As students make travel plans to return home for spring break this weekend, the university is offering one other option to help students get there.

Wildcat Central will provide a bus to take students to Houston on March 7. No airline currently offers direct flights to Houston from Abilene Regional Airport. Students must either drive 5.5 hours or take a connecting flight at another airport. However, United Express will begin to offer nonstop flights later this month. 

John Mark Moudy, associate director of student services, said Wildcat Central started the bus trips in 2020, and it has been a beneficial program for students. 

“I think there’s definitely a lot of value in that service,” Moudy said. “You can just tell just by all the people that actually do sign up for it.”

Typically, 40-50 students sign up for the bus to Houston. In addition to just spring and fall break, Wildcat Central also provides similar transportation at Thanksgiving and Easter.

Wildcat Central also provided transportation to DFW and San Antonio for the past few years. However, this semester, Moudy and the rest of the team decided to go back to providing the bus only to Houston. 

“We’ve come back to just going to Houston just because there just wasn’t as much interest as previous years,” Moudy said.

The bus will leave campus at 7 a.m. Saturday and will travel to The Woodlands Mall, about 30 miles north of Downtown Houston. From there, it will be up to each student to coordinate a ride to their final destination.

For the return trip at the end of the break, the bus will leave on Saturday, March 15, arriving back in Abilene at around 10 p.m. 

Serenity Rhodes, sophomore psychology major, will be utilizing the bus to get home for the break. Despite having a car here in Abilene, Rhodes said it was more convenient for her to use the bus.

“I wanna say just how easy and comfortable it was last semester,” Rhodes said. “Also, the pricing because it’s a little bit cheaper I guess than the gas for me doing it round trip in my car”

Additionally, Wildcat Central will also provide the same opportunity for students traveling to Houston this upcoming Easter. With campus closed on Good Friday, that bus will also leave at 7 a.m. on April 3.

The fee for the entire trip is $75, and the charge will be applied to each student’s account. For each bus, 55 total spots are available. The registration will stay open until the bus is full, allowing students to register closer to each break if necessary. Seats can be reserved at https://success.acu.edu/portal/newTransportation.