*Updated review*
After posting my original review, I spoke with the charming owner about the inaccuracies of my review, so I’m updating my review. I spent 40 minutes talking to him (during my work time), majority of the time was him criticizin...g me, implying I’m a liar, being defensive, and not showing any sympathy for our experience below (outside of him disingenuously asking me the question what he could have done better right after insulting me. He didn’t like my response when I told him he could improve his customer service)
My husband and I got married on 6/22, and we booked Queen City Party Charters for our bridal party. Their job was pretty simple with pick up and drop off points being within a mile and times were pretty spread out. For almost $500, we got a bus driver who was less than ideal:
1) Bus driver parked 2 blocks down from where we were getting ready. We called our wedding planner to get in touch with her, as the bus driver wasn’t in sight. There was some back and forth with our planner and the driver about where exactly she was. Owner told me that he had “recorded conservations” between the driver and my wedding coordinator and insisted the driver provided the accurate location of where she was. He also told me that it’s not their responsibility to proactively reach out when people are “running late” (this was because again we couldn’t find the bus). Can’t speak to the former as I wasn’t involved, but regardless, it was not clear where the driver was. Also, some of my bridesmaids got rained on as we were making the trip to the bus as she parked so far away and didn’t open the doors for quite some time until we banged on the doors once it started raining.
2) After the wedding, the driver got lost on our way from the chapel to Charlotte City Club and kept telling us that she wasn’t able to get into the entrance of the club. First of all, this wasn’t true because I had been there the day before and was able to get in fine, and our guests were able to get to the entrance fine. (The owner said that it’s different for buses. Again, I am sure there are challenges, but I know that there is a drop off point for buses near the club entrance. He also said that construction / road closures caused her to get lost. My response to this is that it’s the driver’s responsibility to check this out in advance and find the best alternative route, which I provided because I was already familiar with the road closures and construction going on. ) So me (the bride) had to direct her, but she was pretty persistent in dropping us off at the bus station which is about a 1/2 mile walk from the club. As I was directing her, she still kept missing her turns. By the time we got two or three blocks to the Club, I just told her to drop us off two blocks... Finally, after a +30 minute bus ride which is supposed to take less than 10 minutes, we arrived at our reception with no time to enjoy our cocktail hour. The owner pointed out that technically he got us to the reception early according to our schedule at 7:03 according to his “GPS”. I have texts that show we didn’t arrive until after 7:03... This was frustrating as we wanted to enjoy our cocktail hour and thought we could after finishing up photos early.
Also, as part of this contract, this company forces us to provide a 20% tip. Not exactly great for sub par service. (The owner said he would refund me if I took down this review. I said no based on how well our convo went.)