Language

For the first time I experienced genuine confusion over "mañana" meaning both "morning" and "tomorrow". I asked the guy about buses to Posada, he said something like 'today we have one at blah". I said "y mañana?" and he told me they didn't have any, meaning "in the morning". I don't see how this could have been avoided without saying "and Thursday?" instead. The conversation was far from fluent but I wonder if a native speaker could have the same problem, and if not why not?