> Very difficult to find a taxi if you weren’t in popular areas. Calling a dispatcher for a taxi only to wait an hour and have them not show up.
Funny timing. I just attended a wedding where the hotel was in Annapolis, Maryland, and the venue was about 5 miles outside Annapolis. The couple had recommended using Lyft due to limited parking, and had even given everyone a voucher to offset the cost. Getting from hotel -> venue at 4pm was no problem at all.
We started trying to get a return ride at a few minutes before 10pm. First the app took about 4 minutes to match us to a driver, then rapidly cycled through a handful of drivers before ensuring us that our driver was 11 minutes away. For the next 20 minutes, that driver seemed to patrol up and down a street near downtown, with his ETA bouncing between 10-12 minutes. My guess is he accidentally accepted my "bad" (outside of downtown) ride and was hoping I'd cancel? I didn't, and he finally did.
The app spins for a few minutes and then tells us someone is 15 minutes away. This person calls me and asks where I'm going, specifically am I going to DC. I answer that I'm not, I'm headed to downtown Annapolis, and he says he'll be right there. He made 3-4 minutes of progress toward us, then the app abruptly cycled through two more drivers. After another few minutes, I guess another driver cancelled on us, leaving the app to spin for several minutes unsuccessfully.
At this point I cancelled the ride and was about to call a traditional cab. It was 10:45, the wedding had ended at 10:30, and it was starting to rain. Luckily, another couple at the wedding had correctly predicted that we wouldn't be able to get a ride back downtown. They had gotten a three-row SUV ("Lyft XL" or something) to get to the wedding, then gotten contact details from the driver so they could privately hail him after the wedding. Assuming we weren't too particular about obeying seatbelt laws, they had plenty of space for us.
I'm not sure why people think the ride-"sharing" services have solved so many problems. I hope to never have to do business with these apps again.
Funny timing. I just attended a wedding where the hotel was in Annapolis, Maryland, and the venue was about 5 miles outside Annapolis. The couple had recommended using Lyft due to limited parking, and had even given everyone a voucher to offset the cost. Getting from hotel -> venue at 4pm was no problem at all.
We started trying to get a return ride at a few minutes before 10pm. First the app took about 4 minutes to match us to a driver, then rapidly cycled through a handful of drivers before ensuring us that our driver was 11 minutes away. For the next 20 minutes, that driver seemed to patrol up and down a street near downtown, with his ETA bouncing between 10-12 minutes. My guess is he accidentally accepted my "bad" (outside of downtown) ride and was hoping I'd cancel? I didn't, and he finally did.
The app spins for a few minutes and then tells us someone is 15 minutes away. This person calls me and asks where I'm going, specifically am I going to DC. I answer that I'm not, I'm headed to downtown Annapolis, and he says he'll be right there. He made 3-4 minutes of progress toward us, then the app abruptly cycled through two more drivers. After another few minutes, I guess another driver cancelled on us, leaving the app to spin for several minutes unsuccessfully.
At this point I cancelled the ride and was about to call a traditional cab. It was 10:45, the wedding had ended at 10:30, and it was starting to rain. Luckily, another couple at the wedding had correctly predicted that we wouldn't be able to get a ride back downtown. They had gotten a three-row SUV ("Lyft XL" or something) to get to the wedding, then gotten contact details from the driver so they could privately hail him after the wedding. Assuming we weren't too particular about obeying seatbelt laws, they had plenty of space for us.
I'm not sure why people think the ride-"sharing" services have solved so many problems. I hope to never have to do business with these apps again.