My main reason for writing this review is that Scott's reference to all his 5 star reviews was a key factor in having us book with him in the first place. We have booked with Fly-Rides 2x over the past 18 months, actually used them once, and didn't have a 5tar experience either time. My main takeaway is that the bus part of the experience was as expected, but I don't trust the owner and won't use them again - I won't go so far as to say dishonest, but we found him very defensive, standoffish, and quick to use our lack of knowledge and situation to his advantage.
As others have mentioned, Scott is very responsive, answered all my initial questions, and the online contract was convenient. We had two issues on our first tour - the first being timing - we had our party barge booked from 11am-3pm on a Friday. The location of the marina is 26 miles from our house, with an estimated 45 minute drive on a 'normal' Friday per Google maps. I figured a bus would take a bit longer, and wanted to be sure we stayed within our window, so I suggested 2 hours on either end of the time on the lake to get all 30 of us to and from our location. When I asked Scott about the timing, he suggested adding 30 minutes more to each side (for an extra $100). I figured he was the expert in this area, so agreed. When the driver reached out a couple of days before, he told us that 8:30am was much earlier than we needed to leave to arrive by the marina by 10:30 for our 11am tour. When I confronted Scott about this, he very quickly insisted he runs an honest business, and just wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. We ended up splitting the difference and only adding the extra 30 to the end of our reservation (which we didn't need by the way, we were back a full hour before our allotted time).
The driver was prompt and friendly. He confirmed our destination, and drove us safely to the marina without issue. Everyone unloaded, and as we were pulling our coolers off the bus one of our guests asked where the party barge we were getting on was...as I looked around, they were right! There was no where at this marina with any party barges in sight! I went and found the driver, he double checked his address, told me he had been given the wrong address, but that the correct address was just a little ways away. So we all loaded back up on the bus, and arrived to our correct destination shortly thereafter (and also WELL within the time needed). We had a great time on the boat, loaded up relatively quickly afterwards, and had a quick and uneventful trip back.
When Scott refunded the 30 minute difference I gave him feedback on the trip - that even with leaving later we had way more than enough time, even with the mixup going to the wrong marina. Instead of apologizing for the mix up in marina locations, he responded that the driver had been driving in Austin for at least a decade and for Fly-Rides for at least 6 years, and had never heard of such a thing happening. Apparently he thought I was making this up? That may be so, but there were 30 people on that bus who can vouch for otherwise!
When the same crew wanted to take another trip out to the lake this year, I went right to Scott, and requested a quote for a Friday over 3 months out from my request date. His quote came back 20+% higher than last year's rate, and when I asked him about this, he told me each date is unique and subject to availability. I understand some level of inflation, but 20+% seemed high, especially given gas prices are much lower now than they were last year. We landed on the same price as last year (only for 7.5 hours this year vs the 9 overbooked for last year).
I was aware up front of the cancellation policy - up to 50% refund after booking. However, a month before our trip, we ended up with almost half our crew no longer able to attend, and found it would have cost us more to go than to cancel. The boat company was great - we have up to a year to apply our deposit to any available boat or water craft. Scott, not so much. First of all, when I initially reached out to him asking about flexibility in changing our date, he responded (very quickly) with a response that made no sense whatsoever about the weather, and me putting him in a bad position cancelling less than 48 hours before the start time. It was a month out!!! I corrected him, and he apologized, and allowed us to reschedule (without charge) for a later date that worked for some (but not all). We agreed on a smaller bus, which he told me goes for $200 less than the original bus. But when I asked for the $200 refund, he told me "he didn't realize" it was 4th of July week originally, so the price for that day was higher (his discretion of course). He already had our money, so nothing I could really do at that point. In the end we cancelled with more than 2 weeks notice and lost 50% of the big bus price. Very expensive lesson learned. I hope others reading this don't make the same mistake and shop around. read more