Taxi from Manhattan Cruise Terminal to NJ Hotel?

[lx200gps]

I've read about possible issues with NY taxi drivers not taking fares into NJ? If we disembark from the Manhattan terminal off an NCL ship, would we have any chance of finding a taxi driver willing to cross into New Jersey to drop us off at a hotel? Some do, some don't? Failing that, does Uber run between these locations?  Sorry for cheaping out, but with parking at the terminal running just shy of $400 for a week, I'm looking at Park and Cruise options out of NJ, through Trinity etc.  Thanks...

[njhorseman]

1 hour ago, lx200gps said:

I've read about possible issues with NY taxi drivers not taking fares into NJ? If we disembark from the Manhattan terminal off an NCL ship, would we have any chance of finding a taxi driver willing to cross into New Jersey to drop us off at a hotel? Some do, some don't? Failing that, does Uber run between these locations?  Sorry for cheaping out, but with parking at the terminal running just shy of $400 for a week, I'm looking at Park and Cruise options out of NJ, through Trinity etc.  Thanks...

New York City taxis are not required to go to NJ, with the exception of Newark Airport. Even if you could find a driver willing to do it the fare would be unregulated and the driver will likely try to get you to pay as much as possible, which means there's a good chance you'll be overcharged for the trip. Even if the driver doesn't have any larceny in his or her heart simply because they can't pick up a passenger in NJ to return to NY the driver will have to tack on their estimated value of time, tolls, and fuel for the empty return trip . In other words don't even think about taking a taxi from Manhattan to a NJ hotel.

 

Your best bet is to take Uber or Lyft. Yes, they do cross state lines .

Edited April 23, 2022 by njhorseman

[lx200gps]

12 hours ago, njhorseman said:

New York City taxis are not required to go to NJ, with the exception of Newark Airport. Even if you could find a driver willing to do it the fare would be unregulated and the driver will likely try to get you to pay as much as possible, which means there's a good chance you'll be overcharged for the trip. Even if the driver doesn't have any larceny in his or her heart simply because they can't pick up a passenger in NJ to return to NY the driver will have to tack on their estimated value of time, tolls, and fuel for the empty return trip . In other words don't even think about taking a taxi from Manhattan to a NJ hotel.

 

Your best bet is to take Uber or Lyft. Yes, they do cross state lines .

Thanks for taking the time to explain. If taxis ARE obligated to take us to EWR, then I suppose we could simply stay at one of the EWR hotels offering Park and Cruise packages. IIRC, Trinity Reservations had at least one that did, They also had a few decent hotels that offered P&C packages that included shuttle service, but the shuttles only left the ship around 10AM but we prefer to leave the ship ASAP to begin the 7 hour drive home as early as possible.

[JillK]

16 hours ago, lx200gps said:

I've read about possible issues with NY taxi drivers not taking fares into NJ? If we disembark from the Manhattan terminal off an NCL ship, would we have any chance of finding a taxi driver willing to cross into New Jersey to drop us off at a hotel? Some do, some don't? Failing that, does Uber run between these locations?  Sorry for cheaping out, but with parking at the terminal running just shy of $400 for a week, I'm looking at Park and Cruise options out of NJ, through Trinity etc.  Thanks...

 

We had a group of 8 with a stay and park package at the Hampton Inn in Ridgefield Park, NJ in March meaning that we had to return to the hotel post-cruise to pick up our car. The last time we had cruised out of NYC pre-pandemic, we also stayed here and at the time they offered a shuttle option. This is no longer available so we ended up ordering two XL vehicles on Uber to get to the Manhattan terminal and back. 

 

Our only issue was on the return, our driver took the tunnel instead of the GWB (which has always been our past experience) and then proceeded to get lost driving around in loops, through tolls and then neighbourhoods to try to get back on track. Our other party arrived at least 25 minutes ahead of us due to the driver. Based on that, should we ever do this again I would specify to the driver which way to go.

 

As a reference, the trip to the terminal was $64 including a healthy tip so it's significantly less than parking at the terminal.

Edited April 24, 2022 by JillK

[njhorseman]

3 hours ago, lx200gps said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain. If taxis ARE obligated to take us to EWR, then I suppose we could simply stay at one of the EWR hotels offering Park and Cruise packages. IIRC, Trinity Reservations had at least one that did, They also had a few decent hotels that offered P&C packages that included shuttle service, but the shuttles only left the ship around 10AM but we prefer to leave the ship ASAP to begin the 7 hour drive home as early as possible.

The only EWR hotel that would qualify is the Marriott on the airport grounds. The other hotels are in the vicinity of EWR and a taxi wouldn't have to go there.  You would need to have the taxi take you to the airport and then you would have to take either the hotel's airport shuttle or a taxi or Uber from the airport to the hotel.

The previous poster mentioned the package at the Hampton Inn Ridgefield Park. A similar package is available at the Hilton Garden Inn Ridgefield Park. In both cases you need to arrange for your own transportation between the hotel and cruise terminal, with Uber or Lyft being the likely best choice.

[lx200gps]

56 minutes ago, JillK said:

 

We had a group of 8 with a stay and park package at the Hampton Inn in Ridgefield Park, NJ in March meaning that we had to return to the hotel post-cruise to pick up our car. The last time we had cruised out of NYC pre-pandemic, we also stayed here and at the time they offered a shuttle option. This is no longer available so we ended up ordering two XL vehicles on Uber to get to the Manhattan terminal and back. 

 

Our only issue was on the return, our driver took the tunnel instead of the GWB (which has always been our past experience) and then proceeded to get lost driving around in loops, through tolls and then neighbourhoods to try to get back on track. Our other party arrived at least 25 minutes ahead of us due to the driver. Based on that, should we ever do this again I would specify to the driver which way to go.

 

As a reference, the trip to the terminal was $64 including a healthy tip so it's significantly less than parking at the terminal.

Thanks for the info. I had looked into that Hampton Inn and found out that as you say, no transport is included any more. For about the same price, both on the Trinity site as well as directly with the hotel, we can get the Fairfield Inn in North Bergen  or the Springhill Suites near EWR for about the same money, with parking, breakfast and round trip shuttle. My wife isn't keen on the shuttle as it only leaves the ship at 10AM, so I'm looking into no-transport packages and doing the limo booking ourselves so we can leave the ship and be on the road very early for the long drive back to Montreal. I've found Carmel Limos who quote a surprisingly decent price, but they don't have very good reviews. Uber is an obvious option, but the only time I've tried to use Uber, for a trip from Torrance to San Pedro in LA, the booking failed due to a credit card issue. I'd hate to get off the ship, try to flag an Uber and find the app fails again, as we'd be pretty much stranded at the port.

[princeton123211]

7 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

I've found Carmel Limos who quote a surprisingly decent price, but they don't have very good reviews.

Carmel and Dial 7 are the two bigger car service companies-- calling them a limo company is being very generous. The cars are all third party contractors and vary in terms of overall quality. That being said, they are sometimes very competitive price wise and are overall very reliable. For a short trip its going to be fine.

 

9 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Uber is an obvious option, but the only time I've tried to use Uber, for a trip from Torrance to San Pedro in LA, the booking failed due to a credit card issue. I'd hate to get off the ship, try to flag an Uber and find the app fails again, as we'd be pretty much stranded at the port.

Thats probably an issue on your end with how the billing info was entered. Uber is one of the most popular ways to get around NYC and is most likely the best option for you in this circumstance. You can always try booking a trip where you are now to see if the billing is fixed and just cancel it within 2 minutes to avoid being charged for the ride. That way you'll know if your info is updated properly. 

[1025cruise]

After reading all of this, it still seems worth it to me to pay the $40 a day to park at the port rather than deal with having to find a way to/from my car at a hotel in NJ.

[lx200gps]

19 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

After reading all of this, it still seems worth it to me to pay the $40 a day to park at the port rather than deal with having to find a way to/from my car at a hotel in NJ.

I quite agree. Trouble is, with a 30% exchange rate, 7 days of parking comes to almost $400 for us, plus almost $300 for a basic hotel with breakfast, hence my desire to find a cheaper alternative.

Edited April 24, 2022 by lx200gps

[lx200gps]

17 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

Carmel and Dial 7 are the two bigger car service companies-- calling them a limo company is being very generous. The cars are all third party contractors and vary in terms of overall quality. That being said, they are sometimes very competitive price wise and are overall very reliable. For a short trip its going to be fine.

 

Thats probably an issue on your end with how the billing info was entered. Uber is one of the most popular ways to get around NYC and is most likely the best option for you in this circumstance. You can always try booking a trip where you are now to see if the billing is fixed and just cancel it within 2 minutes to avoid being charged for the ride. That way you'll know if your info is updated properly. 

I'm not so sure about Carmel any more. Checking Tripadvisor, out of 1356 reviews, a full 683! are 1 out of 5. Dial 7 seems much better rated, so I'll look into them, thanks.  And yes, I'll be playing around with Uber a fair bit to see if I can figure out why the previous attempt failed.  Obviously it's not just because I tried to use a Canadian credit card for Uber in the US, so there must have been some other reason.

[JillK]

For what it's worth, ordering the Uber after we disembarked was the same process as meeting with the shuttle offered in the past by the hotel (which was a private car, just like an Uber) but was in fact much faster. 

 

With both the pre-paid hotel shuttle and the Uber, we had to wait to be off the ship and out of the terminal before we contacted them to be picked up. The Uber was faster for pickup as the closest available vehicle took the job, whereas we had to wait for the shuttle driver to arrive. We waited about 5 minutes for the Uber driver and about 25 minutes for the shuttle driver and were picked up at basically the same spot across the street from where you exit the terminal near the taxi stand.

 

Although we had priority disembarkation (group 2), there was a delay in getting off the ship and we ended up disembarking over an hour after the time we thought we would be off. Just something for you to keep in mind if you plan on pre-booking transportation.

 

I'm sure you'll find a solution that works for you. For us, going the Uber route worked best given the size of our group as we would have had to have parked two vehicles meaning $800 USD or just over $1000 Cdn for the week- uh, no thanks! 

[princeton123211]

10 hours ago, lx200gps said:

11 hours ago, princeton123211 said:

I'm not so sure about Carmel any more. Checking Tripadvisor, out of 1356 reviews, a full 683! are 1 out of 5. Dial 7 seems much better rated, so I'll look into them, thanks.

Dial 7 and Carmel are the exact same drivers and cars-- they are both brokers and don't own or employ the cars/drivers you'll be with. Frankly these same drivers are on the Uber Black and Lyft app. With any of these I would go by price and not by Tripadvisor reviews-- they are all the same contractors and you have no control over who shows up. 

[mjkacmom]

12 hours ago, JillK said:

For what it's worth, ordering the Uber after we disembarked was the same process as meeting with the shuttle offered in the past by the hotel (which was a private car, just like an Uber) but was in fact much faster. 

 

With both the pre-paid hotel shuttle and the Uber, we had to wait to be off the ship and out of the terminal before we contacted them to be picked up. The Uber was faster for pickup as the closest available vehicle took the job, whereas we had to wait for the shuttle driver to arrive. We waited about 5 minutes for the Uber driver and about 25 minutes for the shuttle driver and were picked up at basically the same spot across the street from where you exit the terminal near the taxi stand.

 

Although we had priority disembarkation (group 2), there was a delay in getting off the ship and we ended up disembarking over an hour after the time we thought we would be off. Just something for you to keep in mind if you plan on pre-booking transportation.

 

I'm sure you'll find a solution that works for you. For us, going the Uber route worked best given the size of our group as we would have had to have parked two vehicles meaning $800 USD or just over $1000 Cdn for the week- uh, no thanks! 

To park for 7 nights is $280. We live 10 miles from the port and pay to park. We are a family of 7 so it’s a little cheaper to park than 2 Ubers each way.

[JillK]

1 hour ago, mjkacmom said:

To park for 7 nights is $280. We live 10 miles from the port and pay to park. We are a family of 7 so it’s a little cheaper to park than 2 Ubers each way.

 

Oh gosh - yes, you're right of course! My goof. I thought I saw $400 somewhere but I should have known that was wrong since I had done all the calculations before our trip in March! 

 

I can see how in your case parking works out cheaper as you likely need two Ubers as we did and would have to take on all the cost yourselves. As for us, we couldn't fit everyone and all our luggage into one vehicle and my parents paid for themselves (and fortunately for us, they took and paid for our sons too) so we only had to deal with four people.

 

In our case it would have been $560 USD for both vehicles ($700 CDN) to park for the week. Cost to Uber ended up being around $250 USD (or approx. $325 cdn) for two cars both ways including tip. We paid slightly more than my parents because we tipped better but it basically came out to $125 USD a car return trip.

[lx200gps]

15 minutes ago, JillK said:

 

Oh gosh - yes, you're right of course! My goof. I thought I saw $400 somewhere but I should have known that was wrong since I had done all the calculations before our trip in March! 

 

I can see how in your case parking works out cheaper as you likely need two Ubers as we did and would have to take on all the cost yourselves. As for us, we couldn't fit everyone and all our luggage into one vehicle and my parents paid for themselves (and fortunately for us, they took and paid for our sons too) so we only had to deal with four people.

 

In our case it would have been $560 USD for both vehicles ($700 CDN) to park for the week. Cost to Uber ended up being around $250 USD (or approx. $325 cdn) for two cars both ways including tip. We paid slightly more than my parents because we tipped better but it basically came out to $125 USD a car return trip.

That $400 up above was my calculation for a week's parking for a Canadian. $US280 x 1.04 NY tax? x 1.3 Exchange + $US16 toll to enter NY from NJ = $C394. IIRC the toll is only charged one-way, so no charge to re-enter NJ. If the $US40/day already includes the NY tax, then that brings it down to a more palatable $C380. If we use your exchange rate of 1.25 instead of my 1.3, then it further reduces to $C366.

[lx200gps]

15 hours ago, JillK said:

For what it's worth, ordering the Uber after we disembarked was the same process as meeting with the shuttle offered in the past by the hotel (which was a private car, just like an Uber) but was in fact much faster. 

 

With both the pre-paid hotel shuttle and the Uber, we had to wait to be off the ship and out of the terminal before we contacted them to be picked up. The Uber was faster for pickup as the closest available vehicle took the job, whereas we had to wait for the shuttle driver to arrive. We waited about 5 minutes for the Uber driver and about 25 minutes for the shuttle driver and were picked up at basically the same spot across the street from where you exit the terminal near the taxi stand.

 

Although we had priority disembarkation (group 2), there was a delay in getting off the ship and we ended up disembarking over an hour after the time we thought we would be off. Just something for you to keep in mind if you plan on pre-booking transportation.

 

I'm sure you'll find a solution that works for you. For us, going the Uber route worked best given the size of our group as we would have had to have parked two vehicles meaning $800 USD or just over $1000 Cdn for the week- uh, no thanks! 

Great info, thanks very much. Is there a dedicated Uber/Lyft pickup spot at the terminal, easily visible and marked as at some airports, or do we just wait near the taxi stand as you mention above and hope the we find the specific car?

[njhorseman]

20 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Great info, thanks very much. Is there a dedicated Uber/Lyft pickup spot at the terminal, easily visible and marked as at some airports, or do we just wait near the taxi stand as you mention above and hope the we find the specific car?

There's no dedicated Uber pickup point. You have to cross 12th Avenue and pick a spot. Usually it's easier to find a place to wait on a side street than on 12th Ave. itself.

[lx200gps]

Just now, njhorseman said:

There's no dedicated Uber pickup point. You have to cross 12th Avenue and pick a spot. Usually it's easier to find a place to wait on a side street than on 12th Ave. itself.

Got it, thanks. Looks easy enough.

[JillK]

On 4/25/2022 at 10:57 AM, lx200gps said:

Got it, thanks. Looks easy enough.

Sorry - was off line for a few days but yes as njhorseman says just cross the street and call from there. It really is quite easy so if you go that route, I think you'll be pleased. 

 

Regardless of what you decide, happy cruising! 

[navybankerteacher]

On 4/25/2022 at 10:55 AM, njhorseman said:

There's no dedicated Uber pickup point. You have to cross 12th Avenue and pick a spot. Usually it's easier to find a place to wait on a side street than on 12th Ave. itself.

Seconded - both sides of 12th Avenue on debarkation day are absolute zoos.  Pick one of the side streets near wher you exit the terminal, find a spot n the curb, and then call Uber using the address. number of where you stand.