I had my first ride on a refurbished Merc today. Eager to give it a go, I snubbed a Solar (which would have got me to my destination quicker), in favour of the longer trip on the Merc.

I was impressed as I first boarded.
It had more about it than those Streetlites. The embossed logos looked classy.

However, my first impressions didn't last long.
I sat down and noticed that the logos were becoming frayed. Stitching was coming away too.
Finding a seat proved trickier than I thought. Not because of the number of passengers, but because of the sticky/greasy finger marks glinting in the early evening sun.
I have no idea what the cleaning arrangement is for these seats, but after the money spent on them, I would hope it was an efficient clean.
The sausage roll flavoured finger marks looked fresh and I didnt want them transferring to my clothes, so I chose the least affected seat.

After the bus pulled away, I also noticed the lack of padding on the seats. Im not sure if mine had been missed out at the factory or if it was intentionally thin.
The seats may look good (when clean and when the logos aren't frayed), but they're not comfy. 

I didn't have a usb charger with me to test out the plugs, so can't comment on the effectiveness of them.

The next stop/bus stopping set-up looked like an after thought too.
The positioning, font and different colour LED's just didn't do it for me I'm afraid. It was almost like the street sign clutter that we hear about every so often.

Having seen fares increase and justifications of the increases from GNE staff, pointing towards these refurbs, I would have hoped to have enjoyed a far better experience.