they didn't know of any discos, so either they were deaf, or couldn't read the posters all over town advertising these events.
The hotel food was poor quality, always looked tired and unappetising and was probably not even refrigerated between meals. The hotel was crowded with guests, stuffed in everywhere all week, so service was slow and grudging. By Thursday the awful food made me ill and so back to the chemists again for medication.
Shearings drivers are entitled to two days off a week, which is fine, but these two days aren't taken in Shearings time and Shearings expense, they're taken in the middle of our holiday week and we had to use public transport to get about. OK in a large holiday town, but not if the hotel is in a remote area.
This review earns one star however, but only for the sunshine and the company of the other guests on our coach who were lovely.
Make no mistake, Shearings are not in business to provide good holidays, just to make as much money as possible for as little effort and outlay, and I would never recommend them to anyone.
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Advantages: ideal for non flyers wishing to travel to the warmer climate of the med. Disadvantages: NOT A TRIP FOR CHILDREN WHO WILL GET RESTLESS ON A LONG COACH JOURNEY
alliedprawn 12.09.2007 (12.01.2008)
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Review of Shearings Coach Holidays
Advantages: Affordable holidays in the Sun. Great Staff, a good choice of locations Disadvantages: Coaches not what they are hyped up to be. Lower Decks uncomfortable and cramped.
Sep 28th, 2009
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