Pick up at POM - Problem w Thrifty - Beware

[Soccerfan]

Hi,

 

Please be aware of problems with rental pick up by the Thrifty shuttle at the Carnival facility in the Port of Miami.

 

Yesterday we waited 1 1/4 hrs for the shuttle bus from Thrifty before giving up and taking a taxi which cost us $30 to get to the Thrifty rental location by the airport to get our car. We were the last passengers waiting for the shuttle, lots of Alamo shuttles came by and picked up passengers, same for Hertz. We were left standing. Asked the shuttle drivers and staff of the port authority if we should be standing somewhere else, they said no, this was the pick up location.

 

Tried to telephone Thrifty but # was for the call centre, put on hold. We were paying almost $3 minute for Cell service because we were on our Canadian Cell phones. Gave up after almost 10 minutes holding!

 

Tried to find a pay phone in the terminal to phone them..... Could not believe that there is no pay phones in the terminal :mad:

 

It is not that there was no Thrifty shuttles running, it is that they all veered off to the left road exiting the port instead of continuing straight to the final terminal, we saw 3 shuttles, kept trying to flag them down but no luck! Passengers from NCL and the other ships in port were picked up but not from the Carnival terminal.

 

People in the line up at the Thrifty location were mad because they had been waiting over 1 hour in a line to rent the car.

 

We only had until 5pm in Miami before going to get our flight, we lost half of our day due this issue.

 

To top it off, the "manager" of transportation (who we were not allowed to speak directly with, even though we requested this 3 times) told the manager of the location that we were mistaken and that the Shuttles did pass by, we just didn't see them. This was like adding fuel to the fire :mad:

 

Head office of Thrifty will be hearing from us today! I just want to make sure that other Cruise Critic Members do not have to waste their time with this same problem.

[cruisecruisecruise1234567]

Hi,

 

Please be aware of problems with rental pick up by the Thrifty shuttle at the Carnival facility in the Port of Miami.

 

Yesterday we waited 1 1/4 hrs for the shuttle bus from Thrifty before giving up and taking a taxi which cost us $30 to get to the Thrifty rental location by the airport to get our car. We were the last passengers waiting for the shuttle, lots of Alamo shuttles came by and picked up passengers, same for Hertz. We were left standing. Asked the shuttle drivers and staff of the port authority if we should be standing somewhere else, they said no, this was the pick up location.

 

Tried to telephone Thrifty but # was for the call centre, put on hold. We were paying almost $3 minute for Cell service because we were on our Canadian Cell phones. Gave up after almost 10 minutes holding!

 

Tried to find a pay phone in the terminal to phone them..... Could not believe that there is no pay phones in the terminal :mad:

 

It is not that there was no Thrifty shuttles running, it is that they all veered off to the left road exiting the port instead of continuing straight to the final terminal, we saw 3 shuttles, kept trying to flag them down but no luck! Passengers from NCL and the other ships in port were picked up but not from the Carnival terminal.

 

People in the line up at the Thrifty location were mad because they had been waiting over 1 hour in a line to rent the car.

 

We only had until 5pm in Miami before going to get our flight, we lost half of our day due this issue.

 

To top it off, the "manager" of transportation (who we were not allowed to speak directly with, even though we requested this 3 times) told the manager of the location that we were mistaken and that the Shuttles did pass by, we just didn't see them. This was like adding fuel to the fire :mad:

 

Head office of Thrifty will be hearing from us today! I just want to make sure that other Cruise Critic Members do not have to waste their time with this same problem.

 

They exited because they were full. You needed to walk down and catch it first otherwise you will wait 3 hours.

[libbyonthelabel]

In Feb, same thing happened with us but at Hertz. We saw Thrifty and Alamo but absolutely positively never saw a Hertz shuttle. I guess we are less patient that the OP. Because we waited 1/2 hour and then took a cab which cost us $20. When we got to the car rental location my husband told them about what happened and they took our cab fare off the bill. That really diffused the situation. Hertz handled it well.

[Soccerfan]

They exited because they were full. You needed to walk down and catch it first otherwise you will wait 3 hours.

 

Hi,

 

We thought that they were full so waited for the next one, then the next one. The final shuttle had hardly anyone on it because the terminals had emptied out of passengers. We were that close that we could see inside the shuttle as it veered off to the left

 

From what we could see, there was no walkway to get to the other terminals at Miami port. It appeared that it was traffic only areas in between. We might be wrong but that's how it appeared to us.

 

If we had known how long we were going to wait we would have taken a taxi or just spent the day at Bayside.

[missabbi]

A few years ago, my family and I got off the cruise ship and we called the Thrifty number we were given. We sat out in the sun for over 2 hours (we called 3 times and each time they were on their way)...:( There was another young couple waiting for the same bus to pick them up. All of the cabs were gone and most of the new passengers had made their way onto the ship. I kept asking my DH to just take a cab after the first hour, but no way...since the Thrify bus was free. Finally, the other couple, along with my family found a man driving a small bus with a trailer on the back. We paid him lots of money to take us to the Thrifty car rental place. What a disaster...I will never do that again. On the upside, Thrifty refunded us all for the cost of the bus to their place...but what a pain.