The difference between getting FROM the airport and getting TO the airport was like I was dealing with two different companies. The first one was great, the second was horribly unreliable.
Getting picked up at Toronto airport was great -- I guess I was the only passenger because a nice private towncar picked me up and took me to nearbyb Niagara-on-the-Lake. This was a great experience.
Now then.
We turn to the ride back. Those of you with weak stomachs may want to close your browser.
First, I get a call -- worse: just a voicemail on my hotel phone! -- telling me that they were now picking me up 15-20 minutes earlier than I had booked. No phone number to call them back. No asking me if that'd work. Normally that's not a huge deal but in this case I was going to be on-stage in front of 300 people at that time. I was going to have to rush past people after my speech as it was to make the one I'd booked.
No dice. It was the new time or the highway. No, wait, NO HIGHWAY because they wouldn't take me at the time I had booked.
They said they could get me on their 3:45 p.m. shuttle so, with no other options, I agreed. That required a call to Air Canada to change my flight (I no longer was going to be able to make the one that I would have had Niagara Air Bus not done this). Which cost me a $75 change fee.
It would take two hours, said the guy on the other end of the phone, to get from where I was to Pearson airport. That would be 5:45 p.m., including usual traffic. That would make it tight again but doable.
At 3:45 p.m., sure enough a shuttle arrives. As we pull away, the driver says "I'm not taking you to the airport. You know that, right?"
WTF?!?! No, as it turns out, he wasn't. He was going to collect some more people around time, then drive to a parking lot where they would transfer us to ANOTHER shuttle. Eek. I said "They told me we'd be at the airport around 5:45. That's still the plan, right?"
"5:45 they said?" he asked. Then... wait for it... he started laughing. LAUGHING. "Oh no, you're not going to make that." Good. More travel panic. I'm beginning to think Niagara Air Bus doesn't have any clocks in their offices.
Sure enough, we pull into a parking lot to wait for the new shuttle. We wait. And wait. (Apparently, we were five minutes early.) Then, without explanation we were off again in the same shuttle. I looked back and there were more than a couple of confused faces. We drove to a second parking lot and transferred there.
Instead of 5:45 p.m., it was 6:15 p.m. by the time I was out and on my way with my luggage.
Thirty minutes may not sound like a big deal, but when you're booked on an airline's schedule (especially one overbooked, still trying to get over a bunch of shuffling owing to an averted strike) you really don't want time screwups like that.
Is it too much to ask a shuttle service to adhere to the timelines they tell their customers?
There were some good points.
1. The drivers were friendly enough. One told us to tell him if it was too cold, which it wasn't. A nice touch.
2. We didn't crash. read more