Last weekend, I got the surprise pleasure of heading out to Orlando and getting to spend a bit of time at Walt Disney World. Naturally, since I flew out and have still not rented a car in my life, my brief visit consisted of quite a few Uber rides (gotta get that 2% cash back!). As they always have in my experience, most of these went swimmingly… but I did run into one problem.
On Sunday morning, I stood out front of my hotel and requested my ride. Not really knowing my way around Orlando, I thought the route we were taking toward Magic Kingdom looked a bit different but not enough to worry. Moreover, I spent most of my time in the car playing on my phone since my driver was far less chatty than what I’m used to.
Anyway, long story short, we ended up reaching an entrance to Walt Disney World that was blocked off, presumably due to the runDisney marathon being held that morning. After lots of circling and calls made to friends to offer insight, I was finally able to direct the driver back to the proper route and made it to my destination in a mere 95 minutes (it was meant to be a 20 minute ride). While I was surprisingly chill about the whole thing once I made it the park safely, that peace faded when I learned that this roundabout trip cost me $60 instead of the $18 it was initially quoted.
Given that this was my first experience with such a thing, I was relieved to see that there were prompts in the Uber app to request a refund. Unfortunately, me mentioning that the problem with the route involved road closures forced the app to initially deny my request for a refund. However, I was able to scroll down to the “I had a different issue” prompt where I just asked Uber to contact me.
Less than a half hour later, a push notification from the Uber app informed me that the company had e-mailed me. From there, I was able to go into detail about the experience and why I didn’t think the $60 fare was just. Soon after that, they responded with an apology and let me know they had adjusted my fare back to the $18 as I had requested. Being the nice guy that I am and still feeling a bit bad that my driver spent 90 minutes with me for $18, I did still end up tipping him my customary $5 as well.
The moral of the story is, while my issue was fairly minor considering some of the horrific headlines you see from time to time, Uber was very helpful in getting my problem resolved. It’s also worth noting that, while it became all too clear that there was a problem with the route I was on, others paying less attention might have gotten ripped off and not even really known it. That’s why it’s nice to know that there is an easy way to view your route (you can see my craziness up above), fare, and request a refund if you’re Uber ride doesn’t go as planned. Hey — it was still cheaper than a taxi!