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| - Once in a blue moon, I look forward with eager anticipation to writing a Yelp review with as much venom as I can conceivably muster. This is one such review.
I live in Manhattan three months a year and while I strive to take the subway or bus 90% of the time, I usually fall short of that, though I've now mastered the letter lines (N, Q, R mostly) and get around even to Brooklyn better than I used to.
So I take cabs a lot and never in my life have I experienced treatment or service this abominable.
The first thing to know about taking cabs in Vegas: DON'T. Everyone except me seems to know this. Car rental is dirt cheap and if you intend to venture off the Strip you MUST HAVE a car.
I didn't do due diligence on Suncoast Casino, where Robert Klein performed. This was the (sole) reason I came to Vegas. As a Vegas Virgin, I figured a casino had to be on the strip and didn't realize it's in the suburbs (Summerlin). It's 50 bucks in a cab and that's after 45 minutes of frantic calling and waiting.
The Rodeway Inn employee didn't know how far it was and estimated a 20 dollar fare. Uh, no. A generous, kind employee at Suncoast drove me back, well, to downtown and it was another 28 dollars to the Strip.
I spent 80 dollars in cabs and the first driver was quite possibly the worst cab driver I've ever had in my life. She had the gall to be angry with me and at the end of the ride told me I was "offensive and obnoxious." I thought she was going to hit me.
Now, once this all went South, I WAS as obnoxious as I possibly could be: she deserved it.
So I call the Rodeway and rant for 10 minutes about my cab driver from the back seat, saying no one should ever take cabs in this city, that the service is the worst in America and highway robbery blah blah blah.
Halfway through my deliberate passive-aggressive rant, in which I said "God knows what other add-ons she'll charge," the woman hissed: "WHAT add-ons. There's just a tip which I assume you won't be giving me, even though I got you to your destination." Excuse me, isn't the purpose of a cab to transport you to your destination? I'm supposed to grovel in gratitude because after 45 minutes of calling the cab only to hear the dispatcher say, "It should have been there" as if this was supposed to console me for missing the first 25 minutes of Robert Klein's show, she managed to find the casino?
The Rodeway employee assured me that the women knew where I was going. I knew this was not going to end well, when I jaywalked from Royal Resort screaming like a madwoman when finally the cab showed up, for it not to leave.
There were no cabs at the Royal Resort either, which I'm told is common on Saturday nights with big shows or fights.) "I have no idea where you're going: we don't know these things." "But the woman said she told the dispatcher: I've never been to Vegas and don't know my way around." She lives in Summerlin, it turns out, and did know the Suncoast but this was not an auspicious beginning.
It was a very unpleasant experience and the Escalade (the equivalent of livery cab in the city) quoted me 60 and I said, "No way." Turns out I would have done better to take that gorgeous vehicle (I've never been in one), though probably they don't take cards.
Oh, and here's the kicker: 3 dollars to use a credit card in a cab in Vegas.
I did leave that miserable woman a 10% tip just to spite her. I felt like Kevin Spacey in the Ref: "Lloyd's no hero, I can vouch for that."
NEVER AGAIN will I come to Vegas without renting a car.
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