Hi everyone,
I’m looking at taking the Burner Express from SF. After adding a return ticket, bike, water, and fees the total is $480.
Is that accurate? Seems expensive for a bus.
Hi everyone,
I’m looking at taking the Burner Express from SF. After adding a return ticket, bike, water, and fees the total is $480.
Is that accurate? Seems expensive for a bus.
Yeah skipping the lines is great and I’ve heard it’s a good time.
Just surprised the cost is so much more than driving.
The ride is in fun bc everyone is excited and vibing out. The ride out people are usually drained, smelly and depressed it’s over
For sure.
But being depressed and stinky while skipping Exodus sounds a whole lot better
Fun tip for the Burner Express exodus. Yes you will be back in SF in about 8 hours and that’s amazing. But about one of those hours will be spent getting to the highway and they aren’t allowed to run air conditioning (at least this was the case last time I used it) while on the playa. You may be acclimatized to the heat but that is one miserable af hour regardless. Pick your seats on the side that isn’t going to have direct sunlight
I’ve only taken it once, but it definitely didn’t take a whole hour to get to pavement. It can’t have been more than like 20 minutes. I don’t remember if the AC was on or not though. I didn’t have many brain cells left at that point
Definitely not an hour. Last year it was 15 Minutes.
+1 to this.
Even once the AC kicks on, you’re gonna be sitting on a plastic trash bag wrapped seat getting cooked by the sun. When you walk onto the bus for exodus, choose the side on your left.
lol yea exodus driving is usually like 8hrs my experience. I don’t mind usually tho. It’s fun to vibe along with others bound by pulsing.
Is it tho? Probably $80 in gas each way. If you were renting a car it would easily push it over that amount.
Please, let me know where you get your car, because that sounds cheap to rent a car.
I spent $300 on gas round trip last time I drove.
That doesn't sound more expensive at all honestly, if the alternative is renting a car/ uhaul.
You need to buy the water add one separately though
By that theory. How much more would you pay for gate to finally hire enough real professionals to process people quickly.
I work gate and I spend more time waiting for people to find their tickets which they didn't have ready even though they had had a 12 hour drive and however long in line, put their parking pass on because they weren't sure if they should put it on their window even though it says it has to be affixed to the window, or figure out how to unlock the door of their RV because it's a rental, then I spend actually searching or scanning tickets.
Honestly half that time is spent waiting for people to figure out their stupid parking pass. Every time. If people had their shit together when they got to the front of the line, the whole thing would move a LOT faster. Add in MOOP issues, cars that won't start again, and the fact that you have to walk the entire way around the outside of a full sized RV towing a trailer and have someone open the compartments - it takes time. And lets not even get into TCOs that constantly fuck up the early entry passes and send the same one or multiple times so then people have tickets that don't work, but that's more of an early entry thing.
Most people working gate just want to get you inside and are working as fast as they can because all of us have been there, but we can only go so fast, especially when people aren't prepared. Holy fuck if people were prepared, how fast it would be.
I hear that. Perhaps some road signs admid the usual quotes and reminders on gate radio and BMIR? A cars only lane? An RV lane? I suppose these are not ideas you've heard before. But I have serious PTSD from 20+ years of waiting in those lines. Also, Greeters needs an express lane.
Trick to greeters is going before greeters opens ;) but I've heard the left side is no wait? Not sure.
At greeters if you simply tell them everyone has been before/no virgins and you know where you're going you usually zip right on thru.
Well, sure. But that doesn't help if you are behind several carloads of people who all want to roll in the dirt, get spanked, ring the bell and take selfies.
Ah I see your point. Wait, they're offering spankings now? That's it, I'm telling them I'm a virgin.
Isn’t gayte mostly volunteers? Im pretty sure the slow ingress is intentional to prevent a traffic jam within the city.
It's all volunteers with the exception of maybe a half dozen very senior administrative roles.
There's no conspiracy to slow things down during ingress (exodus is a different story). It just takes time to process 50,000 vehicles arriving pretty much simultaneously. Honestly, it's pretty incredible that it doesn't take longer.
So 2 bus rides, extra space for a bus, and not worrying about water for a week?
That $500 covers a lot more than "a bus ticket"
Also add in the fact that you're not stuck in a 10 hour exit lineup, that's worth a few bucks...
I've only used the burner bus, and I can't imagine how awful it would be to wait in line out there ☠️
So San Francisco to BRC is 340 miles and will take 5.5 hours. Reno is 123 miles and will take 2 hours and 6 minutes right now. A straight no bike/water ticket both ways from Reno is around $350, so yes. It is accurate. It costs me 2k or more every year, for a 24ft box truck and another pick up plus trailer, to bring our 24 person camp to the burn.
It’s still a lot cheaper than a rental car, gas, and detailing/cleaning. Plus no waiting in line
You are paying for a bus driver and a truck driver round trip. Their fleet cost, insurance cost, and other costs. Multiply out the hourly rate and divide by the number of passengers. Then the water is picked up on playa where it has to be delivered by Outside Services. You can get an idea from https://mecoreno.com/water-order-form/. Usually fuel prices peak in the Summer and are unpredictable. The water and the bus/truck are also subject to the BLM fee, I think 3% of revenue.
How much do you charge for busses?
About $3.50
Oh, I understood it to be about Three Fiddy...guess I was wrong.
God damn lock ness monster.
Did they increase the price? Last year I paid $140 each way ($280 total) from/to Reno, I find it weird that it'd be almost double the price to SF.
But also I second all previous comments: that bus is worth all the money in the world. Skipping the exodus line is priceless.
A proper car detailing post event is going to run $300 on the cheap side. So you are also saving on that.
Or a lot of your own time, but yeah, assuming your time isn't worth nothing, its not cheap to get even a rental car back to "won't be charged extra" territory.
The prices are normal. Pretty much what I paid, though I didn’t have a bike. As others have pointed out, the journey is fun, you definitely get to the playa much quicker than self transport. The buses were A/C until we reach playa, then they have to turn that sucker OFF for obvious reasons.
I spent a bit more than that on roung rip to Reno with two extra luggage, bike, and water add-ons. Almost the same as my plane ticket from Puerto Rico. Eeek.
I don’t want to be driving after a week of patchy sleep. So the bus is worth all the money for me, relax and sleep 8 hours, what can be better
How much of that price is the bike rental? Seems a bit high, but not much.
It's an additional $88 to bring your own bike on the bus to BRC. There are no rentals.
looks like money milking to be honest…Yes, renting a car for two persons plus gas might be same price, but a bus is a bus, cmon. I think what you pay is the „Skip line fee“
That’s normal. It also includes a few gallons of water and trash disposal after the event. Be sure to use those. Edit: also if you’ve ever sat on gate road in the heat and dust for 8+ hours, did you ask yourself how much you would have paid to skip the line?