"Remember The Alamo" ( We certainly will! )
Oct 11, 2001, 5:22 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Sydney, Australia
Programs: UA 1K, Hilton Honours Gold, KLM Gold
Posts: 574
"Remember The Alamo" ( We certainly will! )
"Remember The Alamo" (We certainly will!)
Aaah, the joys of renting an Alamo car. ozstamps and I did just that last Saturday from Boston to New York, and then flew to SFO for dinner with a nice group of FT'ers, and here is a summary.
Yep, it LOOKED fairly cheap deal on their website at $134 for 5 days, but then they stung us $138 for "insurance" (ozzie drivers need the lot) and $25 for two drivers, some kind of 'airport' fee, when it was not anywhere much near the airport and ripped us off on the full gas tank etc, so it came to about $400 with taxes.
We needed to drop off our Alamo rental at EWR last Saturday. We allowed 5 hours to drive from southern Boston to Newark. On a sunny Saturday. We actually thought we'd have about 2 hours in the Red Carpet Club to kill time, "but lets be safe and arrive early at around midday for a 2.25pm flight". Rand McNally says 3.5 hours. So five hours should be tons of driving time, right? Wrong!
Alamo have some **** - hole rental location NOT at airport or even very close to it. OK. So they have a map showing (very vaguely) how to find it. We finally do get there after an hour on George Washington Bridge and New Jersey Turnpike alone. We get to literally within 20 yards of the Alamo drop off depot. We can see it, we can touch it, we can smell it, but we have a foot high median concrete kerbing between our car and their lot. No sweat. ozstamps urges me to drive car over the median to cut the chances of getting lost. I do this under some strenuous protest. Damages fender. Hmmm, so much for that cunning idea. Go to plan B.
Plan B. Drive up the small road exit we are on and assume we can turn around soon and get into their lot. BIG mistake. To our despair we are now headed on a 4 lane freeway right into Manhattan!! Yikes. Fuel light also now beeping furiously as we were planning on taking back rental empty as we'd pre-paid the gas. (At 20% over the local rates, but that's another story.) The thought of running out of fuel in the centre of some NJ flyover with a plane to catch flashes through our heads. Leaving a new car parked on side of freeway in that general neighbourhood also not such a great idea.
The rental agreement had printed right on it there was a flat $500 fee PLUS their extra charges even if we dropped car at either JFK or LGA airports, which were possible options for the SFO flight if we missed the 2.25pm out of EWR, as they are 'common rated' with EWR as "NYC" but that 'fee' was nearly what my 20,000 mile round trip ticket had cost from SYD.
So we take first exit which was miles away.
Have zippo idea exactly where we are or even what direction we are facing. We are in darkest low rent Newark I swear. Very run down area. I take ozstamps travel wallet and put it on floor under seat, and central lock doors. Pretty scary place. Lots of groups of idle young guys just looking at us intently with GREAT focused interest. We ask a couple of suss looking locals for directions to Alamo and they mumble something, so we head where they pointed us to. Place we drove to was even more low rent if that is possible. We pray, take a right, and seem to be heading roughly back in the Alamo direction.
Right now it is 1.30pm. This has taken literally 45 minutes or more since we SAW the Alamo lot. Flight LEAVES for SFO and our dinner booking with a group of FT'ers at 2.25pm. If we miss this plane next one is several hours away, and we can't contact anyone in SFO coming to the FT'er dinner as we have no phone details with us. Finally get into Alamo lot pretty hot and flustered and annoyed with their "directions". A shuttle van is leaving at that exact moment. Next one is at least 30 minutes away. Beg the guy to stay while we toss on our bags. He snarls and hisses but agrees, kind of.
So we breathlessly drag all bags on. He snaps 'have you checked your car back'? Glen says 'no, but the keys are in it and we are out of here'. Driver makes him go into office. No-one there. He was not waiting around and so scribbles a note and leaves on desk saying: "Silver Oldsmobile Alero is returned and is parked out in lot with keys in it - gotta go, late for flight" and ran for van. I bet they slap him an overstay charge, and/or a scratched fender charge, and/or it got stolen, but too late to worry about that now. Van goes thru Alamo gates. To save time at airport, ozstamps scrambles in his carry-on to get out our tickets for EWR-SFO-SYD and passport out of wallet. No wallet.
It was still on floor of the Alero where I had put it for safety. Driver spits venom when I beg him to stop. I check with the few other pax in shuttle van who all have literally hours to their flights, and they are all very friendly (thank goodness) and tell driver it is fine with them to wait a minute or so. One guy in van tells me he too took nearly an hour to find this crummy backwoods car return lot. ozstamps runs like Michael Johnson the 300 yards back to car. Pulls a calf muscle doing this. Limps painfully back to shuttle van, and gives driver 10 bucks as a small thank you, as to catch a cab from there would taken an hour wait, so he was pretty nice to put up with all this madness.
Time really ticking on now and Alamo lot is seemingly an eternity from airport. Driver takes us to the MONORAIL station and not United check-in area. Double Yikes. More delays. Forgot all about the monorail - 3 stops to the UA concourse.
Finally get to United check-in totally out of breath from running with heavy bags. About 100 folks in coach line. Thank Goodness for the 1K Elite line! Phew. Go right up front. We are now talking under 30 minutes to departure, and we need to be checked thru to Sydney, do international paperwork and questions, and still pass lines at security so that takes more time. A little short of the "2 hours" they ask. Agent says to Glen: "Sir, how are you both upgrading from here to Australia"? he says with his widest smile and cutest ozzie accent ( why didn't he 'do a Rudi' and pack chocolates? ) : "with my last two Systemwides which are right here - hey, are you REALLLLY gonna take them off me in the present climate"? She ponders this, and says: "tell you what, I'll cut you a deal, I keep one, you keep the other", and she hands him one back with a smile! Nice lady.
First day of National Guard presence at EWR and SFO. Hanging about in groups with loaded M -16s and full military camouflage fatigues etc. I don't know WHO that inspires confidence in, but not us. I am not confident or re-assured in Havana or Laos or Zambia either when mean looking guys walk around with loaded assault rifles, but anyway, they are there for keeps now it seems in all 4 countries. A very sad world when it comes to that, and some guys in Washington somehow believe THAT overkill will get folks flocking back on planes??? Hmmm.
Sprint for the gate, get usual security check madness with my $1 of pocket change now setting off the newly super sensitive gate archway. They took my eyebrow tweezers in SYD, but overlooked ozstamps corkscrew and small nail scissors in the follwing bag thru machine, so nothing surprises us any more. Ask for a film bag of fast film to be hand checked. Gorilla at security says "nothing gets hand checked - it MUST go through the X Ray machine". Politely point to large sticker on front of said machine that says: "films will be hand checked if requested" and he looks mystified, and has to ask a Supervisor about this novel concept. At $6 an hour, you get what you pay for I guess? We just make the United 757 and it leaves pretty well right after we board. Phew. Got comfy seats in First, and very nice crew give us a bottle of French booze each, and had a very nice flight.
Get to SFO on time, and Tom911 kindly was there to meet us inside airport, and we went on to have a nice night with a great group of FT'ers - see :
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/001396.html
On the flight across SFO-EWR we were having a drink in the Red Carpet Club and ozstamps bumps into Chexfan, who he'd had dinner with in Sydney. Out of 250 million people in the USA, what a small world. We ask where he is headed and he answers "next flight to Newark". An even smaller world! Over a drink in RCC he mentions this flight is the one where he makes United 1K, ie. passes 100,000 flown miles in 2001. A 5½ hour flight, and First was all full so ozstamps gives him some 1K drink currency, and later has a quiet word with the purser.
Congratulations on getting to 1K Chexfan, and the FT'ers at dinner in SFO thought the purser bringing you down a wrapped bottle of wine, and Captain's signed card, and the silver UA wings etc, and even glass of Champagne sounded a pretty neat way to initiate your debut 1K flight!
We get off plane and Chexfan goes to collect his rental (NOT from Alamo the lucky dog!) and plans to catch up with us and Doc for a drink at hotel in 30 minutes. Doc did catch up with us at the Four Points in Newark that night for a couple bottles nice wine, but Chexfan got lost using the Hertz instructions for the Four Points, so missed the party! It was 3am when we called it a day, after over 24 hours solid of planes and airports en-route. Mark gave us superb directions on HOW to get from hotel thru the maze of freeways and turnpikes to Portland Maine, and his detail was just perfect, and getting OUT we made brilliant time and direction.
Can't believe how many tolls you pay driving North - what a captive market THAT is! Doc gave us a bunch of maps etc, as he had recently driven from NJ to Nova Scotia himself, so that was super useful. We did about 1,750 miles or nearly 3,000 kms in a few days, and drove thru 7 USA states, and 3 Canadian provinces, so the Alamo car got a good workout! The Fall leaves were simply superb - October 1st seems about a perfect time in the Northeast? We had to have lobster and clam chowder whilst at Bar Harbor, where we caught the expensive "Cat" car hydrofoil across from Nova Scotia. We saw lobster at $3.99 a pound in the tanks along the Maine coastal route to Boston.
We did not leave hotel in Newark until after midday on our way north, and the Hotel desk said "no way" would tourists, making the usual tourist stops, get to Portland Maine by 7pm on a weekday with all the trucks on road, construction work, etc. The traffic we saw heading north as we drove back to Newark was unbelievable, at a crawl or standstill in Connecticut and Rhode Island and Mass and Maine in many places, so we were dead lucky it seems in hindsight. We made it to Portland pretty well right on time for dinner with flyertalkers DEK and Dennis
Had a nice flight back home after the SFO dinner last Saturday. The It'l SFO RCC as usual has that insane rule that the bar closes at 10.15pm, but club closes at 11 pm and pax only ever board then, or even later when delayed which is often. Grrrrrrr. That is a dozen times we've been to that new 'club' and not been able to get a drink. We have mentioned this to everyone from the UA airport manager down each opportunity and no-one sees the stupidity of employing a person to work from 8am in the bar when not a soul wants a drink, and not starting her an hour later, so second shift person locks up at 11pm when the club is busy and folks DO feel like a beer or a scotch etc. We as always had 747 exit row upstairs 15A/15B booked in advance. My footrest in 15A would not lift up or extend and ozstamps was not working well either. FA called on a duty mechanic, who dismantled my seat, and declared it was fritzed and said he'd report it. We are almost at take off.
FA tells us the only 2 seats now together are in row 6 downstairs. Well 6/7/8 have not had the extra foot or whatever of extra space added re new C seats, and are the worst on the plane, so no way are we moving. I HATE downstairs C seats compared to upstairs anyway. We are not happy. This is a 14½ non-stop flight. FA runs it past purser, and we take off. After we are airborne we do a switcheroo with the single occupant of other exit row, 15G. He does not care if he is15G or 15B as long as it is exit row. We both sleep for 9 hours straight, as the new United C seats nearly recline fully - what sheer joy on these long flights. Nonetheless purser tracks me down late flight, notes ozstamps is a 1K (and is reminded I am almost one!), and offers us both a "Sky Pack" which in this instance is a $200 voucher each for the "inconvenience". Nice!
Tom911 sent an email yesterday to say his exit row #15 upstairs on his SFO-HKG flight also had a defective footrest, and it is pretty likely this same 747-400 aircraft was involved. Again, what a small world. Hope he found a friendly purser.
=============================
[This message has been edited by Joh (edited 10-11-2001).]
Aaah, the joys of renting an Alamo car. ozstamps and I did just that last Saturday from Boston to New York, and then flew to SFO for dinner with a nice group of FT'ers, and here is a summary.
Yep, it LOOKED fairly cheap deal on their website at $134 for 5 days, but then they stung us $138 for "insurance" (ozzie drivers need the lot) and $25 for two drivers, some kind of 'airport' fee, when it was not anywhere much near the airport and ripped us off on the full gas tank etc, so it came to about $400 with taxes.
We needed to drop off our Alamo rental at EWR last Saturday. We allowed 5 hours to drive from southern Boston to Newark. On a sunny Saturday. We actually thought we'd have about 2 hours in the Red Carpet Club to kill time, "but lets be safe and arrive early at around midday for a 2.25pm flight". Rand McNally says 3.5 hours. So five hours should be tons of driving time, right? Wrong!
Alamo have some **** - hole rental location NOT at airport or even very close to it. OK. So they have a map showing (very vaguely) how to find it. We finally do get there after an hour on George Washington Bridge and New Jersey Turnpike alone. We get to literally within 20 yards of the Alamo drop off depot. We can see it, we can touch it, we can smell it, but we have a foot high median concrete kerbing between our car and their lot. No sweat. ozstamps urges me to drive car over the median to cut the chances of getting lost. I do this under some strenuous protest. Damages fender. Hmmm, so much for that cunning idea. Go to plan B.
Plan B. Drive up the small road exit we are on and assume we can turn around soon and get into their lot. BIG mistake. To our despair we are now headed on a 4 lane freeway right into Manhattan!! Yikes. Fuel light also now beeping furiously as we were planning on taking back rental empty as we'd pre-paid the gas. (At 20% over the local rates, but that's another story.) The thought of running out of fuel in the centre of some NJ flyover with a plane to catch flashes through our heads. Leaving a new car parked on side of freeway in that general neighbourhood also not such a great idea.
The rental agreement had printed right on it there was a flat $500 fee PLUS their extra charges even if we dropped car at either JFK or LGA airports, which were possible options for the SFO flight if we missed the 2.25pm out of EWR, as they are 'common rated' with EWR as "NYC" but that 'fee' was nearly what my 20,000 mile round trip ticket had cost from SYD.
So we take first exit which was miles away.
Have zippo idea exactly where we are or even what direction we are facing. We are in darkest low rent Newark I swear. Very run down area. I take ozstamps travel wallet and put it on floor under seat, and central lock doors. Pretty scary place. Lots of groups of idle young guys just looking at us intently with GREAT focused interest. We ask a couple of suss looking locals for directions to Alamo and they mumble something, so we head where they pointed us to. Place we drove to was even more low rent if that is possible. We pray, take a right, and seem to be heading roughly back in the Alamo direction.
Right now it is 1.30pm. This has taken literally 45 minutes or more since we SAW the Alamo lot. Flight LEAVES for SFO and our dinner booking with a group of FT'ers at 2.25pm. If we miss this plane next one is several hours away, and we can't contact anyone in SFO coming to the FT'er dinner as we have no phone details with us. Finally get into Alamo lot pretty hot and flustered and annoyed with their "directions". A shuttle van is leaving at that exact moment. Next one is at least 30 minutes away. Beg the guy to stay while we toss on our bags. He snarls and hisses but agrees, kind of.
So we breathlessly drag all bags on. He snaps 'have you checked your car back'? Glen says 'no, but the keys are in it and we are out of here'. Driver makes him go into office. No-one there. He was not waiting around and so scribbles a note and leaves on desk saying: "Silver Oldsmobile Alero is returned and is parked out in lot with keys in it - gotta go, late for flight" and ran for van. I bet they slap him an overstay charge, and/or a scratched fender charge, and/or it got stolen, but too late to worry about that now. Van goes thru Alamo gates. To save time at airport, ozstamps scrambles in his carry-on to get out our tickets for EWR-SFO-SYD and passport out of wallet. No wallet.
It was still on floor of the Alero where I had put it for safety. Driver spits venom when I beg him to stop. I check with the few other pax in shuttle van who all have literally hours to their flights, and they are all very friendly (thank goodness) and tell driver it is fine with them to wait a minute or so. One guy in van tells me he too took nearly an hour to find this crummy backwoods car return lot. ozstamps runs like Michael Johnson the 300 yards back to car. Pulls a calf muscle doing this. Limps painfully back to shuttle van, and gives driver 10 bucks as a small thank you, as to catch a cab from there would taken an hour wait, so he was pretty nice to put up with all this madness.
Time really ticking on now and Alamo lot is seemingly an eternity from airport. Driver takes us to the MONORAIL station and not United check-in area. Double Yikes. More delays. Forgot all about the monorail - 3 stops to the UA concourse.
Finally get to United check-in totally out of breath from running with heavy bags. About 100 folks in coach line. Thank Goodness for the 1K Elite line! Phew. Go right up front. We are now talking under 30 minutes to departure, and we need to be checked thru to Sydney, do international paperwork and questions, and still pass lines at security so that takes more time. A little short of the "2 hours" they ask. Agent says to Glen: "Sir, how are you both upgrading from here to Australia"? he says with his widest smile and cutest ozzie accent ( why didn't he 'do a Rudi' and pack chocolates? ) : "with my last two Systemwides which are right here - hey, are you REALLLLY gonna take them off me in the present climate"? She ponders this, and says: "tell you what, I'll cut you a deal, I keep one, you keep the other", and she hands him one back with a smile! Nice lady.
First day of National Guard presence at EWR and SFO. Hanging about in groups with loaded M -16s and full military camouflage fatigues etc. I don't know WHO that inspires confidence in, but not us. I am not confident or re-assured in Havana or Laos or Zambia either when mean looking guys walk around with loaded assault rifles, but anyway, they are there for keeps now it seems in all 4 countries. A very sad world when it comes to that, and some guys in Washington somehow believe THAT overkill will get folks flocking back on planes??? Hmmm.
Sprint for the gate, get usual security check madness with my $1 of pocket change now setting off the newly super sensitive gate archway. They took my eyebrow tweezers in SYD, but overlooked ozstamps corkscrew and small nail scissors in the follwing bag thru machine, so nothing surprises us any more. Ask for a film bag of fast film to be hand checked. Gorilla at security says "nothing gets hand checked - it MUST go through the X Ray machine". Politely point to large sticker on front of said machine that says: "films will be hand checked if requested" and he looks mystified, and has to ask a Supervisor about this novel concept. At $6 an hour, you get what you pay for I guess? We just make the United 757 and it leaves pretty well right after we board. Phew. Got comfy seats in First, and very nice crew give us a bottle of French booze each, and had a very nice flight.
Get to SFO on time, and Tom911 kindly was there to meet us inside airport, and we went on to have a nice night with a great group of FT'ers - see :
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/001396.html
On the flight across SFO-EWR we were having a drink in the Red Carpet Club and ozstamps bumps into Chexfan, who he'd had dinner with in Sydney. Out of 250 million people in the USA, what a small world. We ask where he is headed and he answers "next flight to Newark". An even smaller world! Over a drink in RCC he mentions this flight is the one where he makes United 1K, ie. passes 100,000 flown miles in 2001. A 5½ hour flight, and First was all full so ozstamps gives him some 1K drink currency, and later has a quiet word with the purser.
Congratulations on getting to 1K Chexfan, and the FT'ers at dinner in SFO thought the purser bringing you down a wrapped bottle of wine, and Captain's signed card, and the silver UA wings etc, and even glass of Champagne sounded a pretty neat way to initiate your debut 1K flight!
We get off plane and Chexfan goes to collect his rental (NOT from Alamo the lucky dog!) and plans to catch up with us and Doc for a drink at hotel in 30 minutes. Doc did catch up with us at the Four Points in Newark that night for a couple bottles nice wine, but Chexfan got lost using the Hertz instructions for the Four Points, so missed the party! It was 3am when we called it a day, after over 24 hours solid of planes and airports en-route. Mark gave us superb directions on HOW to get from hotel thru the maze of freeways and turnpikes to Portland Maine, and his detail was just perfect, and getting OUT we made brilliant time and direction.
Can't believe how many tolls you pay driving North - what a captive market THAT is! Doc gave us a bunch of maps etc, as he had recently driven from NJ to Nova Scotia himself, so that was super useful. We did about 1,750 miles or nearly 3,000 kms in a few days, and drove thru 7 USA states, and 3 Canadian provinces, so the Alamo car got a good workout! The Fall leaves were simply superb - October 1st seems about a perfect time in the Northeast? We had to have lobster and clam chowder whilst at Bar Harbor, where we caught the expensive "Cat" car hydrofoil across from Nova Scotia. We saw lobster at $3.99 a pound in the tanks along the Maine coastal route to Boston.
We did not leave hotel in Newark until after midday on our way north, and the Hotel desk said "no way" would tourists, making the usual tourist stops, get to Portland Maine by 7pm on a weekday with all the trucks on road, construction work, etc. The traffic we saw heading north as we drove back to Newark was unbelievable, at a crawl or standstill in Connecticut and Rhode Island and Mass and Maine in many places, so we were dead lucky it seems in hindsight. We made it to Portland pretty well right on time for dinner with flyertalkers DEK and Dennis
Had a nice flight back home after the SFO dinner last Saturday. The It'l SFO RCC as usual has that insane rule that the bar closes at 10.15pm, but club closes at 11 pm and pax only ever board then, or even later when delayed which is often. Grrrrrrr. That is a dozen times we've been to that new 'club' and not been able to get a drink. We have mentioned this to everyone from the UA airport manager down each opportunity and no-one sees the stupidity of employing a person to work from 8am in the bar when not a soul wants a drink, and not starting her an hour later, so second shift person locks up at 11pm when the club is busy and folks DO feel like a beer or a scotch etc. We as always had 747 exit row upstairs 15A/15B booked in advance. My footrest in 15A would not lift up or extend and ozstamps was not working well either. FA called on a duty mechanic, who dismantled my seat, and declared it was fritzed and said he'd report it. We are almost at take off.
FA tells us the only 2 seats now together are in row 6 downstairs. Well 6/7/8 have not had the extra foot or whatever of extra space added re new C seats, and are the worst on the plane, so no way are we moving. I HATE downstairs C seats compared to upstairs anyway. We are not happy. This is a 14½ non-stop flight. FA runs it past purser, and we take off. After we are airborne we do a switcheroo with the single occupant of other exit row, 15G. He does not care if he is15G or 15B as long as it is exit row. We both sleep for 9 hours straight, as the new United C seats nearly recline fully - what sheer joy on these long flights. Nonetheless purser tracks me down late flight, notes ozstamps is a 1K (and is reminded I am almost one!), and offers us both a "Sky Pack" which in this instance is a $200 voucher each for the "inconvenience". Nice!
Tom911 sent an email yesterday to say his exit row #15 upstairs on his SFO-HKG flight also had a defective footrest, and it is pretty likely this same 747-400 aircraft was involved. Again, what a small world. Hope he found a friendly purser.
=============================
[This message has been edited by Joh (edited 10-11-2001).]
Oct 28, 2001, 8:34 pm
#8
Join Date: May 1999
Location: New York City
Programs: UA MM-1P, Hilton Life Diamond, Marriot Life Gold, ICH Spire
Posts: 4,080
"Glen got his Amex bill in and Alamo did not charge him any nutty fees for dumping the car in the lot in EWR and running for the plane."
...yet.
I'd like to see that Rand McNally estimate of 3.5 hours from "south of Boston" to Newark Airport. Not that I don't believe you, but making that time is just not possible.
New Yorkers know it takes 5 hours to drive to either Washington or Boston. Maybe more with bad traffic. If you do it in less, you didn't even stop once and you were lucky.
...yet.
I'd like to see that Rand McNally estimate of 3.5 hours from "south of Boston" to Newark Airport. Not that I don't believe you, but making that time is just not possible.
New Yorkers know it takes 5 hours to drive to either Washington or Boston. Maybe more with bad traffic. If you do it in less, you didn't even stop once and you were lucky.
Oct 28, 2001, 9:34 pm
#9
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Palm Beach/ New England
Programs: AA EXP 3MM, DL GM, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 4,382
And the same goes from Boston to Maine.
It takes 5 hours from here to Bar Harbor, or anywhere near there from Boston. Less than that is lucky if not aggressive.
Nonetheless, congratulations on your tight execution.
It takes 5 hours from here to Bar Harbor, or anywhere near there from Boston. Less than that is lucky if not aggressive.
Nonetheless, congratulations on your tight execution.
Oct 28, 2001, 10:20 pm
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Sydney, Australia
Programs: UA 1K, Hilton Honours Gold, KLM Gold
Posts: 574
Maybe us Ozzies driving on the wrong side of the road helped us here? 
Well I have the giant size 2000 Rand McNally here opened out, and on that early in book page A6 on the "Mileages and driving times" full page with little "join up the town dots with straight red lines" it quotes:
New York - Boston - 182 miles - allow 3 hours 31 mins
Boston to Portland ME - 108 miles - allow 1 hour 48 mins
Portland to Bangor ME - 132 miles - allow 2 hours 12 minutes
"Driving time is appoximate under normal conditions. Consideration has been given to topography, number of towns along route, congested urban areas, and the speed limit imposed by each state. Allowance should be made for night driving, and unusually fast or slow drivers."
We were staying at the Four Points in Waltham, a bit south of BOS central, on the inner beltway, and right on I-95. We took I-95 right to Newark basically - bit longer than Doc's great route on way north, but hard for a toursit to get lost on I-95!
The drive from Bar Harbor south we took the long coastal route too. So pretty for us at Fall time. And we have to agree with the 2 posters above Rand McNally "official drive times" need to get taken with a grain of salt.
Good you folks raised it, as we are flying 22,000 miles next week to drive around Tampa area to Key West for a few days, and Rand McNally shows it is only 4 hours 26 minutes from TPA to MIA via Fort Myers? Here is our next trip - we will now allow longer than these map guys say:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/001470.html
Well I have the giant size 2000 Rand McNally here opened out, and on that early in book page A6 on the "Mileages and driving times" full page with little "join up the town dots with straight red lines" it quotes:
New York - Boston - 182 miles - allow 3 hours 31 mins
Boston to Portland ME - 108 miles - allow 1 hour 48 mins
Portland to Bangor ME - 132 miles - allow 2 hours 12 minutes
"Driving time is appoximate under normal conditions. Consideration has been given to topography, number of towns along route, congested urban areas, and the speed limit imposed by each state. Allowance should be made for night driving, and unusually fast or slow drivers."
We were staying at the Four Points in Waltham, a bit south of BOS central, on the inner beltway, and right on I-95. We took I-95 right to Newark basically - bit longer than Doc's great route on way north, but hard for a toursit to get lost on I-95!
The drive from Bar Harbor south we took the long coastal route too. So pretty for us at Fall time. And we have to agree with the 2 posters above Rand McNally "official drive times" need to get taken with a grain of salt.
Good you folks raised it, as we are flying 22,000 miles next week to drive around Tampa area to Key West for a few days, and Rand McNally shows it is only 4 hours 26 minutes from TPA to MIA via Fort Myers? Here is our next trip - we will now allow longer than these map guys say:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/001470.html
Oct 29, 2001, 10:05 pm
#11
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Seattle,
Programs: UA1KMM, Hilton Diamond, Starwood Gold
Posts: 568
Joh, great report. Reminds me of why I never rent from Alamo. Their "off-airport" sites are always twice as far as any of the others. If you rent a SUV next time, then the barriers won't seem so insurmountable .
Also, looking at your elapsed trip times, I would expect that you were reading the "miles" on the speedometer as "kilometers".
.Also, looking at your elapsed trip times, I would expect that you were reading the "miles" on the speedometer as "kilometers".