I wish I could give zero stars. I called 1st Student 5 minutes after my son's scheduled pick up time only for them to tell me their driver hadn't even started the route yet because they had given him an extra route at the last minute. His bus showed up at our house over an hour late today. I went ahead and took my son to school myself causing me to be 20 minutes late for work, which is still earlier than when I would have shown up if we had waited for the bus. This happens on a regular basis. read more

First Student was good for the cost. For us, they were a fairly inexpensive way to get our mostly out-of-towner guests to the ceremony and reception (two different sites) from the hotel. They were prompt in arriving - though they did leave the hotel for the church too early before everyone had boarded. We'd recommend going through the phone number on the website; every time I called to update the itinerary or make other changes, they were super helpful and responsive. We also heard that the way back was particularly fun for our guests - the driver joined in on some Irish singing! read more

I am astonished by how hard it is to give this company my money! I have been trying to book a trip for WEEKS, having to track them down and call them incessantly... to NO avail. Alas, I will be taking my money elsewhere. I could have booked a trip (with a combustible engine) faster in the year 1850. First Student, you are last in my book. read more

First Student is not just the worst BUS company I've ever dealt with - it is the WORST COMPANY I've ever dealt with. I have been running summer camps for about 15 years in different areas of the country. In Seattle, First Student seems to have a monopoly on affordable charter bus service. From what we can find, there are no other charter bus companies that use school buses, and therefore we are stuck using First Student. We give First Student approximately $10,000 in business every summer. In the 4 years that I have been using them in Seattle, they are predictably terrible. Every year, our account gets shuffled among several employees, none of whom have voicemail. We typically submit our detailed itineraries in December for the following summer. When we call in January to follow up, they tell us the person working on our account is not there, but they can let them know we called (since they don't have voicemail or.. apparently... email?). We call back, and talk to a different person. They tell us they never received the reservations. We re-forward the original email. They say they'll get right on them. They then send us reservation confirmations that are completely wrong. We call them back, and they redo the confirmations. We are told that we need to pay in advance for them to be confirmed. We pay on the phone by credit card and receive a receipt. We call in May to confirm that all of the reservations are still in the book. They tell us the person dealing with our account has left, but they'll forward our question on to someone else. We call back. They tell us "ohhhh the reason we can't find your reservation is we switched computer systems and your reservation has the old system's reservation # on it. we'll create new confirmations with a reservation number that fits with our new system". YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP We then get new confirmations, and new requests for payment. We tell them that we've already paid. They can't find record of payment. Then after much time on hold, they come back and say they found it - the reason they couldn't find it was because the person who took the credit card payment didn't attache the invoice numbers to it, so it just looks like one lump sum that hasn't been attached to our invoices. but we're all set now. SERIOUSLY? Then, we call the day before we expect the bus (which is twice a week all summer), and without fail there are one or two buses that have not been dispatched because they lost our reservation. After the summer is over, we get a bill for our buses, and we spend 6 months with our accounts payable folks submitting and resubmitting receipts to prove that we ALREADY PAID for the buses. THIS IS THE WORST COMPANY ON EARTH. If anyone knows of another affordable charter bus company in Seattle, please tell them to advertise because we'll patronize the heck out of them. read more

Watch out for Frist Student Buses and Drivers. I Recently had first hand experience with a fender bender where the First Student Bus actually cut into my lane on a right turn and nailed the front left fender of my car. I had to chase the driver to a service station where they finally stopped. We exchanged insurance info and went on our way. One of my friends who works at the Bellevue School District told me first hand they are notorius for not honoring or paying claims and for poor road etiquette and driving skills. My insurance company and I were stiffed by First Student who sent a letter stating the accident was my fault (even though I was not moving when I was hit) and refusing to pay. They appear to be a company run by dishonest and ethically challenged management not to mention bus drivers with poor driving skills. read more

Wow. Horrible experience. We had to call multiple times before our wedding to confirm things and EVERY SINGLE TIME we called there was an issue that needed to be resolved, or something they messed up. Finally, the bus arrived over an hour early and the poor driver had to sit out there because dispatch gave her the wrong information. Then the bus BROKE DOWN on the highway, which i was expecting to happen so I was cool about it at the time. However the person/people who are supposed to answer the phones on the weekends did not answer. So we were stranded there for about 45 minutes before he calls back. When he does, he's a complete asshole. Extremely rude to me and yelling into the phone that he can't do his job and talk to me at the same time. Long story short they couldn't get their act together and get us a replacement bus, so we had to spend $300 on uber XLs to get our entire wedding party out to the venue. Thank god our guests were not on that bus. Then, when I try to call to get a refund and talk to a manager, I just tossed around and transferred multiple times, never actually speaking to anyone and getting a voicemail message. Which no one ever returned. Obviously the reviews on here are indicative of the poor service and downright terrible management this place has. read more

Man y'all always late, you make us lose all of our baseball games. One time we had to wait till the crack of dawn till a bus came and then it never came. I was like the heck? Then we had to walk and hone and it took three hours. Rip dblock read more

I have using First Student for several years, and spend many thousands of dollars with them, only because there is no other option for affordable charter bus companies. They get almost every contract wrong, double-bill us all the time, and even though we call to re-confirm the day before we have the bus reserved, they sometimes fail to dispatch the bus. Their staff turnover is insane - we usually have 2-3 different people handling our account each year - that's how often people seem to quit. This year alone, we have spent upwards of 6 hours on the phone with them just to book 18 buses, even though we provided all the details in writing already. They are really terrible. read more

I would never use this service. I had a complicated event that included an overnight for my students. I spent over three hours total on the phone with them. Huge amounts of time on hold. I had to call three different times and each time I had to start with a different customer service representative. I asked if they could work on the bid and call me back. The do not work that way. The customer has to sit on the phone while they put the bid together. Then the next day, the customer is required to call back to confirm what was just agreed upon. I had to start all over with a new person. Another huge waste of my time. After all of that, I was told that they would send the bid out to the correct office and would get back to me with confirmation. I never heard back so after a week, I called them. The rep told me that they could not place the order because they could not schedule the driver. Fine. I get that. But they never even bothered to call me back. How rude. Do not trust these people. read more

We recently rented three buses to transport our wedding guests from the hotel to our wedding venue. The buses seemed to be coming on time to our venue and dropped off guests when they needed to. The big problem occurred at 1 AM after our reception. The buses left our venue without picking up the last set of our guests. Therefore there were about 50 of us who did not have a ride back to the hotel after the reception. We had the numbers of the bus drivers, but nobody picked up the phone when we were trying to get hold of them. At 1 AM, after a long wedding weekend, we had to call several taxis last minute to get everybody back to the hotel. This was not the way we wanted our wedding weekend to end! It was just very irresponsible of the buses to leave early and not make sure that they picked up everyone from the reception hall, which is what they were told to do several times. I am just warning that if you do use their services, just make sure you have a number that they will pick up just in case of emergencies. Double check your bookings ( even though we did do all that), because you never know... read more

I recently rented two buses to transport my guests from a hotel to my wedding venue. I will start off by saying this was the cheapest option compared to renting shuttles or luxury charter buses. Unfortunately, in this instance, I definitely got what I paid for. I noticed the week of my wedding that they had input the wrong pick up address, which I luckily caught and had them correct. I became concerned at that point at the inattention to detail and attempted to solicit bids from other vendors but couldn't find anything within our budget. The day of our wedding was a disaster. Despite having the correct drop off address, the buses dropped our guests off at the wrong location not once but TWICE. We got married at the zoo, to which there are two entrances. Our guests were supposed to enter at the West Gate. The buses first took them to the south gate, where everyone got off the bus and was confused as to how they were supposed to enter. One of the guests referenced the invitation and informed the driver they were at the wrong address. The drivers then attempted to take the guests to the proper entrance, but dropped them off approximately a 5-10 minute walk from the actual entrance. As a result, our guests had to walk far longer than they were expecting (and some of our older guests were not very mobile) and due to the added walking plus the mistake in the drop off, our ceremony started nearly an hour late. I was and am so furious at the bus company and found their response after the fact to be lacking. The customer service representative talked to the bus drivers and "They state where you wanted the guests dropped off it was in the traffic flow and not a safe place to release the passengers." This is quite frankly BS - the address where I requested drop off was a parking lot and certainly not in the traffic flow. In sum, I do not recommend this company - the price savings is not worth it. We lost an hour of our wedding day because of their carelessness. Spend the extra money and ensure that you actually get from Point A to Point B, rather than random Point C that they determine to be an appropriate drop off location. read more