Longstaffs Travel & Amble AutoPoint - Morpeth

kevin saddler

As a representative from Morpeth Congregation of Jehovah’s Witness’s we have used Longstaff’s for our Assembly’s in Newcastle upon Tyne over a number of years.
We find the staff very friendly approachable and very helpful in dealing with the young and the older ones very patient all round. The information provided to them was followed extremely closely with regards picking up times and dropping off and the drivers we had Raymond & Alan were very good and managed Great.
Many thanks Again for your Professional approach to your assignments we would have No problems in recommending this company See You Next Year.
K saddler C/O Morpeth Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Michael Davison

Auto point did my glow plugs and agood price and in good time great service

IAN JONES

Great service for my MOT this August and job done whilst I did my shopping in nearby Morrisions.

John Nicholson

Can’t give any stars for a company SO bad. Booked for a group to travel to Blackpool, stay overnight, then return via a football match in Preston. The bus picks us up ( approx 60 people) and we find it’s a 70 seater. Great, a bit of space you might think. But, no, it’s a bus used for school runs. So 2 seats at one side and 3 on the other with a very narrow aisle. Not good on a long journey. Then the driver casually announced that the toilet couldn’t be used as it hadn’t been emptied from its last usesge. Just what you need on a 4/5 hour journey. Then the next bit of good news. The air con system isn’t working either, so let’s all get hot and sweaty. The next day nothings changed except everyone get soaking wet at the football so the return journey to the north east is made in a bus that can’t clear the windscreen unless someone is physically wiping the inside of the windscreen with a cloth so the driver can actually see out of the window!!. (And still no toilet). And the really bad part they probably used this bus the next day on a school run without fixing anything as they got back to the depot about midnight. Shocking so called “ service”.

Ashoke Datta

If you're looking for a travel service that will leave you and your guests stranded and then refuse to take any responsibility for it, this is the one for you!

Do you have an important event coming up that is in danger of running *too* smoothly? Never fear, Longstaff's Travel can ensure you and your guests are inconvenienced, delayed and abandoned in new and surprising ways.

On the morning of my wedding I was worried by the fairly mediocre levels of incompetence they displayed when they:
a) Turned up at the wrong place despite specific instructions both in person and in writing, which delayed the entire wedding. Luckily that elongated the best bit of the wedding for the guests - waiting awkwardly in your seat for the ceremony to start!

b) Got lost on the way to the venue after the assured us they were familiar with it, prompting 3 U-Turns on narrow country lanes. Definitely a novel experience!

c) Brought buses that were too big despite promising they'd know exactly what size would fit through the venue gates, resulting in all the guests being dropped off 100 metres away from the actual venue. But that's a nitpick really - who doesn't enjoy unexpected exercise when you're dressed up for a formal occasion and/or elderly and/or physically disabled? Especially if that exercise is along a muddy path and around a cattle grid.

Thankfully those were just the warm up acts for the big finish, namely not turning up at all to take people home. What better wedding present is there then having 22 tired guests stuck in a country village, far from home, on the stroke of midnight? Especially when there are no taxi's around to help rescue you.

Perhaps Longstaff's just felt that party was ending too early and we needed to spend the entire night together?
Perhaps they thought that actually, what my wife really wanted to do at our wedding was drive guests home - a 90 minute round trip - in her wedding dress. In the dark.
Perhaps they thought that weddings aren't expensive enough and what would really be fun is if we could spend *more* money - money on the one taxi that did turn up, money on accommodation for people who couldn't get home, money time and energy on ferrying people home ourselves.

It remains a mystery what Longstaff's were thinking, if indeed thinking is a thing that they do. While they've admitted that the driver turned up at completely the wrong place at completely the wrong time, they don't see this as a problem.
Nor do they think it a problem that the driver told their office where he was, who didn't realise the mistake. They don't even think it was strange that the driver left, with zero of the 22 passengers expected, without so much as a phone call to us to figure out what was going on. That's Longstaff's though - unflappable.

In fact if you want a company that won't bother you with phone calls or explanations or even the minimum expected standard of decency and basic competence, I can heartily recommend Longstaff's. Even after having to chase them up for weeks after the fact, they've managed to hold onto their air of mystery by offering up nothing as an explanation.

And to think I only had to pay £800 for this level of service! Sorry, I almost forgot the other hundreds and hundreds of pounds spent in order to try to fix their mistake...not to mention the hours spent during our wedding...and the morning after...plus the hours on my honeymoon, trying to get any answers from them.
At this point I've spent so much time on Longstaff's without answer, I feel a bit like a stalker! Perhaps I am in the wrong, thinking that my money entitled me to the service that was promised. How unreasonable.

A final note too on Keith, who is mentioned in other reviews. Keith was a pleasure to talk to and very reassuring when we dealt with him. Unbeknownst to us, he left Longstaff's before our wedding - whoever remains there is probably the reason for our catastrophe. You can probably disregard any older reviews made before he left.

Keith

"I am part of an over 60’s group in Amble and we have used Longstaff’s Travel on numerous occasions for day trips. We have found them very reliable, the coaches are extremely comfortable and the office staff and drivers always pleasant and very helpful. We would definitely recommend Longstaff’s Travel for a super day out."
Marjorie White, Amble over 60's group

Mel Brown

Once again Longstaff's came up trumps with valuable help from keith, whilst booking and speedy, prompt service by Paul ,our driver, who made our outing to St. Andrews church in Newcastle, enjoyable and convenient. We will always use the firms coaches and recommend them to everybody.

Mrs. E. Brown Ashington & district U.3a

Alan Tait

Me and my partner travelled on a mystery tour weekend.Was well impressed with the service and especially the driver (Simon)who went above and beyond to make sure everyone was looked after well done and thank you .