MoganTaxiGranCanaria

Taxi prices raised....

2011-07-23T21:59:00.000+01:00

We've been advised that we have to go to change the clock settings of the taxi because the prices are going to be raised. It's not much and it's only for trips using the fare "3". What they're going to change is the distance you have before the clock starts moving. It used to give 2 km once the fare was set and now it's been lowered to 1,2 km. This will add from 0,60€ to about 1€ (depending on the time) to the final price.

New car today :)

2011-06-22T11:44:00.000+01:00

Great! We finally changed our car today! It was really a must as our old taxi was reaching 3.000.000 km and we started having a few technical problems with it....
Anyway, I hope this car comes out at least half as good as the old one :)

Our Taxi goes pensionist :)

2011-06-21T19:51:00.001+01:00

It's official, our good old Mercedes 124 250 has been taken out of duty today after 15 years of service with nearly 3.000.000 kilometres on its clock. My boss will keep it as it's private car from now on...

So tomorrow we will start working with a much newer car: another Mercedes but this time it's a 210 220 CDI. Would be great if this car will last half of the km the old one did..... :)
It's about 8 years old brought over from Germany.

Wishing us Good Luck ;)

Air Traffic Control News

2010-12-04T22:31:00.000Z

Spain has been put into an Alert Phase witch means Air Traffic is now controlled by the military.
Civil Air Traffic Controllers are not civil people any more but military and if they do not obey their orders they will be arrested!

Looks like they are starting to return to their jobs and thinks are starting to move...

Air Traffic Control Strike in Spain!!

2010-12-04T18:53:00.000Z

Today Air Traffic Controllers in Spain went on strike! Right today with the start a holiday.
The whole Spanish air space has been closed.

Due to this thousands of flights have been cancelled, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without the possibility of reaching their home or their holiday destination.....

Hope this will be resolved as soon as possible! :(

Prices lowered!

2010-12-03T10:18:00.002Z

I manage to lower a bid our pricesfor the transfers to Playa del Ingles and surroundings! That's great, huh?
Please check the site @:
http://canarytransferservice.org

Juan

It Rained but...

2010-11-30T11:48:00.000Z

Ok, it has rained but it was not that bad. We had some thunderstorms over here whitch is not very common as I can count the thunderstorms I've seen on Gran Canaria with the fingers of one hand and I'm 37 years old... so...
Was is too much to put us on red alert? Maybe not as you can never know how the weather is going to be when a storm like that approaches to the islands. This evening I arrived at 2:30 in the morning and after I took a shower it started to rain BIG time but only for about 5-8 minutes.

Heavy Rain on Gran Canaria

2010-11-28T17:01:00.000Z

It is anounced on TV and you can see it on the wather forecast: It is going to rain over here the next couple of days. A storm is approaching to the Canaries and we've been put into Red Alert because of heavy rainfall and strong winds. There will be no school tomorrow because of the red alert on all of the islands exept on Lanzarote and Fuerteventura... let's see what happens :)

Price Changes for Canarytransferservice.com

2010-10-05T12:18:00.001+01:00

It's alsmost 2 years my website http://canarytransferservice.com is up and my boss told me to change the prices.
This will affect all the new reservations from now on but not the reservations that where made before the date we are going to change the prices: tomorrow.
The prices are given to me so don't hate me for that: I always try to keep them as low as possible and if you check our competitors you'll see we have almost the best prices for airport transfers on Gran Canaria beating even some companies who charge the same price we have to travel with a bus.
Please visit the website for more info and check the new prices.
http://canarytransferservice.com

Juan

Airport closed due to Volcano Ashes!

2010-05-11T19:51:00.000+01:00

Las Palmas Airport was colsed today due to Volcano Ashes.
This means that people who should arrive today will not leave their local airport and people who should leave Gran Canaria today are going to stay .... I'm sure some will be angry but others will be happy to stay here, huh ;)
Let's hope this ashes will not stay for too long....

This is not possible

2010-02-06T09:49:00.004Z

Unbelievable: Just after all the rain we had 3 days later we now have "calima" over the islands. Why didn't this calima came before the rain?? Hope it doesn't stay too long :)

Don't know what this calima is? Take a look at the picture below ;)

Rain Rain and more Rain

2010-02-02T08:54:00.004Z

Over the last 3 days we had loads of rain here in Gran Canaria. The good part is that know we have a green island and some "rivers" coming down from the mountains :)
The bad part is that we are not ready to handle all that water witch makes our streets, houses and others "sink".

Anfi open again

2009-12-03T23:09:00.003Z

Ok, after over a month of negotiations we are back picking up at Anfi. The big guys finally agreed and signed a contract that will hopefully be good for both of us: Anfi Customers and Taxi Drivers.
Today at about 5 pm we got the notice from the Taxi Central that we where allowed to work in Anfi again.
This happened just a day before the Taxis in Mogan where about to shut down the service again for another two days.... good ;)

Two days, no Taxis

2009-11-28T10:19:00.003Z

Taxis in Mogan are striking. First of all we are striking because Anfi is cutting down our prices and keeping the money as a commission. Also we are striking because of the raising numbers of pirate taxis that are stealing our work doing transfers without a licence and with their private cars and getting money from their "costumers" for it.

The strike will be Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th of November 2009 and the taxis will stop working both days from 10 am to 8 pm.

Trouble with Anfi

2009-11-05T09:49:00.004Z

You know the Anfi resort in Puerto Rico?
Well, if you've ever been to Puerto Rico you probably know it.
The Taxi central in Mogan it's been working with Anfi for a long time know and we've been accepting their way of working with us till now.

We are driving many Anfi customers and "maybe" customers with so called "Taxi Slips". We drive, the customer gives us the "Taxi Slip" and then we go back to Anfi to get our money on the fly. We have arranged a deal and in most cases we receive less money than the trip is worth but we agreed to do so.

So what's the problem know?
Now Anfi says they want to pay us in three month (!) What is that? Yes, we drive a customer to Puerto Rico for 5€ (Taxi Slip) and we'll get those 5€ three month later. I don't know what those people are thinking but we do not agree with this as we still have to pay for insurance, fuel, repairs and other stuff and we surely cannot pay them with Taxi Slips but with real cash.
As Anfi doesn't seem to care about that the only way to make them clear we disagree is to block Anfi from receiving our service. This includes the whole Anfi resort in Puerto Rico (Anfi Beach Club, Monte Anfi, Puerto Anfi and Grand Anfi) and in Tauro (Anfi Emerald Club and the Anfi Golf Courses). We will continue to bring customers to the those locations but there won't be any pickups. The blocking started at Monday the 2nd of November and it is not defined when it will be finished. Let's hope that both parts come to a solution soon.

Follow that taxi

2009-02-03T12:58:00.002Z

"Follow that taxi!"

You hear this expression in many movies but I have to say I hear that very often as well here in Puerto Rico :)

The difference is that in the movies someone say this to the driver because he is following someone and want to know where this person is going and in Puerto Rico they say it because it's a family or friends driving in separated taxis and they are going to the same place.
People always laugh when they use that expression and it's always funny to hear it.

My hands hurt

2009-01-18T03:20:00.003Z

Keeping our taxis clean is very important in the south of Gran Canaria. When you take a taxi here you'll always see that the cars are very clean both out and inside. You'll always see taxi drivers cleaning their cars at slow taxi ranks. Normally all cars have two shifts so the one working the day shift cleans the outside of the car while the one on the night shift cleans the inside.
Well... these days it's very hard to clean the car because of the cold. My hands are aching because of the cold water even though I'm only cleaning the inside of our car.... wow! I hope this cold goes away soon!
Many customers ask me about the weather forecast; weather reports say that it's still going to be cold... unfortunately.

It's cold!

2009-01-13T02:20:00.003Z

Wow... just got back home from work and I'm cold! My car thermometer indicated 13ºC when I left Puerto Rico... this is really cold for Gran Canaria! Last few days have been very cold and today you could see the Teide from Amadores and it had snow on it. People here say that it's been a very long time ago since last time it was so cold here in the south of Gran Canaria and that we will probably get snow on the mountains here this week as well... let's wait and see ;)

Taxi or Minibus?

2009-01-08T09:10:00.002Z

Do you take 5? Many times people ask me that question and most of the times, if they have little children (2-5 years) I ask: Where are you going? If it's inside Puerto Rico and I don't have to cross any main road I consider taking them. But if they are going a greater distance or we have to take the main road I will not take that trip. In Spain it is not allowed to take more passengers than seat belts available in the car. If you do them the favor and say yes and one minute later police stops you or you have an accident do you know who is going to be blamed? Yes, me.... Are they going to pay the ticket for being 5? No, I will be the one paying for that as it's me who accepted the trip.
Once I was waiting in the taxi rank in Monte Anfi. Someone with a push chair came to me and said: Taxi? OK! I got out of the car, opened the trunk and put the chair inside. When I got back into my car I saw a man and a child sitting next to me. Huh? What is that? But the main surprise was in the back; I saw 6 heads when I took a look into the mirror. Three adulds each with one child on them.
Sir, this is not possible. I can only take 4 people. He said: Don't worry, we are only going to Arguineguín.... Sir, you need to take two taxis or are you going to pay for the ticket?
He got very mad and they got out of the car. I could not understand what they were saying to me but I'm sure it was nothing nice....
We are not allowed to take more than four passengers in a regular taxi. In Puerto Rico there are six units that are allowed to take five people so if you need one just look for for them. It's important for your safety!

Been very busy!

2009-01-04T10:05:00.002Z

Wow.... it's been two weeks already since my last post. I've been really busy during the holidays with family, friends and work (it's been great!). It has been a long time since I last saw Puerto Rico that busy. We've been working almost non stop whole day long with tons of people waiting at the taxi ranks making it possible to do over 60 rides a shift... awesome :)

Yesterday (Saturday) you could see lots of buses leaving Puerto Rico... much more than arriving. This is not good and the result was much less work... of course ;)

Thank you Steve!

2008-12-20T10:06:00.002Z

Last night I was waiting at the taxi rank at the Shopping Center in Puerto Rico. There was a huge numbers of taxis waiting there. There were still four cars in front of me when a man (little bit drunk) opened the door and got into my taxi.
Sir, you have to take the first one over there! I said to him. He said: No! I don't want to take the taxi! I owe someone of you guys money and I want to pay.

So Steve took a taxi from the Europa Center to the Shopping Center and had not enough money to pay for it. He told the taxi driver to wait as he was going to a cash dispenser to get some but when he came back the taxi was gone...

OK, Steve, how much did you owe the guy?
I don't know! Here are 5€. Can you please give it to your friend?
I'll do that, Steve! Thanks!

He got out of the car and up the steps into the center.
I took the radio and asked who made a trip from the Europa Center to the Shopping Center and did not get paid. He was grateful to get his money :)
Awesome, Steve! Thank you very much.

Ripoffs happening more often

2008-12-18T16:06:00.003Z

Unfortunately this is becoming something real in Gran Canaria:
People take a taxi from the airport to their destinations in the south of Gran Canaria and wonder about the price shown in the taximeter. Normally a trip from the Gran Canaria airport to Puerto Rico costs about 56 to 65€ depending if it's day or night time or a bank holiday. Some people have asked me about the price for a taxi to the airport and then wonder why they had paid 90 to 100€ for the trip.... I'm sorry sir: you've been ripped off.

Sometimes there are transport investigators at the airport checking our taximeters when we arrive there so it's more difficult to get ripped off when you take a taxi from Puerto Rico to the airport than the other way around; no one checks the taximeters of the taxis coming from the airport or other locations to Puerto Rico or elsewhere on the island.

Be careful! When you take a taxi from the airport to Puerto Rico 56 to 65€ is a normal price. If it's much more than that what you've been charged make sure to ask for the bill from the printer, not the one made by hand. The driver will probably refuse to give it to you. At the hotel ask the reception to call the police and do not pay the taxi to make sure the driver waits till the police arrives. If he leaves.... well... good for you, huh?

Working in a Taxi

2008-12-17T12:45:00.003Z

Working in a taxi makes you meet lots of people every day and sometimes see and/or live strange and/or funny (or maybe not so funny) situations.
I thought a blog could be a great way to let people read and comment some of these situations we live on a daily basis here in Puerto Rico (Mogán).