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Anyone used the app? Looks like it has cheap cabs – yay! But also ridesharing options if you want to hitch a ride with a local? I didn’t select this but guessing you just donate towards gas? Shuttles for my destinations have never been the cheapest option. Uber is not included.
I opted for the skybus this time around but may look into it further in future.
I used to use the bus, but not since they stopped going down Queen St. Uber is so easy and cheap.
I agree Skybus does stink from that point of view. I used to take it to the airport where possible but since they added the minibus only look at catching it back home sometimes. Depends on the day but if raining I get off at the last skybus stop at Grand Mercure and they store my bags for me while I go up and have a bite and drink with my Accor Plus card. My partner picks me up when he’s available. Of course he swears at the traffic the entire time and hates it 🙂
I’m looking forward to Four Points opening where the main Skybus stops. It keeps getting delayed but hopefully I can do something similar where they’ll store my bags while I have a bite and get picked up. I don’t think the traffic will be any better though. Might try Four Points out as a stay prior to a morning flight if airport hotels are too pricey and jump on the skybus from there. At least I won’t have to deal with the minibus.
Still haven’t used the ride mate app. I think if I used cheap cabs via the app I could find a different hotel where I’m sure they’ll let me do the same thing where traffic is better but it’s still going to be the CBD. Sofitel might be an easier pick up point. I could take a shuttle the whole way home but he’s not far and I don’t mind stopping in at Grand Mercure as it’s literally a few metres from the last stop.
I don’t do this all the time by any means but it happens sometimes depending on the schedule. I guess I could use Uber for Qantas points from the airport but cheap cabs is a fixed fare.
Skybus ditching the bus down Queen St is a real pain, and seems to be the biggest complaint about the service.
They’ve just copied their Melbourne model, but probably should have at least put more hotel stops if they were going to go for the smaller shuttle model.
I was told at one point that Queen St was a huge bottleneck in the old Airbus operations and responsible for many of their delays, but don’t know how accurate that was.
At the time I seem to remember it was tied to the roadworks related to the rail loop – they couldn’t manage the big bus through that.
But it certainly stopped my patronage dead. It’s a shame, the service was great up til then.
Skybus ditching the bus down Queen St is a real pain, and seems to be the biggest complaint about the service. They’ve just copied their Melbourne model, but probably should have at least put more hotel stops if they were going to go for the smaller shuttle model. I was told at one point that Queen St was a huge bottleneck in the old Airbus operations and responsible for many of their delays, but don’t know how accurate that was.
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AirbusSkybus?” 🙂Copied their Melbourne model but without the ability to accrue VA points from purchasing tickets like you can with Mel 🙁
I really don’t want more hotel stops. It takes me longer to get to where I’m going – the bar! Mel used to have minivans that visited particular hotels. So you were essentially put into small groups in that manner. And the minivans were a lot smaller than the current Skybus minibus. So it would only take a finite time to drop people off in Melbourne on that minivans route. The current Skybus minibus just takes everyone which holds way more people so surely that would throw timetables out trying to get around 15 different hotels on one run and maybe 6 people with hotels on the next. I think they’re just visiting drop offs that are convenient on their current routes. I did enquire once about where to pick up the minibus from town to connect with the main Skybus. I was given some vague directions and my eyes started to glaze over. All I could think was “HASSLE!!” So I never tried.
I was told Auckland didn’t want lots of large buses operating around the CBD although I’m sure I’ve seen maybe the large Mana? bus downtown but it probably doesn’t go with the frequency and probably not the same route as Skybus. I did see one bus drive into the back of another while they were turning the corner. They totally misjudged it!
I really liked catching the ferry then having the Skybus across the road to hop onto but there’s roadworks construction etc now so I’m not sure if that will still be an option in the future when works are complete. Probably not 🙁 I hope those town planners have got it right, or whoever is planning.
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