Ride share/taxi is not as easy

[JLTraveling]

I honestly don't get the point of scheduling rideshare, and I use them a LOT. Just order when I'm ready to go, and I normally have a driver within 10 minutes, anywhere in the country that I've used them. Every once in a while it's more like 20 minutes, but that's rare in my experience. I use them for the convenience, and it's definitely not convenient to have to work around a scheduled appointment. Just my opinion though

 

[BLTtinkerbell]

I honestly don't get the point of scheduling rideshare, and I use them a LOT. Just order when I'm ready to go, and I normally have a driver within 10 minutes, anywhere in the country that I've used them. Every once in a while it's more like 20 minutes, but that's rare in my experience. I use them for the convenience, and it's definitely not convenient to have to work around a scheduled appointment. Just my opinion though

My only thought is scheduling for pick up and drop off at the airport.

 

[Ross Kratter]

My only thought is scheduling for pick up and drop off at the airport.

As far as airport pickup is concerned, that’s definitely something you should never schedule, as you never know whether or not your flight will be on time, how long baggage will take to arrive, or even how long it will take you to get to the pickup area. At most airports, the rideshare drivers are in a holding area, waiting for the next available fare, so I really wouldn’t worry about that.

 

[Lewisc]

In fairness to the OP, most people don't read the fine print. The app makes it seem like it's no big deal to schedule a ride share in advance.

NOT EXACTLY THE SAME. I wanted to schedule a handicap taxi van in advance. Looks straight forward. I asked a driver about it. Mears taxi drivers are independent contractors. When you request a taxi your request goes out and a driver has to accept the fare. Schedule in advance means your request is broadcast around 10 minutes before your acheduled pick up.

 

[focusondisney]

We use a towncar service. The drivers are usually about 15 minutes early, same as the Lyft in the OP. I don’t understand how anyone could complain about that. With traffic, they need to have some leeway. If they waited to travel to the OPs hotel, they could run into a traffic situation & be late. I’d much rather my ride be 15 minutes early instead of 15 minutes late. The driver will text & let us know they’re there whenever we’re ready. Maybe the difference between that & ride share is they would wait for us & not leave after 5 minutes.

I make sure I’m back at my hotel at least half hour before my pick up. And I’m usually at a park that I can walk back to my hotel. We stayed at POFQ recently. It definitely took more than 15 minutes to get back from Disney Springs. So would OP have made it to a 12:50 pickup if she was still at springs at 12:35?

 

[Ross Kratter]

We use a towncar service. The drivers are usually about 15 minutes early, same as the Lyft in the OP. I don’t understand how anyone could complain about that. With traffic, they need to have some leeway. If they waited to travel to the OPs hotel, they could run into a traffic situation & be late. I’d much rather my ride be 15 minutes early instead of 15 minutes late. The driver will text & let us know they’re there whenever we’re ready. Maybe the difference between that & ride share is they would wait for us & not leave after 5 minutes.

I make sure I’m back at my hotel at least half hour before my pick up. And I’m usually at a park that I can walk back to my hotel. We stayed at POFQ recently. It definitely took more than 15 minutes to get back from Disney Springs. So would OP have made it to a 12:50 pickup if she was still at springs at 12:35?

15 minutes early is industry standard for car service, and Lyft and Uber even ask their drivers to be early for scheduled pickups because clients prefer that. Of course, with car services, there’s usually also a 15-minute grace period after the scheduled pickup time, and then the driver can start to charge for wait time if necessary after that.
OP is clearly someone who would have been better off using Uber or Lyft as the on-demand services they are designed to be and not scheduling rides.

 

[Miffy]

We used to use a towncar service, but stopped when a couple of trips in a row, they advised us the day before that, because of scheduling, they were going to pick us for our return trip quite early, like 3+ hours before flight departure.

That's when I changed things up. Now I take Mears Connect from the airport to my resort and either Mears Connect or a rideshare back to the airport. The downside of Mears Connect is that they do pick you up about 3 hours before your flight departure on getaway day, but the upside is that they're very economical, you know exactly when they're going to pick you up, and the drivers know where they're going and what they're doing--not always the case with rideshare.

Going from the airport to the resort, Mears Connect is so easy, especially from Terminal C. I've been the only passenger in the van a couple of times and have never waited for my ride more than a few minutes.

BTW, I never call for a rideshare unless I'm in the pickup spot and ready to go.

 

[bookgirl2632]

We use a towncar service. The drivers are usually about 15 minutes early, same as the Lyft in the OP. I don’t understand how anyone could complain about that. With traffic, they need to have some leeway. If they waited to travel to the OPs hotel, they could run into a traffic situation & be late. I’d much rather my ride be 15 minutes early instead of 15 minutes late. The driver will text & let us know they’re there whenever we’re ready. Maybe the difference between that & ride share is they would wait for us & not leave after 5 minutes.

I make sure I’m back at my hotel at least half hour before my pick up. And I’m usually at a park that I can walk back to my hotel. We stayed at POFQ recently. It definitely took more than 15 minutes to get back from Disney Springs. So would OP have made it to a 12:50 pickup if she was still at springs at 12:35?

I always make sure we are back at the resort well before we are to be picked up to go to the airport. I’d get anxiety cutting it so close. We get back in plenty of time to head to the restroom, maybe a final stop in the resort store, and then grab our luggage. We are at the Poly in October and I’m planning lunch at Kona before we depart for our 7pm flight.