December Adventures: The Ride Back To The Hotel…

Okay- so here’s the most interesting part of the trip… the ride back to the hotel from the concert… this is kind of my travel tip for what I’m going to do in the future when a ride share or taxi ride goes wrong.

So- since it was late and we were cold and tired we decided to get a ride share from the concert to the hotel. It was an 8 minute car ride- it was relatively inexpensive but… we needed a ride.

Anyway- we got this guy and we got in his car and… things kind of went badly.

I don’t really mind if a driver is talkative or not talkative as long as he or she gets me from A to B… but people can be kind of crazy and unprofessional when they are just kind of working for themselves. I’m going to call the driver Mark just to hide the identity and I’m going to be vague about details.

So Mark picks us up and he starts talking like immediately about a fruit that he was eating- and I put the fruit in a salad so I mentioned that I like them in salads- and then he just kind of kept going on about different subjects that weren’t really controversial but it’s not something you need to hear from your cab driver. Like religious things were mentioned, healthcare, plastic surgery… not full on red flags but it did make the ride a little uncomfortable.

At one point we had gotten pretty close to the hotel- we recognized an Insomnia cookies that was nearby and we were almost there… and we kept seeing him get rerouted and at this point- we should have just asked him to drop us off there… but we didn’t. I didn’t think there was enough of a red flag to the guy to ask for that… but then we kept getting rerouted and we knew that we were close… so we should have just said “okay we know where we are- just drop us off here.” But we didn’t.

So he took us in an alley and I thought “ohhh no… this is it.” 💀 Sooo at this point my boyfriends phone was dead- but he had his smart watch on and he can create an event in there to send a message… so he sent one and that’s when we kind of decided we had to get out soon.

Mark had also said some things that no one should really say at this point. He said an offensive word and then he got out of the car to yell at another driver and that seemed to be escalating- which is when we ran. I don’t feel comfortable being in a strangers car without said stranger and we didn’t know what he was doing so we got out and ran. We didn’t know where we were going but… we knew we could find it quicker and safer on our own.

And if we had stayed in there while Mark was outside of the vehicle… my ride was still going I think- I’m pretty sure I would have been charged. And he also seemed to keep going away from the hotel- he wasn’t able to cut through the alley… but we don’t think he was going the right way through the alley… so it just would have taken forever. I took a screenshot of the route and I’m not going to share it on here but it was all over the place.

Everything was okay- we ran away from Mark and we got back to the hotel and locked the door lol.

I did report mark to the service that I used. They said they are looking into it and… they did not offer me a refund. I’m pretty sure they would have given me one if I asked but it isn’t really about the money.

I also think my boyfriend and I are going to communicate better when we want to get out of a situation like that. I think we’ll come up with it before we get in the car just to know what to do. I don’t think I’ll be using ride shares for a while- if I need to I think I’ll call an actual cab service.

Okay- I think that is everything. We made it out okay- which is great. We won’t be matched with Mark again… and he doesn’t know anything about me or my boyfriend other than what’s on my profile… and I don’t live in the state I saw the concert at… so it’s okay.

Bye!

-Shannon