ElizabethS121212312
Jul 2021
We booked this shuttle to take us from Denali to Fairbanks.
1. We were picked up on time, but we didn't leave our hotel for 15 minutes as we waited for them to figure out that one of the customers who they thought was there was actually at another hotel.
2. The driver, Joe, refused to use his phone or a GPS device to locate the hotels. We had to use our own phone to give him directions, which he slightly argued about, but were ultimately right. He didn't know where the pick up was for that hotel, so we drove around for awhile until we found the people. With 3 hotel pick ups, it took almost an hour to get out of Denali.
3. The driver handed out several envelopes of personal photos for everyone to look through. It was a cute touch, but perhaps limit it to a few photos amd perhaps hold off sharing items for everyone to touch during the COVID-19 pandemic.
4. The driver kept turning his head to talk to people and causing the van to cross the center line or lane boundaries and hit rumble strips. A little disconcerting.... He also later told us that we made "great time" because he drove 10-20mph over the speed limit. Which made sense with how many vehicles we went into the oncoming lane to pass. We would have preferred safety.
5. The 2 hour drive took almost 4, and there was no bathroom break built in. When one of the male passengers asked for one, the driver asked if a tree would work (seriously asked). When I, a female pregnant passenger, said I wouldn't mind a regular bathroom, we stopped less than 10 minutes later at a gas station. The tree should have never been offered based on that fact.
6. After the bathroom break, we found out we were only 10-20 mins from Fairbanks anyway. The break took quite awhile to let everyone go and then buy something. If we had known how close we were to our destination, that probably would have changed behaviors. It also would have avoided the final thing I will comment on. Another passenger, as we got into Fairbanks, asked if we could stop at Starbucks, which was a couple minutes down the road. We had literally just stopped, and if they had said that earlier, we could have just stopped there instead of the gas station. At first, the driver said SURE, but other passengers finally protested, because we had just stopped, we had been in the van almost 4 hours, and other Fairbanks stores were closing soon. Some of us were flying out the next day and wanted to pick up a few things. Plus, this shuttle was not supposed to be anyone's personal Uber. The driver changed his mind and bypassed Starbucks (thank you). Unfortunately, the couple who asked to stop there got extremely irritated. They were Unfortunately at the same hotel as ourselves, and they proceeded to yell at us in the lobby of the hotel about how they didn't want to stop and use the bathroom but let us, so we should have let them stop at Starbucks.
Ultimately, my points are: this shuttle was a great option for travel for us. However, it needs more organization (i.e. use of GPS), structure (1 built in bathroom break, no customer requests to run their errands), and driver safety (maybe a camera would be good for quality control?). I hope this feedback is helpful to 1st Alaska Tours and improves customer experience in the future.