[Arubalisa]

I did not have time to look it up yesterday, but below is from my trip report from June regarding our unfortunate taxi experiences. FWIW, I wrote a letter detailing our experiences to the Aruba Tourism Authority and AHATA and did not even receive the courtesy of a reply. Shame on them, shame on the taxi drivers. So now I will continue to repeat my story until action is taken.
Shame on the dishonest Aruba taxi drivers who are taking advantage of tourists who do not know any better. AND a government who will do nothing to solve the problem.
<<stepping off my soap box now>>

"We usually use the same taxi driver, Bully, throughout our entire trip. During our stay in Aruba he was off island on vacation with his family. He is honest, dependable and knowledgeable about the island. We have been using him for over two years now.

This trip without Bully, our experiences with the 8 random taxi drivers we used, were, with the exception of 2 drivers, disgraceful to the Aruban people and very disheartening for us.

In every instance but two, the drivers tried to overcharge us. With no increase in fares since 2002, paying a 12% tax and not being able to pass it on, and the high price of gas, we were faced with a large percentage of drivers with the attitude "let's screw the tourists". Not to say that there are not other honest taxi drivers, but we met 6 out of 8 who were NOT.

Loving Aruba and her people as much as we do, we were very saddened by their behavior to say the least. Having traveled to Aruba before, at least we know some of their unjustified, in my opinion, reasoning in this situation. I cannot imagine a first time visitor to the island who knows what the fares are "supposed" to be, being charged whatever fare the driver makes up.

The Aruban government sets the taxi fares; they need to give these drivers a raise. Hopefully the raise in fares will once again make the drivers honest. Again, to their credit, we did have two very nice and honest drivers, one a woman on Father's Day night and another nice gentleman the night we went to the Promenade who for the first time had a compliment on the music on his radio (show tunes- I am a sucker for them).

Our worst "taxi" incident incident came outside the Holiday Inn returning back to the Tamarijn from Palm Beach following our day aboard the Jolly Pirates. We walked outside of the lobby at the Holiday Inn and there were 4 taxi drivers seated on benches hanging out. Since our friends were with us we were 7 people total and needed 2 taxis anyway, so this was perfect. Dh asked them what the fare was to the Tamarijn and they eyed up one another and one of the drivers said "$10". Knowing what we were up against, before we even left the Tamarijn in the morning, dh confirmed with our favorite concierge Iris that the fair should be $8.

Dh politely but forcefully asked to see their fare sheet where it showed the fare was $10. Well don't you know all of a sudden they acted like they could even barely understand English. Dh did not back down and again asked to see it in writing. Finally one of the drivers got up and went to his taxi to get the fare sheet. He came back with it, but then walked away from us hiding by the corner of the building to eye up the chart. He then came over to us saying insisting it was $10, still not showing us the chart. Dh told all 4 drivers point blank that sure we would pay the $10, since obviously we had no choice, but we were also going to take the taxi's numbers and report the drivers to the Aruba Tourism Authority.

Well gosh, don't you know , all of a sudden the taxi driver who had the sheet in his hand, stumbles over to me and points to Oranjestad ($10). Yeah, right, we told them all right from the start that we were all going to the Tamarijn! They do not even come close to sounding alike and I have only been to Oranjestad twice in the past 5 years. SO, clarifying that we were going to the Tamarijn, I showed the driver it was $8. Normally we would have paid him the $8 for the fare and a $2 tip for a total of $10 anyway. Needless to say, we did not tip him and he only got his $8 so he lost out for his foolish behavior. Our friends also did not tip their driver and would have under better circumstances.

Our final taxi ride of our Aruba vacation began with Bully picking us up to take us to the Tamarijn at 12:15 p.m. He had returned home to the island the day before and called us first thing that morning to confirm our pick up."