(22 Aug 2015, 9:23 pm)tyresmoke wrote The 7 runs every 15 minutes in the daytime, and the X12 every half hour so if you plan your journey I am sure you can get a decent connection! I don't know whether they'll connect so well later in the day though  

Yep. It's possible to go for a 15 minute wait or a skin of the teeth race across the bus station (when everything's running on time). Neither is too arduous, really, though the 15 minute wait isn't quite long enough to get to Durham's one clean loo and back, if needed.

I usually buy an explorer to get to Newcastle, rather than an Arriva day ticket, as I don't like being constrained to the X12. That paid off, one Saturday, when the metro was off (our usual back up plan as we can get a single bus home from Sunderland) and there had been an accident near Chester le Street - we were able to catch the X1 to Houghton and then the 20 to Durham. It took half an hour longer than usual, but was an interesting route through old haunts and we got a seat. We'd probably have had to queue for half an hour (there were hundreds of people in Eldon square, waiting) just to stand up and crawl through traffic jams on the regular 21/X21/X12 buses.

I might have annoyed a driver by getting off the X12 coming from Middlesbrough and seeing that a 22 hadn't left yet, the other day. I was experimenting with having a family ticket on my phone. Which meant logging in, opening the app, as it had closed and finding the ticket. I was already annoyed because going through an area where both of my SIMs were low signal had eaten up my battery and I'd had no chance to charge it, so had had to switch my phone off for a while (thankfully turned it on again before reaching Durham). I'll stick with paper tickets, in the future, unless I'm strapped for actual cash or not going very far.