The Less Luxurious Side of Budget Travel

Recently I wrote about how luxurious some of the most budget ways of travel have been. We took a Lexus for instance, instead of a train from Krakow to Vienna (via carpooling), where we got dropped off at a 5 star hotel which was completely free (no points, no cash) via a BRG.

However, yesterday would be the dark side. To paint a fair picture of what our life looks like, I’ll tell you about a low point yesterday.

Vienna to Budapest was $48 per person via the train or $14 per person with car pooling, and the bus was sold out. $96 – $28 = $68 of savings, worth skipping the train, my favorite mode of travel. However, I delayed until the night before to book a carpooling ride, which meant options were very limited.

Normally I want to get a ride with someone who is starting in the same city as me, so I know the pick up time is accurate. Or we’ve had people message when they are an hour away. However, communication was tough because this person didn’t speak english, and I don’t speak German.

But, I had a bad feeling about the entire thing, and I kept saying it… and yet…

I’ll start at the beginning. When I asked this driver if there were seats left, she responded by giving me the meeting point, which was the palace south of town. Okay, I suppose that means there are seats, but I had to point out how big the Palace was. But this time her response was just to add “the bus parking”. I knew it was a bad idea but agreed, being hopeful.

When we drove up with the Uber driver he wanted to know which bus we needed, because the buses park all up and down the street. Bad sign.

The only way I could describe this meeting point is to compare it to saying, “let’s meet at the street next to the White House” and leave it at that. Same same.

So here we are at 2:00 pm outside the Palace walking up and down the street with our bags… in the snow! Also, waiting next to the buses doesn’t help us “stick out”.

At 2:40 we wandered over to the Courtyard Marriott which had free wifi in the lobby that we could reach outside. So we called her, rather, Carrie talked to her. She apologized for being late, and estimated 40 minutes ETA.

So we went into the Courtyard to get out of the cold and they kindly agreed to let us wait in their lobby, like kids in the afterschool program.

At 3:30 we called again… but got no answer. I also messaged via BlaBlaCar which goes straight to her texts. No answer, no reply. Tried calling multiple times, and periodically tried sending a message.

At 4:40, after wasting 2 hours and 40 minutes, we decided to get the train. Just grabbed a taxi to the station and bought a train ticket. Turns out we had just missed the hourly train.

At 5:50 we got the train to Budapest, for $96.

At 8:00 pm we arrived at the train station in Budapest. I know the Radisson Blu not just because of the GPS app (mapswithme) but because we’ve stayed at this hotel twice before. Taxis are cheap, so I’m thinking it will be about $5, but mostly I just really want to hang my hat for the day.

1.5 miles at 8pm on a Sunday night, there is zero traffic. It’ll be super cheap.

 

Why I Love Taxis (sarcasm)

After a couple of blocks I kind of notice how high the taxi’s price is. But let me say two things. 1) I’m totally paranoid that all taxis are crooks. 2) My apologies to the honest drivers who have to deal with people like me tracking them on the gps. So I try not to be “that guy” accusing them of wrong-doing, when really, the bypass might actually save you money… but how would you know?

Which is to say, I watch the price, but if I’m not sure, I err on the side of believing in people.

I looked at the prices posted on the taxi’s window. Okay, it does start out at $2 and goes up $1 per km. Also, $0.30 per minute. (I’m converting to USD btw).

But then I started thinking, “could that block have been 2 kilometers? Was it more time than I thought?”

The driver didn’t know English but I started to express disbelief. And I was leaning forward to watch his dash displaying the distance. I was clearly suspicious.

And for whatever reason he started to floor it. Now the meter is rolling like a slot machine!

“Carrie, this is a hot meter, we’re already at $20”.

He pulls to the main road that the hotel is on and stops at the intersection. I wanted him to pull around to the entrance so that I could ask the concierge/doorman if the price was fair… but he refused, and we just sat on the side alley.

At this point, he knows that I know. And I know that he knows.

“Carrie, get our bags out”.

She gets out and starts getting our bags out while we argue. Basically, I keep saying “let me just go in and ask the hotel”, “please, let me just talk to the hotel”. We don’t understand each others’ words, but we both understand what the other wanted.

He says “50 Euros”. I understand those words… but he now is allowing me off the hook by doubling my price. I might look dumb, but I’m not that dumb.

At this point our bags are out and he turns off the car and gets out with us.

“10 Euros!” he says.

I try to let him know that I’ll be right back with his money but at this point he starts yelling like a mad man. He starts yelling “Gratis! Gratis! Gratis!” and trying to get me to go away before the hotel people come out.

By the way, I started filming on the phone after he went down to 10 Euros. So I did get the plate number, and all that jazz.

 

We walk in and I ask the duty manager at the front desk, “how much should you pay for a taxi from the train station to the hotel?”

“At most you’d pay 2,000 HUF”, he said. (Also, I later routed it on Uber and it would be 800 HUF, which is $3).

“Well, that driver just wanted over 5,000.”

To which he very quickly replied, “Why did you pay?”

He was relieved I didn’t and wanted to know the plate and details, which I had available.

 

The route google says to take:

Route taxi took:

 

Conclusion

No conclusion really.

Maybe that I have lost all trust in taxi drivers. If this were my first story like this, okay. But as Carrie told me, “I don’t wonder when a taxi will try to pull something, I wonder how they are trying to pull something”.

In terms of carpooling, that was a first. No idea what to say, other than I shouldn’t have agreed to it. It was poor communication to start off.

All that to say, standing in the snow waiting for someone to show up… who never shows up… It’s not just cold it’s terrible. Incredibly frustrating. Luxurious definitely isn’t the right word, and the train isn’t exactly cheap, given how short of a ride it is. Nothing about this fit into an ideal day.

But at the end of the day, the taxi thing I’m used to now. And the snow thing… well, I’ve been through worse.

When you get to where you’re going and they have a big old suite available for you (and you only paid 15,000 points for two nights), you can’t help but feel lucky. Truly, how many people in the world get to experience this? Tomorrow we go to the InterContinental, and hopefully we have a river facing room for NYE fireworks right infront of the hotel.

Seriously, I share this story to give balance on our “luxurious” life. But I truly have nothing to be upset about. Minor set back in the big play that is life.