Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Don't Use BWI SuperShuttle

Flew from St. Louis to Baltimore yesterday.

The flight was delayed for five hours because the incoming plane was stuck in tornado-heavy Dallas.

So the timeline looked a little something like this:

Drive to airport: 2 hours
Wait in airport: 7 hours
Flight to Baltimore: 2 hours
Take SuperShuttle from Baltimore to DC: nearly 2.5 hours.

The last leg of the trip, the SuperShuttle leg, was just... priceless. We all crammed into the shuttle and then waited for about 25 minutes as the driver painstakingly typed all of our destination addresses into his GPS. He was a very bad typist. Hunt-and-peck. He would type an entire address, and then the system would say "this address is unavailable," and then he'd have to go back and type it again. He also kept telling a passenger that he had never heard of Chevy Chase, MD, and that she must live in Bethesda.

Once the drive got going, it was a little like being on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Although the GPS told our driver where to turn, etc., he kept missing the turns and then having to circle around to find them. He also drove through stop signs and stoplights, which was more than a bit unnerving. Oh, and he spent huge chunks of the ride talking to his buddy on his cell phone.

Considering that it was nearly 4 a.m. by the time I reached my sister's apartment, I left the shuttle definitely wishing I had taken a taxi instead.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Getting to and from BWI is always a mess. Since you're new to DC, I thought I'd pass on the best resource guide I've found for food in the area: Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Food Guide. (http://www.tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/)
I've found so many great places to eat because of that blog! Warning: the best (and cheapest) places tend to be in the suburbs, not in DC proper.

ctrlalteredmind said...

this is why ppl prefer desi drivers!

/stereotype

Blue said...

I'll probably get flamed for mentioning this, but once I had a desi cabdriver insist the cab ride was free, after hearing the hint of an Indian accent I had picked up in Hyd...

The gesture also came with a request for biodata.

I gave him the cabfare instead.

maya said...

i love my desi cabdrivers. There were at least two who refused to take my money because it had come out in conversation that i was a student. (No request for biodata--presumably, i was just not their type ;), but there was the imperative: Study well!)

Lekhni said...

Wow! That was one awful travel experience :(