Booking the trip was a great experience. The drivers were on time for pick ups and drop offs. However, we did two different trips and got two different drivers. Our first trip was incredible. The driver was helpful kind and flexible to our needs. The second trip driver was on time and things ran for the most part smoothly. However, She did not have a clear understanding of where she was going or how to get there. She was high maintenance asking me for GPS navigation. Asking for a bathroom break. Asking if she could stop to get breakfast. And as I offered to sweep out the bus to help keep it clean she proceeded to give me direction and instruction of how I missed a spot, as if I was supposed to be doing her job.
The first driver would not let me clean anything up, the second driver acted as if it was my responsibility.
All in all both trips were great and the bus company is fantastic. My lower review is only because of our second bus driver.

Perfect. Arrived on-time, clean, safe ride!

We use First Student Charters for youth travel at our church. We are always happy with the customer service when we book and also if we encounter problems. Usually our drivers are good, professional, and competent.
Unfortunately the trip was not as smooth this time. Every winter our church takes our youth to a conference center 2 hours away. This year our driver was concerned about traffic so he decided to take a different route than was 'suggested'. I told him that I didn't care the route, we just needed to get there. Well, he driver got lost. He continually asked me if things looked familiar to me. (I have never driven this route. I have always been in a school bus, in the dark, so I am not aware of the details of the drive). He quickly turned into a parking lot to look at a GPS (causing luggage to fall and something to break), he drove while reading directions for a while. He claimed that we were on the correct road, but I knew that we were not. He complained about the conditions of the road (which he thought was a major highway, but was actually a small farm road) Finally I realized that we were so lost and losing so much time that I finally entered the address of our location on my GPS and directed the driver back to the location. It took almost an additional hour to arrive at our location. We had overshot the area and had to come around from the other side. It was frustrating to have to direct the driver after we were so lost.
When the driver picked us up again on Sunday morning he said that he had gotten there without a problem. I am sure the daylight and lack of snow were helpful, but it was very frustrating on Friday night!
I would hope that a driver would be prepared and not rely on a passenger to reroute the bus back to its intended direction.

There was an issue with the type of group getting onto the bus. The team was not allowed to get on the bus until it was cleared. This caused the team to be late for the meet. Please let me know that this will not occur in the future.

Thanks.

We have used First Student 5 or 6 times in the last two years, and have been "very" happy with all the drivers promptness and helpfulness.

Missing bus

I ordered 4 buses, all to arrive at 3 different locations by 5 PM on 11/7/2019. One bus never made it to its destination in Zion, IL. Then a bus from a different location had to replace the bus that never made it to Zion, IL. My group made it to our event an hour late.

In all of this, no one called me or my one the ground point person. I had to call the after hours numbers only to be told the driver was lost. I wasn't given much af a solution.

However, Mr. Randy and Ms. Patricia were very helpful drivers.