Dublin city to Cavan? Tres confused:(

bluemoo

Hi guys , culd anyone help me by telling me what bus eireann bus (or otherwise) is best to get to cavan town???

I cant seem to find one or navigate bus eireanns timetable?

Also do you need to pre book tickets with bus eireann? or on the day (next monday, will there be enough seats left so that i can pay the driver?)

BrianD

The BE site is not very intuitive abd a bit of a pain in the ass to navigate the timetables and journey planner. They should make these functions as easy to navigate as their "buy tickets" interface.

Route 109 is the bus you are looking for. Note that not all 109's go as far as Cavan town. I would recommend either buying a ticket online or at the ticket office in Bus aras. In my experience, some drivers will refuse to sell tickets on the bus at Bus aras saying that it should be bought inside. Just saves you running back inside and perhaps missing the bus!

markpb

Route 30 (to Donegal town) also goes to Cavan. It's an intercity so it's a little faster than the 109 but you can only board at busaras. It doesn't have as many departures though - I think the 109 leaves Cavan and Dublin once per hour.

Try using the journey planner on the front page of the BE website -it's much better than trying to decipher the printed timetables.

Edit: there are some diversions on #30 at the moment but they are the other side of Cavan and won't affect you.

bluemoo

Thanks guys,thats been really helpful....can anyone tell me what time does busaras dublin open on weekdays for ticket sales?....would they be open at 7am ish?

markpb

I don't know about the ticket desks but the machines are turned on around 7.30am I think. If you have a credit card, you could buy it online and give it to the driver if the ticket office is closed.

Carawaystick

Surely BE drivers sell tickets if the ticket office is closed :eek:

manutd

I always buy the ticket for the 109 on the bus, ever a problem before, there not going to turn business away are they

bluemoo

Thanks for all your help guys

munchkin_utd

a slight tangent but essentially still relevant!

Up till about 10 (or more!) years ago there was loads of private operators from Cavan to Dublin operating under the travel club guise (abeit with limited service , normally only a morning service from Cavan to Dublin and evening back again).
I remember reading once that Cavan had the highest number of private coaches in Ireland at that stage.

So does anyone know what happened all the private services that now there is none?
Was it a tightening of the travel club loophole or was the improving Bus Eireann service too much for the private boys (with their 1 bus a day!) to compete with that led to no private operators on the route?

markpb

munchkin_utd wrote: »

Was it a tightening of the travel club loophole or was the improving Bus Eireann service too much for the private boys (with their 1 bus a day!) to compete with that led to no private operators on the route?

It's been a few years since I used the private operators so I'm not sure when they left the market. I'd imagine the combination of a more frequent timetable and more comfortable buses killed them off.

Also, it's only a small thing but Busaras Dublin seems to be better run and less chaotic than it used to be. Turning the buses round so you can see the display and not have to walk between two bus engines to get to the door improves the experience a little. Adding the digital displays above each gate (even if they're not 100% accurate) helps a little too. Of course there was also the big clean two years ago.