For our fifth wedding anniversary, I wanted to surprise my husband with dinner at NAOE. The fifth…read moreanniversary gift is supposed to be wood, and I thought that an unforgettable meal eaten with wooden implements in a romantic setting would be perfect. I planned the event weeks in advance and made our reservations for the second of only two intimate seatings that NAOE does for dinner.
After researching various car services online, I settled on Red Limo because of the glowing reviews and high ratings it had here and on other sites. We hired the BMW sedan to pick us up at our downtown building at 9PM in order to make our 9:30 dinner reservation in Sunny Isles, about 30 minutes away.
I was very clear when I made my reservation that this was for a special occasion, that we needed the driver to be punctual, and that the restaurant can be notoriously hard to find and we needed our driver to know where he was going. I even provided NAOE's phone number so they could call for precise directions. During the confirmation call, I was assured repeatedly that our driver would be on time and would know where to go.
At five minutes to nine, I received a voice message from Red Limo informing me that the driver was running late because of an airport pickup. I called back and was brusquely told that he would be about ten minutes late. We waited, edgy and increasingly alarmed, but still there was no car. I thought about hiring one of the dozen cabs that were parked on the street nearby, but the cost of this car service and the glowing reviews I remembered reading kept me from doing anything rash. At 9:15, my partner in crime called Red Limo to find out what was going on (I was too angry to do much more than sputter at this point) and the dispatcher seemed surprised that we were still waiting. At 9:30, our driver finally showed up.
Jonathan seemed like a friendly enough fellow, but in all my years of using car services in various cities, I've never witnessed such utter incompetence. Where do I even begin? He couldn't seem to figure out how to unlock or open the doors from the outside, so we stood and watched him fumble each and every time we had to enter or exit the car. There was no water for us in the car so he had to stop, after we asked him several times, to get some out of the trunk. He seemed unfamiliar with the car's controls. He was apologetic for these things, but it left a very poor impression.
But worst of all, he had no idea where he was going, nor did he seem capable of reading the huge digital compass and GPS map on his dashboard. We had to tell him repeatedly where to turn to go north or south, how to get to such obscure places as the Design District and Mary Brickell Village, and that the Brickell strip is across the drawbridge from downtown. Instead of relaxing in the back of a beautiful car and romantically enjoying the scenery, we spent our entire ride telling him where to go, telling him he was going north instead of south or vice versa, and reminding him of street names and locations.
We've been in Miami on business for only a few months but both of us knew our way around the city much better than our driver, a driver who works for a supposedly upscale car service. It was disgraceful and completely enraging. We would have been far better off taking a cab. I chose a car service because I didn't want to risk being late to dinner with an uncertain driver.
Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius...
Finding a table at a high end restaurant was all but impossible by the time we started searching, so we spent nearly an hour driving around looking for a place to eat. Disheartened and very hungry, we finally went to Oceanaire where at least we knew the service would be excellent, even if the environment wasn't as romantic as we would have liked. It turned out to be okay, but not much different than any other weekend date night for us.
I don't cry easily but our experience with Red Limo left me in frustrated tears. What should have been a lovely evening on a milestone anniversary turned into one of the worst nights out we've ever had. The dispatcher I spoke to at the company agreed to cover the cost of our nonrefundable deposit at NAOE, which is nothing less than I expect after such an unbelievable disappointment, but it can't make up for the loss of such a highly anticipated, carefully planned date.
I'd been looking forward to surprising my husband with this dinner for weeks and when he learned where we would have eaten, he was as disappointed as I was. Our anniversary was completely destroyed thanks to Red Limo, and as much as I loved that BMW, the driver's gross incompetence was shocking and costly. I can't recommend this company to anyone and in fact, will actively warn them away from it. Expecting Red Limo not to double-book their cars and to hire experienced, knowledgeable, professional drivers is apparently expecting too much. I would give them zero stars if Yelp's interface allowed it.
Avoid.
