It doesn’t matter who you are or how many precious crystals and good luck charms you hang off of your neck and rear view mirror. If you run a transportation company for long enough, you’re going to have some bad days..REALLY bad days in this business. When you mix motor vehicles and humans with alcohol, it never fails to provide a litany of great (and not so great) stories to tell around your next backyard bond fire. Throughout our travels and days of operating a successful party bus business, we have met quite a few other owners of similar companies who have shared some of the woes they they have encountered along their business journey. We find it entertaining and therapeutic to share some of these stories with you and give a peak behind the curtain on the daily life of a party bus owner. We wont use any personal or business names, just the stories we’ve had the privilege of hearing. (We cannot confirm nor deny any of these are our own experiences).

A friend of ours used to run a 3 bus operation in the local Metro area. One of his buses were in service hauling around a load of drunk guys for a bachelor party one evening when the bus had a mechanical failure while in route to another bar. These things can happen from time to time and are not uncommon in the business. The driver called up the owner to report the issue and the owner was immediately in route to fix the issues, as he knew it was something relatively minor. When the owner arrived on scene, the guys on the bus were extremely irritated they had to sit and wait for the bus to get fixed. At that point in time, they were also pretty south of sober. When the owner walked onto the bus to address the issue, one of the inebriated passengers got in his face and became very aggressive. Before the owner had time to react, the passenger punched him directly in the face and began physically assaulting him. After the other passengers pulled the drunk guy off the owner, he became understandably infuriated and asked the passenger why he punched him. The guy stated they weren’t going to allow a random homeless guy on “their” party bus. Once the owner identified himself, the drunk guy hung his head and apologized for the “mix up”. Needless to say, that trip was cut quite a bit short.

Another incident happened during a bachelorette party on a Saturday night. The weather had been pretty ugly for the past couple days prior to the trip and the rain had saturated everything from the constant downpours. The bus driver approached an intersection that was flooded and decided it would be better to turn around and take a different route. The driver attempted to pull off the road and conduct a 3 point turn to avoid the water hazard in their way. As the driver pulled off the road into the grass, she didn’t realize how soft the ground was due to the rain and began plowing through six inches of mud. Well as you can imagine, a bus is not very light and began sinking with every rotation of the wheel. As the driver tried to power through the grass, the bus became buried in about a foot of muddy grass slop. When the bus came to a stop, it was very apparent they were not going anywhere anytime soon. The driver had to call the owner who ordered a tow truck to the scene, which arrived about two hours after the call. Miraculously, the passengers didn’t mind and continued to party and take pictures while the bus was being towed behind the wrecker!
This next story is a prime example of why to thoroughly interview your bus drivers to insure they don’t have any underlying fears out on the road.

It was a booking for a wedding party full of the bridesmaids and groomsmen that were on their way to the wedding where the bride and groom would say their vows in front of all of their family and friends. Everything had been going really smooth when the bus approached a large bridge that towered over a major river. As the driver climbed further up the bridge, a giant wave of anxiety came over her. At this point, a major panic attack ensued and the driver had to pull the bus over to the shoulder and park the bus near the top of the bridge. She then proceeded to start crying and telling the passengers she couldn’t make it the rest of the way over the bridge. As you can imagine, the wedding party began looking at each other, wondering if this driver was actually having a major issue or if it was some kind of party bus prank. Well it soon became apparent, this was no joke and the bridesmaid had to call the owner. The owner couldn’t calm the driver down and had to drive his car to the bridge and drive the bus the rest of the way over. The driver was so shook up, she decided she couldn’t complete the trip and the owner was forced to transport the party to their destination. Talk about a memorable wedding day!