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A co-worker recommended LimoLiner to me so we decided to try them out to get into town for TechEd 2006 this year. We had a couple of travel options, and didn't really like any of them.
The first was to go to the airport. There, we'd have to deal with waiting in line, waiting in the airport, baggage claim and checking, stressing about losing baggage, being crammed like sardines into overfull planes with no food, little to no drinks, no service to speak of, and of course, recycled air that is full of all kinds of bacterial infections, diseases, and potentially pandemic bird flus. A round trip per person to Boston and back on (airline censored) would've cost us about $180 per person.
So then the other option was driving. I canned this option pretty quickly. At first glance, it looks like it saves money over flying - but not really. It costs about $120 in gas alone round trip. Then there's the $36/night the hotel wants to charge me for parking. Thats just the monetary cost - but the sanity cost alone is too much to pay - driving in NYC and Boston is nasty - and having to do both in the same day is ludicrous.
So enter LimoLiner. They're essentially a luxury bus, but the inside of the bus is all tricked out like a limosine, and there's an attendant who serves you drinks, meals, whatever. They have satellite TV on board, satellite radio, Wi-Fi and wired internet access (being satellite based it can quit out in tunnels...but that's not so bad considering...). They also have free drinks. They have free snacks. They served us a chicken caesar salad for lunch and I think I downed about 30 diet cokes and they didn't get angry at me (I'm a pretty thirsty guy).
All the seats on a LimoLiner bus are reclining black leather seats. They have airline style radio jacks, except they actually work, and they're positioned so as not to cause a short-inducing crimp in your headphones. Did I mention they recline and they're wider than most first-class seats on popular airlines? Did I mention the free lunch, drinks, and snacks? We got to sit at a large 4-person table and my daughter was able to spread out her crayons and paper while I unleashed the 17" alienware laptop and did some programming - plugged my power into the floor of the bus and picked up wireless internet access from one of the two routers on the bus.
So, to compare. Airlines coach (read: pee-on scum-of-the-earth) class: $180 round trip per person.
Driving: $250+ total, but sanity cost is far too high.
LimoLiner: $150 per person round trip. That's right. $150.
Any geek worth their weight in code would be a fool not to use these LimoLiner folks. I spent four hours listening to music on my headphones, cranking out code on a relaxing bus in a leather chair with CNN on in the background, watching my daughter take up over 4 feet wide of crayon-coloring space while my wife did some crafts on another nearby table. Thats more than an airline gives you in first class, and you have to pay through the nose and sacrifice your firstborn to get first class tickets anymore.
I've attached a couple photos highlighting the leather seats and entertainment consoles. I apologize for the lighting and shutter speed, I'm still getting used to the built-in camera in the PPC-6700.
