This is the experience my wife and I had regarding the ride between the Sydney airport domestic terminal and the West hotel near Darling harbor. This happened on a Friday afternoon. There was rush hour traffic but not stop and go.
Strike #1 - We had to wait 30 minutes for the van to show up even though during my online reservation I had provided my flight info and specified the pickup time to be 40 minutes after the scheduled arrival time to account for potential flight delay.
Strike #2 - It took over an hour for the van to arrive at the West hotel. Among the hotels the van stopped at, West hotel is the closest to the airport. When asked about why the van had to stopped at so many other hotels that are farther away from the airport before finally stopping at the West hotel, the driver said it is due to road closure. While it is true that there are some road closures, the roads that are closed are still a very small minority. Furthermore, the road closure that he referred to is well known. It is clear that the driver did not plan ahead and was just winging it.
Strike #3 - After enduring 90 minutes of this journey, the van stopped at the opposite side of the street across from the hotel entrance. It is the only hotel where the van did not stop at or near the hotel entrance. As a way to remediate the situation, the driver took one of our luggages across the street cutting through passing traffic. We had little choice but to follow. The West hotel sits on a fairly busy street so crossing a street without traffic light was an adventure that we didn't ask for.
Strike #4 - As we sat directly behind the driver in the second row, I could see and hear the driver during the ride. The driver honked a couple a times, cursed more than once, and made sudden moves that swayed us in our seats. Fortunately the driver took the surface streets the entire trip so the van traveled at a speed that would seem survivable should something untoward happen.
I cancelled the reserved Redy2Go ride between the West Hotel and the airport while on this ride.
To add insult to injury, this ride cost $44. For comparison, the taxi ride back to the airport costs $62, which is a holiday fare as we took the taxi ride on the Monday after the 2019 Australia Day, which falls on a Saturday. I was told typically a taxi ride of the distance between the West Hotel and the airport costs $40 to $50. The tax ride took 25 minutes.
Needless to say, Redy2Go is on my personal black list. read more