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Michael Still
mikal@stillhq.com
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Mon, 17 Aug 2009
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I had to take a flight a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd do the financially (and environmentally) sensible thing and use an airport shuttle service. Especially because the airport train in Sydney is so expensive and slow. I found Jetbus online, and paid with PayPal. The first time I used them they were just fine, but the second time was extremely frustrating. So frustrating that I wont be using their service again, as I value actually getting on my plane.
Interestingly, Jetbus' Sydney office is across the road from my pickup location, so how badly can it go?
I had a 4pm booking. I arrived at the pickup location 15 minutes early. The bus drove past me at the speed limit approximately on time. It did not slow down or stop. I rang the dispatch number to inform them of the error. The bus drove past about 10 minutes later, again without slowing down or stopping. I rang again. The bus didn't reappear. In total, I rang dispatch 5 times in an attempt to be collected. After the bus was 45 minutes late, I took a taxi to the airport instead, which cost $47, and arrived with only 15 minutes to spare.
The only part of this whole thing which makes me happy? This is the first time I have had to use PayPal's dispute resolution system as I am not a big PayPal user. It was pain free, and gave me the outcome I wanted. That's interesting given that I hear so many bad things from other PayPal users.
Tags for this post: travel( ) australia( ) sydney( )
posted at: 16:32 | path: /travel/australia/sydney | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 31 Oct 2006
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I haven't written much about the couple of weeks I've spent in Sydney. Nothing really exciting happened, apart from a trip home to see the kids (the Southern Tablelands were greener than I expected), a visit to CLUG another to SLUG, and a lot of time spent eating at restaurants on King Street in Newtown.
I've decided that I like the Sydney train system, but not the trains themselves. The trains fall into several categories:
- Millennium trains: the standard one would expect from any world class train system. There are hardly any of these, but they're the only ones with screens saying what station is next, and are in a good state of repair. It seems that they're mainly devoted to the tourist-centric airport runs.
- Tangaras: about 15 years old I'm told. They're ok but nothing special.
- Craptastics: these are the ones older than Tangaras but with retrofitted air conditioning. They must be about 30 years old from the look of things. They're crap.
- Craptanics: imagine a Craptastic before it had the air conditioning retrofit. This is that train. At least you can open the windows, which helps let some of the reek of sweaty office workers and teenaged boys out. Some.
- Stinktanic: if you get one of these, $DEITY hates you. It's a Craptanic, without windows that open. You're screwed. Enjoy the smell.
So, that's about all I learnt of note in Sydney... To summarise: yay King Street, yay train system, boo actual trains except for Millenniums. Oh, and thanks to Grant and Lindsay for letting me stay.
Tags for this post: travel( ) australia( ) sydney( )
posted at: 15:29 | path: /travel/australia/sydney | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 14 Oct 2006
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