Delayed flight and towncar reservation time?

[Dumbo5]

We used a town car service during our last visit to WDW. Our flight was on time but it took us over 2and 1/2 hrs to go through customs and baggage check. That meant we had held up our driver for all that time.
This time I'm concerned that weather may affect our arrival time - what can we do so we don't have a driver waiting for us unnecessarily.
We felt so bad for our driver the last time but everyone on our flight was in the same situation and very frustrated with the delay. We gave him a good tip but felt very helpless about taking so much of his time.

 

[Mrs. B]

Although we have never gone through Customs, we have been on flights into Orlando that have been delayed for other [mechanical and weather-related] reasons. I too felt terrible having to make the driver wait. I might suggest that you email the towncar service you are using and ask them for suggestions....I am certain that they would have experience with other international travelers and might have ideas. Another option would be to let them know the anticiapted time of your arrival [flight time] and then make arrangements to call them via a pay phone [with a toll-free number, of course] prior to going through Customs. It might serve as a head's-up for them and they could then dispatch your driver. Finally, you may wish to poll other international travelers to see if the changes in security have altered the time that going through Customs takes.

 

[Minnie96]

I'm not 100% positive, but I think alot of car companies have a way to keep track of flights and have a pretty good idea of which ones are delayed. Yes, it throws a wrench into their pick-up/drop-off schedules, but depending on the number of cars/drivers in the fleet, they can usually work around them.

With that said, the suggestion of calling from home before your leave, to talk about alternatives with the car company, is a pretty good suggestion.

 

[Disnydad]

Our last trip we were 1 1/2 hour late. Our TTc driver said they check the incoming flights constantly and shuffle drivers accordingly.

 

[mikek]

I drove a Limo for a few years.

The drivers (or their dispatchers) check frequently for arrival times. So any delays are accounted for. All the airlines have 800 numbers to check so the driver can call from any pay phone (from experience we know not to believe ANYTHING the airline says until the plane has definately been in the air for a while). Also a really cool website that will tell you exactly where the plane is at anytime is http://www.rlmsoftware.com - I dont know if they are hacked into the FAA air traffic control system or what- but they show you location, flight path, altitude, speed, lift off time, and touch down time (not arrrival at the gate, but you can estimate from there). RLM info is on many occasions more accurate than the airlines - particulary earlier in the flight.


Customs gets a little more difficult- basically they assume the quickest you'd get threw from arrival time (maybe 30 or 40 mins) and get there for that time- if it takes you much longer (e.g. an hour and a half) the poor guy did get stuck waiting a while and you might want to spot him a few dollars extra in the tip (although generally not expected- it will stick a smile on the guys face for the day.