Any recent reviews of Karmel Shuttle?

[Music City Mama]

I need to arrange our transportation for next month and I'm being quoted a very decent rate online with Karmel -- $66 each way.

Their rating on Google is only 3.7, but recent reviews appear good for the most part except this one from 3 weeks ago:

SPECIFICALLY ordered a shuttle with seat belts as we were travelling with two small kids and the bus showed us without. Joke of a company with erratic drivers that put my kids lives at risk! Do not use if you have kids.

I thought for sure they couldn't have meant seat belts and they probably meant car seats or something else, but here is the response from the owner:

Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention. We understand your frustration regarding the shuttle bus not having seat belts. However, we would like to clarify that it is the responsibility of every passenger to ensure their safety during transportation.

Our company always strives to provide safe and reliable transportation services to our clients. Unfortunately, in this instance, the shuttle bus that arrived to pick you up did not have seat belts. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

For future, we would like to remind you that if you have any concerns or requests regarding your transportation, please do not hesitate to contact us immediately. We would have been more than happy to provide a vehicle with seat belts for your children's safety. It would have been an additional wait time of approx. 10-minutes.

Thank you for your understanding, and we hope to have the opportunity to serve you again in the future.

What am I missing here? Is that even legal?! I could sort of understand if it was a large passenger bus, but a shuttle van? I don't want to get into a vehicle without seat belts.

The other option I'm considering is Lansky, but they're $225 roundtrip. That's a pretty big difference, but is the cost savings worth it to possibly not have seat belts? I don't think so. However, the Karmel one is a "shared ride" up to 5 passengers, and there are 4 of us, so certainly it's a regular vehicle and not a shuttle van.

Thoughts and/or recent experiences with Karmel?

 

[Federalist45]

Supershuttle assigned us to Karmel last year, it was fine. The shuttle van had seat belts.

 

[abby2525]

How did you get a rate of $66 each way? I have 2 adults and 2 kids (12 and 9) and am getting $119/each way with the AAA discount from LAX. Unless you're coming from SNA?

 

[Music City Mama]

How did you get a rate of $66 each way? I have 2 adults and 2 kids (12 and 9) and am getting $119/each way with the AAA discount from LAX. Unless you're coming from SNA?

LGB -- that's probably the difference.

 

[DizMe]

SPECIFICALLY ordered a shuttle with seat belts as we were travelling with two small kids and the bus showed us without. Joke of a company with erratic drivers that put my kids lives at risk! Do not use if you have kids.

I thought for sure they couldn't have meant seat belts and they probably meant car seats or something else, but here is the response from the owner:

Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention. We understand your frustration regarding the shuttle bus not having seat belts. However, we would like to clarify that it is the responsibility of every passenger to ensure their safety during transportation.

Our company always strives to provide safe and reliable transportation services to our clients. Unfortunately, in this instance, the shuttle bus that arrived to pick you up did not have seat belts. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

For future, we would like to remind you that if you have any concerns or requests regarding your transportation, please do not hesitate to contact us immediately. We would have been more than happy to provide a vehicle with seat belts for your children's safety. It would have been an additional wait time of approx. 10-minutes.

Thank you for your understanding, and we hope to have the opportunity to serve you again in the future.

What am I missing here? Is that even legal?! I could sort of understand if it was a large passenger bus, but a shuttle van? I don't want to get into a vehicle without seat belts.

The other option I'm considering is Lansky, but they're $225 roundtrip. That's a pretty big difference, but is the cost savings worth it to possibly not have seat belts? I don't think so. However, the Karmel one is a "shared ride" up to 5 passengers, and there are 4 of us, so certainly it's a regular vehicle and not a shuttle van.

Thoughts and/or recent experiences with Karmel?

In other words, you can't rely on your requests being followed and if the van shows up without what you've requested, it's your responsibility to call for another van? That's messed up.

The question is why they don't have seatbelts in ALL the vans. You don't have to make passengers use them, but it's ridiculous to have passenger vans without them.

 

[BecAus]

We just used Karmel Shuttle for our Anaheim to LAX transfer this past Sunday, 05/07. Booked prior via website / email.
They were excellent. Great communication prior and easy booking process (we're from Australia)
I paid $126.50 - this was for 3 people / 4 suitcases. I chose the 'shared van' option which means you may have other passengers with you but we were the only passengers (I'd read online this often ended up being the case) - to book a private van was quite a bit more $$ so I took my chances with the shared van & it ended up private anyway.
This 'shared' option is only available before 7pm. We had an 11.30pm flight out of LAX. Pick up was set for 6.50pm.
We made our way up to reception ~ 6.40pm and the driver was already there and waiting.
Very clean van (with seatbelts) and very friendly driver, apparently it was his first day with the company.
Can highly recommend, our service was great!

 

[Kingdome8]

I just booked for us from lax to DL. I’m sure it will be fine. 32 days.

 

[2siamese]

I Just posted in another transportation thread about useing Lansky. Top drawer exp. Hassle free, convienient, and safe. We had a new model Toyota Sienna minivan both trips. Drivers were very pleasent. They are more expensive but our family thought it was well worth it. Lnasky will be our goto trasnportation going forward.

 

[Original Goofy]

I Just posted in another transportation thread about useing Lansky. Top drawer exp. Hassle free, convienient, and safe. We had a new model Toyota Sienna minivan both trips. Drivers were very pleasent. They are more expensive but our family thought it was well worth it. Lnasky will be our goto trasnportation going forward.

Good to hear, we are booked with them in July

 

[Claudia1]

We used them this week and were very happy. We had a 9 passenger van for our large family. Great communications and early both trips from LAX and DisneyLand, then the return. The van had seatbelts with shoulder harnesses for each seat and a booster seat, too. Would recommend.

 

[Disney Ron]

We used Karmel last month and both drivers were very nice to DL and back to LAX and we had big passenger vans both times for the 4 of us and they were clean.

 

[Cfiiitz]

Karmel picked us up on the 22nd and will drive us back to SNA on the 29th. The driver sent clear instructions, the van was clean and had seatbelts we brought our own car seats. We paid about $125 each way for 7 of us. I am happy and would use them again when travelling with small children. If I didn’t have my kids I’d just ride share.

 

[Epcot Forever Forever]

I used Karmel on my last trip. Ride back was fine but ride to the hotel was extremely unprofessional; driver didn’t wear his seatbelt and asked me to restart the directions after he accidentally turned his phone off (what driver doesn’t know how to get from LAX to Disneyland??), among 20 other issues, including erratic driving and a dirty van. I wondered if we were being kidnapped at times.

I the opposite of recommend.

 

[Babybears]

We had a very good experience using Karmel a few weeks ago to and from SNA. While a bit more expensive than the taxi or an uber, it was totally worth it for us. The communication was exceptional, the vans were clean and drivers were very nice and drove safely and didn't make me nervous (which I cannot say about either way of our last taxi experiences there.....major white knuckles). We opted for the ride share, which was a lower price and we only had another family with us for the pickup from the airport, it was just us on the way back to the airport. We plan to use Karmel for all future trips.