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| - I was extremely nervous purchasing a ticket for my father to get from Champaign to O'Hare airport after reading all of the negative reviews. However, choosing another bus company would have resulted in him sitting at the airport for 8 hours prior to his flight. I was definitely annoyed by the ridiculous disclaimers, warnings, and statements similar to, "the driver has the sole authority to grant permission to board". I ended up following all of their instructions to a 't', making sure the boarding passes were printed out in color, that my father presented the correct one, and had emailed him copies (it was a round trip), in case he lost his return ticket (the other reviews had really made me paranoid lol!). I'd even planned to drive my dad up to ORD myself, as a back-up plan in case he encountered problems!
As a side note, I'd taken Suburban Express several times as an undergrad, but that had been in 2000-2004, in pre-yelp days. I never had problems then, even as careless as I was as a student, but policies and management change.
I dropped my father off at the bus stop 10 minutes early (Hilton Garden Inn, Champaign). I was expecting a shuttle, but there was a full-size coach bus, with "Illini Shuttle" printed in very small letters on one of the front windows. The bus driver, an elderly man, was super-nice! My father had zero issues on both the outgoing and the return trips, and I was very pleased! Everything was on-time and exactly as expected. Based on my experience, I would use them again.
I am deducting 1 star for the ridiculous user agreement, which made me spend more time in ensuring that the instructions were meticulously followed. I am deducting another star because, when I called their office to double-check the exact bus stop location and the type of vehicle that would be there, the line was busy every. single. time. Perhaps there's no one at their office in the summer time, in which case they should mention that on the website, but perhaps these less-crowded summer days also resulted in a more positive experience for my father.
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