Special offers on family tickets for summer holidays
20 July 2024

Special fares are on offer for family tickets on buses in Cornwall for the summer holidays. The prices have been as follows:
A family ticket entitles 2 adults plus an unlimited number of children (under 16) to travel on one ticket across Cornwall for £15 for All Day or £50 for All Week. These tickets can be purchased from the driver or through a bus operator app.

From 20 July until 2 September, the prices have been reduced to £10 for an all day ticket or £30 for an all week ticket.

But how would prospective families know about these prices? In the Cornwall Council email newsletter that is sent out on Friday afternoons each week, there was an article entitled “Take a legendary journey this summer”. See screenshot below.

If the reader scrolls down the email and clicks on the button “Find out more”, they are taken to a website under the URL www.legendaryjourneys.co.uk. Then clicking on a button entitled “Journey planning” results in a pop-up that reveals that "Choose a family ticket and explore Cornwall by bus for just £10 per day or £30 per week with our summer fares (offer valid from 20/07/2024 to 02/09/2024).”

These prices are very good value for money and you would expect Cornwall Council and the bus companies to be promoting them. So what do we find on the relevant websites and apps?
Transport for Cornwall website: no mention of the special prices. In fact, the price table continues (as of 20 July) to show the old prices of £15 and £50. See screenshot below.
Go Cornwall Bus website: no news item to announce the special fares. Admittedly, if you follow the link to Fares and tickets and click on the Day tickets or Week tickets, you will find that the fares have been updated to the new prices of £10 and £30 but there is no indication that these prices are reductions from the old prices, nor that the special prices will apply only for the summer holidays.
First Bus website: nothing at all about these special prices.
Go Cornwall Bus app: if you buy tickets through the Go Cornwall Bus app, you will see that the prices for family tickets have beeen updated to £10 and £30. See screenshot below.
First Bus app: if you buy tickets through the First Bus app, you will find that the prices have not been updated and you would have to pay the old prices of £15 or £50. See screenshot below.

Overall, the initiative to encourage families to use the buses in Cornwall at very reasonable price points is potentially good; however, if you are not a subscriber to the Cornwall Council email newsletter, how would you ever know that someone had gone to the trouble to set up a website under the name legendaryjourneys.co.uk? And how would you know about these special prices?

it is highly unlikely that any more than a very small number of potential users will ever know about this initiative and be able to take advantage of it.

Update
21 July 2024

On Sunday morning (21 July), the Cornwall Council Twitter account posted a tweet about the initiative, see CC tweet. However, you still have to dig deep into the link from the tweet before you will come across the fact that the fares have been reduced for family tickets for the next 6 weeks.