Thanks. I got it all sorted.If you know the name of the service you used why can't you get the contact info from the hotel?
Thanks. I got it all sorted.If you know the name of the service you used why can't you get the contact info from the hotel?
The vehicle Tony Hinds had picked us up in last week wouldn’t even be allowed on the road in the state I live in.No, and it's not clear when, or if, it will resume. You always get a few posters with issues with any service. Search and you'll find guests who were issued taxi vouchers when DME didn't show.
Mears towncar service gets virtually no complaints, excepting price and abscene of a free grocery stop. Until recently Tony get no complaints. Maybe a handful now. Tiffany Towncar and FL Tours no complaints, that I remember.
Mears bus service gets a handful of complaints but generally runs smoothly.
Tony, and others, probably need to just tell potential customers sorry but we're fully booked. Car service complaints seem to occur when the company subs out the job to drivers they don't use as much.
OK, get your tinfoil hats out here, but I wonder if someone hacked his website or somehow got the information without Tony knowing. This "dirty white van" played a part in an earlier story on this thread IIRC. It seems strange that a cancellation (AND refund) in May still had pickup information for a driver in August. Is it possible Tony cancelled the pickup, issued the refund, but still dispatched a driver three months later? Yes, but it seems strange.
True story. After cancelling with Tony, His driver called me the morning of my departure to finalize pick up. Crazy. Again, thank you Ron for recommending Panda! They were amazing!The vehicle Tony Hinds had picked us up in last week wouldn’t even be allowed on the road in the state I live in.
I went back in this thread and read the post about the older white van with no headlights. The poster said when they called Tony about the terrible situation Tony called the driver who admitted he was having trouble with his headlights, so it wasn't someone who hacked his website it was a driver he uses to do pickups because he obviously knows him.
One other thing after I canceled with Tony a poster here a couple of months ago asked me who I was now using? When I told her she booked the same company and had a great experience with them. Well this poster also had Tony booked and then canceled after reading some bad reviews. Well the other morning they were preparing to leave WDW for their return trip to MCO when a driver for Tony called them to confirm the pickup. So now that's 2 of us in the last 2 weeks that had canceled Tony but a driver was still being sent to do the pickup.
True story. After cancelling with Tony, His driver called me the morning of my departure to finalize pick up. Crazy. Again, thank you Ron for recommending Panda! They were amazing!
Thank you.Here's my Tony Hinds story from last week. We've used Tony twice before the first time was very good the 2nd was ok so we booked him for our trip last week and this week which ended yesterday. We prepaid but then started reading bad reviews so in May we canceled and Tony reimbursed us the next day. We booked with another company and last Monday August 1st we flew to WDW. Once we landed we received a text from the driver of the new company that he was almost to MCO and would call us in 5 minutes. We were told when we booked them they had Mercedes vans and Sprinters. Well 5 minutes later we are outside and we get a call from a driver saying he was there in a white minivan. We couldn't believe it!!! We see a 20 year old Dodge Caravan which wasn't what we were told so I said to the driver "Are you *****?" I said the name of the company I hired and he says in broken English YES. This van is filthy and I found out after we arrived at the resort that the second row seat my wife was in was shaking all over and she said if we had been in an accident she would have gone flying.
So the driver is taking us to our resort when my cellphone rings. The man on the phone says that he's the driver from the service I booked and wanted to know where we were? I said what do you mean we are in a white minivan and he says, that's not us! So I'm in the front passenger seat and even my wife later said she sees me turn toward the driver with my right fist clenched. I have no idea what is going on and I'm about to take this guy out while cruising down the highway. So while I'm still on the phone with the driver from the company I hired I said to the driver in the minivan I thought you were from *****? He said Tony...Tony...!!! I then remember Tony Hinds and I said are you driving for Tony Hinds? He said yes and showed me on his cell the info concerning our pickup and drop off. I said I canceled him 3 months ago and why did you say you were the other company I hired and he said sometimes they call Tony for help. The driver for the other company who was still on the phone said we've never asked Tony Hinds to help us with anything in the past.
We then get to our resort and I still tip the driver because he did drive us there. He was going to tell Tony we had canceled and that he shouldn't have been there. Now before people come at me it's my fault we got into that van. It's not even close to what the other company told me what we'd be picked up in. That is totally on me not on Tony Hinds. But am I glad we canceled him. That van was an absolute mess and a disgrace. My wife couldn't believe it. Yesterday for our return to the airport the company I hired picked us up in a new Mercedes Sprinter that was so clean you could have eaten off the floor. The lady driving it was tremendous and this will be the company I use for our trips now on.
I’m stunned to read this as it’s absolutely out of character based upon my interaction with Mr Hinds.Just back, and have a negative story about our trip from the airport to the hotel. I hate to hurt anyone‘s business, and a person from Tony’s office did call to find out why I canceled my return trip. But our experience was pretty unpleasant, and in the interest of helping others void this issue, I’m going to tell our story in a somewhat vague way, so as not to identify us or anyone else. If you want specifics, please PM me.
We arrived on a stormy afternoon and waited three hours for Frontier to get the luggage off our plane. Three hours. We were fairly cranky when we got the luggage, and I’m sure our driver wasn’t thrilled either. The minute we got in the car, he asked if we were fans of a certain politician. I said no and my daughter said, no political talk, please! He just didn’t let up. Showed me cartoons and stickers he had related to politics, skirted with some potentially racist comments, and we did our best to remain pleasant. Got to the hotel and immediately canceled our return trip. The next day someone from the office called and asked why. I initially wasn’t going to say anything, but I did tell him the story.
We did Mears Connect on the trip back to the airport. Trip back went fine, the driver didn’t say two words which was fine with us lol. If you want to the driver’s name or any other details, PM me, like I said.
I’m stunned to read this as it’s absolutely out of character based upon my interaction with Mr Hinds.
Unfortunately, I can’t imagine any driver waiting at the airport for three hours after a flight has landed. Most are just scheduled too tightly.
that could very well be the reason you may have had what sounds like a ‘fill in’ sort of driver As in the originally assigned one may have had other prior commitments.
Curious:
did you keep in contact with Mr Hinds updating the luggage status?
did you ever hear ‘why’ the luggage took so long to offload from the plane?
did you ever get any sort of explanation from the company as to ‘why’?
my understanding is it’s not uncommon for the smaller transport companies to help each other out in a pinch such as this. However, this is such a bizarre interaction. Surprised the driver didn’t read the cue that you didn’t want to exchange pleasantries. Most in a tipable position are quite attuned to that
Regardless, sorry to read this. I’m absolutely not making excuses here for that particular driver. The owner, Tony Hinds, needs to know what went on here so he can set things right….whether it was his own driver or one from another group.
Thanks for coming back and elaborating on your unfortunate experience, talk about a cluster of events. Surely, not the way any body wants to start out a trip!hesitated bringing this up here at all but I would have wanted to know. A different person than me probably would have shut him down firmly from the start. We were very tired and I didn’t feel like dealing with any more than we already had. I would give Tony another try in the future, but I would discuss this Incident with him and make sure there wouldn’t be a recurrence.
We've used Tony for several trips over the past 5 years. I'm glad I found this thread as I too was waiting to hear back after an initial text a few weeks ago in which he confirmed our request. Now that I know he may have been on vacation, I'll wait just a little while more to email him again about an invoice. Oh and I do know of that particular driver that is pretty vocal about his political thoughts as we've had him too. By chance though, if anyone has the name and phone number of who it was that is doing Tony's dispatch at this time, if you could PM me the information I'd appreciate it. Not quite ready to give up on Tony as we have had very good service. Thanks in advance!
As an update, we just got back from our trip and we had the very vocal driver. We ignored what he said and switched the conversation (which was happening whether we wanted it or not) to Epic Universe and new construction things since last year, etc. It seemed to us that he was a little lonely. We did appreciate that Art confirmed with us the day before and that the vocal driver texted and called me to make sure we found him, etc. He was on time and got us from A to B efficiently.
In your earlier post, you said you contacted him and gave him all the flight information. I don't remember if we always got a reply after sending this info to him. Have your checked your spam folder just in case the emails ended up there? I hate my email spam filter. It always sends important stuff there.
I booked with him for October and he sent a Google form to fill out with the info and on that email it said we would receive an invoice 48 hours before our trip to pay. I just booked last week.
Last year, there was a time period when Tony had raised his prices but if he quoted the lower price to you because you booked earlier, you paid the lower price. I know this because we booked close to the trip and other people going to same weekend paid less because they booked early.
Hopefully, you'll get a reply saying all is good with your booking.
I don't know if Tony follows this thread. In case he doesn't, I think people should tell him about the shabby white van and the political driver. If he's losing business, and there's something that he can do about it, then he should want to know about it. Even if he's not losing business (yet), those two drivers are "tarnishing the brand" so to speak, and he has worked hard to create that brand.And I don't know if I really have the chutzpah to ask Tony not to send the white van or the political driver, after asking him to honor the quote that he gave us. I'm bold, but I'm not that bold.
I also wonder if people were letting Tony know about the issues they're having. I highly doubt he's reading a thread on a random message board. Based on past experiences, I feel bad for Tony, it sounds like he's having some kind of business issues. I hope he gets them fixed (even if it means cutting back on how many drivers he can provide).I don't know if Tony follows this thread. In case he doesn't, I think people should tell him about the shabby white van and the political driver. If he's losing business, and there's something that he can do about it, then he should want to know about it. Even if he's not losing business (yet), those two drivers are "tarnishing the brand" so to speak, and he has worked hard to create that brand.