New York to Philly bus?

I am taking a day trip to Philly. Train is around $90. Greyhound is screwed up and not giving me information. My wife used to make frequent trips on a bus line called "P2P Circulator" that has now closed. They left from Penn Station and dropped off at 30th street station, which would have been ideal. Anyone know of a similar service?

There is a bus from NYC to Philly's Chinatown. Check out http://www.staticleap.com/chinatownbus/. The cost is $20-30.

I took one of the Chinatown buses a couple times in the past. Quite an experience...

Megabus has started doing the Penn Station to 30th St. Can be cheaper than Chinatown. And I can't imagine anything can get worse than the one experience I've had on the C-bus.

Originally Posted by whoopee

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Megabus has started doing the Penn Station to 30th St. Can be cheaper than Chinatown. And I can't imagine anything can get worse than the one experience I've had on the C-bus.

That's exactly what I was looking for. The P2P bus was perfectly fine. Nice clean bus, convenient pick up and drop off. It's a short ride, and $70 saved on the trip is $70 saved...

There's also Boltbus. It costs more but free wi-fi and serves the same stops. FTR, I've tried neither.

If you prefer train over bus, one can take NJ transit to Trenton and switch to SEPTA from Trenton to Philly. I would use this if I were going to be more toward the west side of Philly as opposed to the East Side. Little more money, but not a lot off peak.

I second the idea of NJ Transit>Septa. It's definitely less than $90. I do it all the time.

^ takes rather longer than two hours, though, right?

About two and a half hours, depending on the Trenton connection.

I avoid the NJ transit to Septa way. Riding the Septa R7 leaves me feeling like my brain has been rattling in my skull for nearly an hour.

I haven't had any bad experiences on the Chinatown bus, but perhaps that's just beginner's luck. Personally, I'd use the bus at 30th station.

For the love of all that is holy, take Amtrak! I was dragged onto the chinatown bus once...never again!

The trick to doing well in th C-bus and others are a few points:

1. Dress like crap. Do not wear clothes, esp shoes that you dont mind getting trashed. Less to worry about => more relaxed you will be
2. Getting trashed, in general is not a bad idea. Can make time go by quicker. If it gets to the projectile vomit stage, very likely, the adjacent seat will become vacant to spread out in.
3. Speaking to yourself usually gets people to give you extra space. This tactic has been spoiled by those bluetooth wearing cell phone users. The rareity and novelty of someone having conversations with aparently no one has gone.
4. Speaking of clothes, tank tops on hirsuite travelers improve chances of vacant adjacent seat. Bonus points if the hirsuite traveller is female.
5. Prior experience of travelling in buses that routinely carry goats and their owners puts things in perspective. At least these have AC and it is rare to enjoy the aroma of fresh goat droppings. Farting sheep, inches away from ones nostrils, should only be a once in a lifetime experience.

You all sound like a bunch of prissy little girls. I take the Chinatown bus around once a month and I've never had a problem with it. There are always a mix of city people riding but never anyone that smells bad or homeless and many of them are dressed well (though very few dress like fops.) I've noticed that most riders are either internationals or Americans in their mid 20s looking to save some cash. I always sit next to someone nice.

The big complaint about the C-Town bus is that the seats aren't the most comfortable but it's only a two hour trip, not overnight and if you want more comfort you should just take Amtrak. For $20 round trip, I don't see how you can lose with the C-Town. It's more money to spend in the village.

In my (limited) experience, people didn't smell bad at all, but every other person on the bus was eating all sorts of soups, noodles and curries and the bus itself smelled like a rotten durian.

I much rather pay up for the Amtrak and throw back a few cold beers on the train. The ****** 1974 kung fu movie on the 12" CRT screens was kinda funny though