Premiership side Newcastle Falcons found themselves in a spot of bother late last week – proving the old adage that if it’s got wheels, it can cause you problems!  No operator in the country is immune to mechanical woes from time to time, and so it proved when The Falcons were en route to their challenge cup game in Tbilisi when the team coach become stuck, and despite their best efforts, it couldn’t be freed.  However, the key to problem solving in this industry is how you react, and in no time at all The Falcons were in replacement minibuses and back on the road.  Like all coach and bus operators, we experience technical issues from time to time, and we take our hat off to the quick response of the company in question!

Read the full story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/42746032

Although we are less than half way through the current school year, we will very shortly be opening up registration for our home to school services for the academic year commencing September 2018.  We are very close to launching the sign up process, which for the first week will be exclusive to current customers.  Please keep an eye on your emails and text messages as we will be notifying all parents that currently subscribe that registration is open.  We hope to do this before the end of this month.  As usual, demand for places will be extremely high, so it is vital that you respond at your earliest opportunity.  No fees are due until September.

We plan to operate all of our existing routes again from September, and would be very interested to hear of any other routes that you would like to see implemented.  Of course, there must be sufficient demand for us to put on a new route, but we are happy to look at any route where parents are struggling to get their children to and from school.

Keep an eye on your inbox over the coming weeks, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages for further updates.

You may just be recovering from the financial bombshell of Christmas, or maybe you’re waiting for the dreaded credit card bill to hit the doormat, so planning for a short break or getaway may seem miles from your thoughts.  But don’t despair, it may be worth taking a look at the recent offers that Travelodge have advertised, with a million rooms available for just £29.  These are spread across the country, and could give you a cheap break if booked quickly.  We are able to transport groups of any size from across Gloucestershire to anywhere in the country in our fleet of coaches and minibuses.  Why not have a look at the Travelodge Website and get us to provide the transport for your mini-holiday?  Here’s the story as reported on Gloucestershire Live: http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/planning-school-holidays-travelodge-released-1025866

Following some interesting feedback from our followers on social media, we are planning to re-launch our popular day trips for 2018.  These will hopefully have a broad appeal, with a strong family theme running throughout and lots of options for the half term breaks and summer holidays.  As well as the child friendly options, we will also be looking at running trips catered more towards adults such as theatre trips and race meetings.

We have been asking our Facebook followers to let us know the places they would like us to run coaches and minibuses to this year, and would be very appreciative of any further suggestions.  We are hoping to pick up in Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud if there is sufficient demand, and already have a good number of suggestions.  There are plenty of traditional favourites such as Cadbury World, Harry Potter Studios and London Theatreland, but we would love to have more feedback from you so we can make sure the trips we run are the ones you’d like to go on.  please email us info@johndixtravel.co.uk with your suggestions.

We are hoping to publish full details of this year’s day trip itinerary in the next month.

 

As transport providers to many of the Gloucestershire’s schools and clubs, we are often asked to help out with coaches and minibuses for day trips around the country.  The destinations are very varied and can be as local as The Cathedral, or as far afield as Alton Towers, The Houses of Parliament or Warner Brothers Studios – the home of Harry Potter.  It was with great interest that we noticed a recent article on retro school trips on the Gloucestershire Live website, and a number of us recalled fondly visiting a number of these attractions that are now sadly no longer in operation.  A good number of them are though, and we regularly transport groups by coach and minibus to such places as The Corinium Museum, Sudeley Castle, Cotswold Farm Park and Clearwell Caves.

We of course go further afield, and in the past year have taken schools and clubs as far afield as Scotland, Ireland, Amsterdam, Lloret De Mar and Lille.  Why not give us a call and see if we can help with planning your next day trip or weekend away, but in the meantime have a read of this Gloucestershire Live Article and see if it brings back any memories!

http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/you-went-school-gloucestershire-80s-1006233

As Gloucestershire continues to bear the brunt of Storm Eleanor, we are acting to reassure parents that all of our school services will be operating as normal unless we notify you otherwise.  Please follow us on Facebook for live updates in the event of severe weather causing either the closure of schools or the curtailment or cancellation of a route.  This is extremely rare, we try to run our bus and coach services in all conditions, but occasionally safety will dictate that this is not possible.  In these instances, we will always post on Facebook initially as it is very quick and simple.  We also endeavor to send out text messages to parents and students but this can take a little longer due to the large number of messages and the differing status of each route.  Also check our website news section for updates.

If you don’t hear from us we will be running as normal, and unless we issue instructions to the contrary, students should wait at the bus stops as normal – we will be there, if a little delayed.

This is all worst case scenario, but doesn’t hurt to plan for all eventualities!

http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/storm-eleanor-live-updates-severe-1002634