Left Coast (LAX) Help with Transportation

Hopefully I am posting this in the correct place.

We have a group of 42 and grow going on the Monarch October 25th. We are going to charter a large bus for travel to the ship and back.

May question is do any of you have a suggestion as to which charter company to use. I know the charter bus companies in Phoenix but that sure doesn't help in LA. :-)

Any direction you can give will be appreciated.

Thanks,

QM judimouse
Bodacious Babes RHS
Phoenix, AZ
[url="http://www.redhatphx.com"]http://www.redhatphx.com[/url]

You might want to check with Coach USA and Greyhound. Many coach charter companies have a minimum, usually about 3 hours. Since the travel time would be 1/2 hour to 1 hour, you might include a sightseeing tour with the transfer.

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Monarch - Sometime soon



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Try this site.

[url="http://www.supershuttle.com/htm/grp.htm"]http://www.supershuttle.com/htm/grp.htm[/url]

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We had a group of 38 going with us to Miami, but we were flying in Fort Lauderdale. I had no clue where to even begin, so I did a search on the internet a few months before our trip. I contacted 7 companies, who ALL had bids that were all over the scale - some as high as $1200 to some as low as $600 (we needed transportation from the airport to the hotel in Miami, the hotel to the port, and from the port to the airport on our return)! Gosh, without some input, I was going to nuts. So I decided to contact the local BBB and the highway patrol - sent letters via snail mail, which narrowed down my search and ended up going with my second lowest bid. As it turned out, they were a great, small company that was flexible enough to come and get us when we finally disembarked the ship - a must for your group also.

Good luck with your research. Like Fort Lauderdale, I'm sure there are many, many charter bus companies. Most have email which makes contacting them easy. We asked to have our driver's cell phone available, which was a good thing as we were late in disembarking our ship. It also helped we had the same driver both going and coming back - something I would recommend you request if you can.

Good luck.

Suzi


05 July 2004 Cruise Aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas

21 November 2004 Cruise Aboard Carnival's Pride

20 February 2005 Cruise Critic Group Cruise Aboard Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas

Thanks everyone for you suggestions.

Supershuttle is high.

A couple of the charter companies seemed too cheap. Must were in the same price range.

Also, all had a straight rate to the pier which we will use. The return will have a 1.5 hour stop in Fullerton (long story) and then back to the airport. We can book a charter for 5 hours so that should work.

I will contact BBB and CHP and see what I can find out about the one I did like. Called me back and sent quotes via email something none of the others bothered to do.

Again thank you for your help.

QM judimouse
Bodacious Babes Chapter RHS
Phoenix, AZ
[url="http://www.redhatphx.com"]http://www.redhatphx.com[/url]

It's interesting that when I began looking at charters for our group, prices were all over the place. I didn't want to bother with the lower bids because it seemed as though they were "too low" for a reason. But I learned something very interesting.

First off, those so called larger, more expensive charter companies were actually subcontracting from the cheaper, local companies - a couple I already contacted! A few of calls I made seemed wierd, as I was expecting to be calling Fort Lauderdale, but was speaking to someone in Kanasa City. Suffice it to say, I began asking if the people I was speaking to were actually going to supply me with the bus...in many instances the answer was NO.

I bring this up only because as a high school administrator, I deal with charters all the time, as our district has a limited number of busses available for field trips and away games. If you are dealing with a subcontractor and something happens where your bus doesn't show up, it's just about impossible to deal with problems quickly. I know as our district's transportation people subcontract all the time.

I strongly recommend you deal with a local company - more often than not, they will be the cheaper one. And having someone locally to contact in the envent things go wrong is a definite plus.

Suzi


05 July 2004 Cruise Aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas

21 November 2004 Cruise Aboard Carnival's Pride

20 February 2005 Cruise Critic Group Cruise Aboard Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas

Suzi,

I agree about the outsourcing of buses. We have that too here in Phoenix. We went through a few bus companies before we found the right one.

We have an absolutely great charter bus service here plus the best bus driver ever. Our chapter charters from them several times a year. I call and say, "Is Bob (bus driver) available on ??? If they say yes we book the bus. If not we change the date.

Think we will use the bus company in Inglewood, CA as I have an office numbers, cell numbers and their email address and we have not even booked. They have been wonderful answering questions.

Thanks again for your help.

QM judimouse
Bodacious Babes Chapter RHS
Phoenix, AZ
[url="http://www.redhatphx.com"]http://www.redhatphx.com[/url]