We messed up Thanksgiving Eve pretty good. Here's how we wanna fix it.

Boy. That bar crawl didn't really go as planned, huh?

They say you never stop learning, and they weren't kidding. We thought we had this "bar crawl" thing licked after doing them all the time since 2011, but new surprises pop up all the time.

First and foremost, if you had a bummer time on the bar crawl, I want to personally apologize.

I was on the buses myself to make sure they ran smoothly and even that wasn't enough. The most important thing is that you trusted us to deliver a killer experience and some groups had a total flop.

If you're interested in the inner workings, here's what we think happened and how we plan to fix it:

1. Three buses were not enough!

This year we increased the size of the loop, the number of stops and added a ton more tickets without increasing the number of buses. Big mistake! For future crawls, we'll simplify the route and increase the number of buses. That's just simple logic.

2. The parade setup can be unpredictable. 

We checked all of the road closures and built our route around exactly when Woodward Ave. and its crossovers would be closed. Unfortunately, the electrical contractors didn't follow that guide and closed all of Woodward on and off from 5PM onward. That had the police redirecting our buses in unexpected ways, including away from the Congress and Woodward pickup at Townhouse down to Jefferson and Woodward, which is nowhere nearby. If you missed the bus at Townhouse, this was the heart of the problem and we found out too late that it was happening. We'll coordinate better in the future with the Parade Company itself, its various contractors and the Detroit Police Department.

3. Our conductors needed more training. 

As a result of the holiday, most of our regular conductors weren't available to guide buses. We were training three brand new conductors that night which is entirely not ideal - including one that got sick and had to be switched out. The outcome was missed stops and unhappy riders. We'll be pre-driving the route in the future with all staff and making sure everybody fully equipped for the task at hand.4. GPS tracking would've made your lives a lot easier. We launched our company with GPS tracking on all of our buses and it seemed to not be a very popular feature so we stopped implementing it. What we didn't consider was how useful that technology would be on a cold day so you can see the buses coming and plan accordingly to get outside. We'll put GPS back into all of our fleet and have it going before the next big event.

We're working immediately on fixing these things and will be back in action very shortly.

That leads me to my next point:

Because of our screw up, I'd like to offer you a huge savings on our super popular

Drunks of Antiquity: Detroit Historic Bar Tour.

This four-hour guided tour/adventure leaves from Ferndale and downtown Detroit and goes to four of the most incredible, oldest bars in Detroit. You get the history, meet a few of the owners and rock out on our beautiful buses. It's a blast and is our highest rated tour.

Tickets are normally $36.99 but if you use offer code "WHOOPSIEDOODLE" at checkout you'll get 50% off as many tickets as you purchase between now and December 8th, 2015.

There's early bird and group pricing available as well and this code will save you half off of those discounted rates too.

It's pretty audacious to screw something up and offer what seems like more of the same, but with the work we're putting in I know we will provide the same incredible, reliable and fun experience that we've been known to provide for over the last four years.

I hope we see you on the bus again sometime soon. If you have any questions, don't hestiate to contact me at [email protected] or 313-444-2871.

Thank you,

Andy Didorosi

Founder & President, The Detroit Bus Company