[windjamer]

Originally Posted by BrianL99

So I went to Ireland for the holiday and 2 months ago, I booked transportation with Dawn's Car Service to Orlando Airport.

At 2:50 PM on 12/26 I get a text, "Is your flight on time? I'm leaving now".

15-20 minutes later I get a text, "I'm feeling under the weather, I'm sending my son.

It's supposed to be a 4:30 pm pickup.

4:35 he's not here and I ask Dawn if he's lost.

"He made a wrong turn and will be there in 15 minutes" is the response.

How does someone get lost with GPS?

4:50 she says "he's still not there"? "He should be there". (no kidding!)

4:55 I tell her I'm going to miss my flight and I'm leaving to drive to Orlando.

He's still not here at 5. I drive to the airport, spend 40 minutes finding a place to park, then dash from Terminal A to Terminal C, race through Security and make my flight, only because of the kindness of the AerLingus desk agent, who allows me to board the flight, late.

Now I'm stuck with my car at Orlando airport and after 22 hours of airports and flying, I have to drive back to TV at midnight last night.

Dawn won't refund my $261 and offered me a "credit towards a future booking". Oh yeah, I can't wait to depend on her again!

& as it turns out, Dawn doesn't even have a "son", I've been told.

Have used Dawn's service multiple times and have found her to be very reliable. Never had a problem. And by the way, she does have a son, he rode with us to Orlando on one occassion.

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by davephan

Next time use Uber instead. Uber has a much larger staff of drivers, you’re not totally dependent on just one person, who may have issues, or is unreliable. We add one hour to the normal travel time to the airport, in case there is a problem with the individual Uber driver or the roads. For example, if we need to be at the airport two hours before the flight, we add the normal travel time, then add an extra hour. That’s the time we schedule to be picked up by Uber. It’s happened before where two different Uber drivers could not find our location, and the ride was handed off to the third Uber driver who could find our home. We also have Global Entry, which eliminates the long security lines at the airports. Global Entry allows you to use the very short TSA Precheck security lines, and saves a lot of time. If an extra hour buffer isn’t enough time, add more time. It’s better to be a little early, than to run across an airport terminal. Done that, never again!

Uber is the worst for Airport transportation in my opinion, if it's a fairly long trip to the airport. For the last 10 years I've flown back & forth Boston-Tampa, once a month. I can't tell you how many times an Uber driver showed up and then refused to make the trip, when he found out how far it was. Unless something has changed recently, an Uber driver doesn't know where a trip is scheduled to go (unless it's over 100 miles), until he reaches the pickup destination.

Global Entry and/or TSA Pre-Check doesn't work with all airlines and all countries. AerLingus doesn't participate in the TSA Pre-Check program and the implementation of GlobalEntry is spotty. It doesn't always work for pre-clearance at Shannon Airport.

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by oneclickplus

Wait ... $261 for a ride to the airport?

2 Way + a "Holiday Surcharge".

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by JEM0715

Read all the comments but nothing said, so here's the rest of the story that you can fact check if you so choose. #1) Dawn's is an "ILLEGAL" service. She's NOT registered as a state licensed business with Florida per (sunbiz.org). #2) No commercial insurance or airport permits. #3) one of her drivers weeks ago posted her "arrest report" for shoplifting at Walmart. Truly amazing though people use her services because of her cheaper pricing, lol. She doesn't have the overhead costs the other 9 "LEGAL" private car services have. The ole' saying though, you get what you pay for.

Thank you for that.

I actually searched for her business license this morning and couldn't find anything. I suspected she was unlicensed and uninsured.

I also came up with a bunch of arrests for a person with the same name, but haven't yet had a chance to verify they relate to the same person. With your confirmation, I'll dig deeper.

As for her being "cheaper", she wasn't and never has been, to my knowledge. I've used her before and thought her rate was "competitive". I guess I need to put more effort into shopping for a service.

Thank you for the information!

[Lea N]

Originally Posted by Enhancer77

I would report this to Seniors Against Crime and also the Better Business Bureau. This will let other people know of her "services."

I was going to suggest the BBB but like that you also added Seniors Against Crime.

I would add to put a review on YELP. This won't get the OP's money back but will help to prevent others from this same nightmare. I just read her reviews on YELP and there was someone else who received bad service and didn't get a refund.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

What horrible stress for you! I always drive to Orlando and use Park-N-Go on Semoran Blvd for parking. With all the taxes and discounts, it costs $10 a day. I book online and pay in advance with PayPal and print out my reservation. My GPS takes me there. After I show my receipt at the office, then drive to where a van is waiting. I park where told. The driver loads my suitcase and gives me a receipt with my parking place number on it. Then the driver takes me to the airport—about ten minutes to my drop-off at Departures. When I return, I call a number and ask for pick-up. Sometimes the van is waiting, and sometimes it takes fifteen minutes. I’m dropped off at my car, and off I go.

This is MUCH easier than possibly waiting a long time to park at the airport, and the service is better. I don’t like the drive to the airport, but I have a Prius, so it’s not much more than two gallons of gas.

I use the site below to book the reservation, then choose the Park-n-Go on Semoran (there are two). There are other parking places listed, but that one is the cheapest, and it’s good, safe, easy.
https://airportparkingreservations.com/orlando-airport-parking-mco?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campa ign=campaign_APR_2023_27_DEC_ONP_CONTACT_STRATEGY& utm_term=Use%20code%20HOLIAYMCO8%20for%20$8%20off% 20your%20next%20airport%20parking%20booking%20or%2 0$5%20on%20hotel%20and%20parking%20packages.

I can empathize with the OP not wanting to get to an offsite parking lot after 22 hours of travel and then drive home. We fly frequently to Europe and Australia, and the last thing we want to do after baggage claim and customs & border patrol is then have to wait for someone to pick us up to retrieve the car and then have to drive home.

Another thing we don't want to do after all that travel is get on a bus that drops several people off individually or just takes you to a point that isn't your home. We very much appreciate the ease of a private car service and have used the same one for over a decade without a hitch. We don't prepay. There have been threads on this topic that list reliable private services, if one wants to do a search.

[MrChip72]

Originally Posted by bowlingal

I don't have GPS, not everyone does. Not saying they were right, but do not assume everyone has the gizmos and gadgets BrianL.

If your business is running a car service, GPS is critical. Especially when apps like Maps show traffic delays and potential detours.

[MrChip72]

Originally Posted by davephan

Next time use Uber instead. Uber has a much larger staff of drivers, you’re not totally dependent on just one person, who may have issues, or is unreliable.

We used Groome from MCO last time which was fine but while waiting for luggage out of curiosity I checked what a standard Uber (not Uber XL) would've cost and it would've been slightly cheaper for 2 people. We are south of 44, so same might not apply for people in Lady Lake. I think that's what we'll be doing next time. Especially being able to be on our own schedule, and knowing you're being dropped off in your own driveway without having to wait for other drop offs first.

Uber also shows you on your smartphone where your ride is on the way to pick you up. You can't run into the "I'm on my way" nonsense that the car service seemed to be using on the OP.

[DBSmith]

Originally Posted by BrianL99

So I went to Ireland for the holiday and 2 months ago, I booked transportation with Dawn's Car Service to Orlando Airport.

At 2:50 PM on 12/26 I get a text, "Is your flight on time? I'm leaving now".

15-20 minutes later I get a text, "I'm feeling under the weather, I'm sending my son.

It's supposed to be a 4:30 pm pickup.

4:35 he's not here and I ask Dawn if he's lost.

"He made a wrong turn and will be there in 15 minutes" is the response.

How does someone get lost with GPS?

4:50 she says "he's still not there"? "He should be there". (no kidding!)

4:55 I tell her I'm going to miss my flight and I'm leaving to drive to Orlando.

He's still not here at 5. I drive to the airport, spend 40 minutes finding a place to park, then dash from Terminal A to Terminal C, race through Security and make my flight, only because of the kindness of the AerLingus desk agent, who allows me to board the flight, late.

Now I'm stuck with my car at Orlando airport and after 22 hours of airports and flying, I have to drive back to TV at midnight last night.

Dawn won't refund my $261 and offered me a "credit towards a future booking". Oh yeah, I can't wait to depend on her again!

& as it turns out, Dawn doesn't even have a "son", I've been told.

Reply
Wow, I am so sorry to read that you had that experience. As I read your post I could feel your angst. I would have been beside myself if it were me. I have to tend to agree with you in that with your documentation that it would have been in the best interest of the service provider to cover the $261.00.

[MrChip72]

Originally Posted by BrianL99

I assume it's simply common sense, for someone in the Car Service business to use GPS. Any car service who doesn't have GPS capability, isn't professional and is operating in the dark ages.

In this particular case, both the owner of the company and the driver had a Cell Phone .... 99.9999% of which, have GPS capability.

Even the most antiquated taxi companies use at least an old standalone GPS unit.

I think a lot of people don't understand that having GPS is not really just about knowing how to get from point A to point B, the main benefit is of being warned of delays and being given a realtime fairly accurate ETA based on traffic conditions.

[ThirdOfFive]

So far precisely three posters, with a total of 3 posts among all of them, have posted favorably about Dawn's Car Service. The folks with negative opinions, four in all, have a total of 1,269 posts among them.

This is mentioned because even though this particular site is generally seems pretty reliable about offering opinions about businesses (apart from the occasional ax-grinder) it is not immune from the same type of thing that plagues Amazon and a whole lot of other places where folks post opinions about businesses. Business in and around TV know about this site and monitor it. If there is money on the line, some folks MAY not be averse to stacking the deck, so to speak. For OR against. But for my part I'm far more apt to trust folks whose posts I see frequently, than the folks show up with few or no previous posts to their credit (again, either way) when there are strong feelings about a business, one way or the other.

[Bigdog57]

Originally Posted by KatieBon

Are there private car services you would recommend? (and thank you for the payment tip, did not know that!)

Have used Blue line services most of their drivers are retired police officers.Never have I been charged up front and always on time.call 352-391-2894 ask for Joe or Marc

[spinner1001]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

So far precisely three posters, with a total of 3 posts among all of them, have posted favorably about Dawn's Car Service. The folks with negative opinions, four in all, have a total of 1,269 posts among them.

This is mentioned because even though this particular site is generally seems pretty reliable about offering opinions about businesses (apart from the occasional ax-grinder) it is not immune from the same type of thing that plagues Amazon and a whole lot of other places where folks post opinions about businesses. Business in and around TV know about this site and monitor it. If there is money on the line, some folks MAY not be averse to stacking the deck, so to speak. For OR against. But for my part I'm far more apt to trust folks whose posts I see frequently, than the folks show up with few or no previous posts to their credit (again, either way) when there are strong feelings about a business, one way or the other.

Right, possible fake reviews. It’s commonly believed about Amazon reviews. Likely some get into TOTV. Caveat Emptor.

How to Spot Fake Reviews on Amazon (2023): Tools and Advice | WIRED

[JEM0715]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

So far precisely three posters, with a total of 3 posts among all of them, have posted favorably about Dawn's Car Service. The folks with negative opinions, four in all, have a total of 1,269 posts among them.

This is mentioned because even though this particular site is generally seems pretty reliable about offering opinions about businesses (apart from the occasional ax-grinder) it is not immune from the same type of thing that plagues Amazon and a whole lot of other places where folks post opinions about businesses. Business in and around TV know about this site and monitor it. If there is money on the line, some folks MAY not be averse to stacking the deck, so to speak. For OR against. But for my part I'm far more apt to trust folks whose posts I see frequently, than the folks show up with few or no previous posts to their credit (again, either way) when there are strong feelings about a business, one way or the other.

No ax to grind, but she's an illicit service operating without state licensing nor commercial insurance. Even one of her drivers posted she operates illegally, can't get any better than that. If she was legit, she would be listed on sunbiz.org.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

What horrible stress for you! I always drive to Orlando and use Park-N-Go on Semoran Blvd for parking. With all the taxes and discounts, it costs $10 a day. I book online and pay in advance with PayPal and print out my reservation. My GPS takes me there. After I show my receipt at the office, then drive to where a van is waiting. I park where told. The driver loads my suitcase and gives me a receipt with my parking place number on it. Then the driver takes me to the airport—about ten minutes to my drop-off at Departures. When I return, I call a number and ask for pick-up. Sometimes the van is waiting, and sometimes it takes fifteen minutes. I’m dropped off at my car, and off I go.

This is MUCH easier than possibly waiting a long time to park at the airport, and the service is better. I don’t like the drive to the airport, but I have a Prius, so it’s not much more than two gallons of gas.

I use the site below to book the reservation, then choose the Park-n-Go on Semoran (there are two). There are other parking places listed, but that one is the cheapest, and it’s good, safe, easy.
https://airportparkingreservations.com/orlando-airport-parking-mco?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campa ign=campaign_APR_2023_27_DEC_ONP_CONTACT_STRATEGY& utm_term=Use%20code%20HOLIAYMCO8%20for%20$8%20off% 20your%20next%20airport%20parking%20booking%20or%2 0$5%20on%20hotel%20and%20parking%20packages.

$10 a day for parking, plus $20 for tolls round trip, plus $20 for gas round trip. If you're going away for a week-long trip, that's $120 (8 days, because you get charged for any time over the exact hour in the parking lot) round trip, PLUS you have to do all the driving. Compare to $85 round trip, and someone else deals with the driving, and even takes your bags out to the curb when you get off the van.