A joyride aboard a stolen hotel shuttle bus for two drunken visitors ended in a crash early yesterday.

Christopher Feltmann, 29, and Alfred Stole, 24, were spotted walking away from the Elbow Beach Hotel shuttle van after it smashed into a wall outside the hotel's entrance on South Road in Paget.

A hotel security guard alerted Police after he heard the shuttle as it drove off followed by a loud crash.

Feltmann, a New Jersey native, crashed the vehicle and faced more serious charges as the pair appeared before Senior Acting Magistrate Carlisle Greaves in Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Feltmann was charged with driving while intoxicated, driving without third party insurance and theft. Stole, from New York, was also charged with stealing the van.

The pair, who are scheduled to leave the Island this morning, originally pleaded not guilty.

But when Mr. Greaves said they would be remanded in custody until their trial, they changed their minds and pleaded guilty.

Feltmann said it was not his intention to drive the bus.

"It started rolling down the hill and I tried to stop it. Bit I'm a stranger to the wheel and the brakes being on the opposite side."

Stole claimed that in his drunken state he had thought the shuttle was a taxi and was waiting to be taken to his hotel as Feltmann took the wheel.

"We came up from the restaurant with two other friends,'' Stole said. "They got a taxi but we were waiting around for another one."

Stole claimed to have "five or six" drinks.

"That's when we got into the bus. I just sat in the backseat with my head on my knees, assuming it was a cab taking me to my hotel. I had no intention to steal it. I just tried to get home safely," added Stole.

Mr. Greaves was unsympathetic.

"When people go on vacation they think that tourist means something else. The most intelligent people go on vacation and they don't even know how to use a cross walk."

Feltmann was fined $1,000 for stealing the bus and $1,000 for impaired driving. The driving without insurance charge was dropped. Stole was fined $250 for his part in taking the bus.