For anyone interested, we used Premier Parking of Miami last week when we sailed on the Wonder. It was a nightmare. I would HIGHLY encourage anyone asking to NOT book with them. They have a great website with a video. They seem really legit. But what we found when we arrived was a different location, a valet crew that was rude and spoke little English, and a very long wait for shuttles. Thank goodness we had already dropped our luggage at the port. As we saw in the video, we were expecting to arrive at the lot, park our car and lock it, and get on a shuttle. Instead, we had to wait on a side street for 25 minutes while they tried to cram more cars in the lot. Then a very rude man demanded that we "get out now" and took our keys. When I tried to ask him about a shuttle he looked at me and said "goodbye" then walked away. There was absolutely no one in charge on site. I stumbled across a really long line while heading to the bathroom and realized that it was the line for the shuttle. My hubby and I quickly got in line and proceeded to wait for TWO HOURS. We had arrived at the parking lot before 11am. I thought we were golden because our PAT wasn't until 12:30pm. Not was I wrong. We didn't physically step onto a shuttle until around 1:15pm. During our lovely wait in the Miami heat, we watched vehicle after vehicle be parked in the lot. That gave me a little reassurance. Then we watched our vehicle take a right turn and head down the street with some guy behind the wheel. In all the hours we stood there, it never returned. We knew someone had taken our vehicle for a joyride, but were helpless to do anything about it. When we finally arrived at the port we had to wait for them to go every other ship first, unloading luggage at each stop. Eventually when we noticed our ship about three terminals down, we just got off the shuttle and walked down the street. We eventually arrived at the terminal sunburned and frustrated around 2pm. Even with walking, we were still already onboard when we saw the shuttle finally get to our terminal. It was smooth sailing from there. We literally we walked straight through security, and check in was a breeze. And one plus, our room was ready and waiting for us. We were just happy to finally be onboard.
Fast forward to embarkation day. We looked and looked for their shuttle but never found it. We finally just paid a taxi to take us back to the parking garage. ($22.50, if you are wondering.) When we arrived "goodbye" man met us in the lot and asked for our valet ticket. He took it and walked away without a word. Around 15 minutes later he came back and told us that our vehicle wasn't on the lot and that it would be back shortly. That was what I had dreaded hearing during the whole cruise. Around 30 minutes later some guy drove up with it and got out. The valet took the keys from him and gave them to my husband. Relieved to finally have our vehicle, we immediately started checking for belongings that we had left in the vehicle, mostly our concealed carry weapons. Because my dh is an officer and we had a long drive, he wanted us both to carry. (Don't worry, we are both trained and licensed.) Knowing that we couldn't carry at the port or onboard, we had no choice but to leave our weapons locked in our vehicle. That wouldn't have been an issue had we kept the keys. However leaving them made me really nervous. My heart stopped for a minute when my husband said "Honey, your gun is gone. It was stolen. Call the police." I didn't worry so much about the lost property but more what could it could have been used for in the wrong hands. After frantically searching the vehicle we finally found it somewhere different than where it was left, proving that someone had gone through our things. We had carefully hidden them. Talk about a relief. It was a little unnerving but we were just thankful to have our vehicle and belongings, so we just left without making a big deal of it. Long story short, if you value your belongings or your time, please don't book your parking with this company. I so wish that we had just paid extra to park at the port. I felt so sorry for an older gentleman in line with us. He had dropped his wife off at the port before parking because she was in a wheel chair. She kept calling him upset for the whole two hours. We tried in vain to get a taxi, thinking that the three of us would just share it back to the port. Also several people working at the port told us horror stories about the company. Apparently we were some of the lucky ones. Lesson learned. Never again.
I hate for all of us to go to drop off the cars and then have to shuttle back with all our bags. It would be easier for 6 of us and most of the luggage to be dropped off at the port and wait, while the 2 drivers return the cars and take the shuttle back. The issue is our cars are scheduled to be back at 10:00am so we would need to be dropped off at the port around 9:30-9:45. Does this sound possible or should we all go to drop off the cars?
