Sudeepto Roy
Latest Reviews
UCSD Pool
Well organized swim meet.
Etsel Mikha
Amazing bean stew (soup), creamy hummus and other Israeli delicacies. Very friendly and courteous service. Good to see two friendly 🐈 :-)
City Garden Park
Tranquil, well maintained park, with a great water toy/spray area for the little ones. Clean restrooms. Very peaceful and enjoyable.
Avis Car Rental
Unreliable, poorly maintained cars.
Avis Montreal airport rental location was completely overwhelmed on Aug 10th evening, with a long queue of waiting passengers and very few cars to give out. After an hour of waiting in the Avis Preferred line (in relatively sweltering conditions) was told that I would have to pay more to get the only car available (a premium Audi, since they couldn't give me that car as part of my Full size rental contract). Watching my hungry kid by my side, after a long delayed flight, and the hour wait we had endured, I paid more and took the car.
However, they gave the car with 3/8ths tank full, and unclean inside. I pointed out that the car had 62 thousand kilometers or more and was worried about its reliability. I was told, that's normal and the cars are well maintained. Untrue.
Next day, after filling up gas at the gas-station, the car wouldn't start. I was stranded with my child. The car started give lots of warning messages on the dashboard and basically I was stuck at the gas station occupying a gas stall with people honking, trying to get past the call. I tried calling the AVIS roadside assistance, five times -- calls dropped frequently (not because of cellular coverage, just the system hangs up), once got routed to US roadside assistance (and they could do nothing for Canada) and finally when I reached someone they demanded another $120-200 to send someone for a jumpstart, since I didn't buy breakdown insurance.
This is literally highway robbery after giving me a bad car in the first place.
Luckily my mother-in-law lived not too far away and I requested her to drive to the gas station with jumper cables (which she had to borrow from a neighbor). I was able to jump start the car, left my child in my mother-in-law's care, drove two hours in heavy traffic back to the Avis location. They wouldn't pick up the phone (given how busy they are servicing at the counter), so they only option was to go back there in person.
I waited yet another hour in the lines, quite apprehensive of whether I would get a replacement car (same, situation as the day before, and they were verbally telling waiting passengers that if they made reservations day-of or the day-before, those wouldn't be honored), Luckily they gave me another car. Again quite old (63K kilometers) and unclean inside. I took that car and requested that they remove the premium car surcharge, which I think they did. At least I got that.
Luckily the new car did not breakdown (though its wipers were basically useless in the heavy summer rain) and the tires were worn down (causing slipperiness in wet/slick roads). It showed signs of age, but at least it was more reliable.
This was about the worst rental experience I've had. I have lot of sympathy for the hard working folks at the counter. The counter folks were patient and courteous. I feel for them. I have no beef with them. They were as helpful as they could be.
But the experience as a Avis Preferred customer was extremely poor:
- Having to pay more since they didn't have the car type I reserved
- Car broke down
- Unable to get roadside assistance
- A half day of precious vacation time lost in dealing with the car.
- Waiting multiple times in long queues.
Avis Montreal airport rental location was completely overwhelmed on Aug 10th evening, with a long queue of waiting passengers and very few cars to give out. After an hour of waiting in the Avis Preferred line (in relatively sweltering conditions) was told that I would have to pay more to get the only car available (a premium Audi, since they couldn't give me that car as part of my Full size rental contract). Watching my hungry kid by my side, after a long delayed flight, and the hour wait we had endured, I paid more and took the car.
However, they gave the car with 3/8ths tank full, and unclean inside. I pointed out that the car had 62 thousand kilometers or more and was worried about its reliability. I was told, that's normal and the cars are well maintained. Untrue.
Next day, after filling up gas at the gas-station, the car wouldn't start. I was stranded with my child. The car started give lots of warning messages on the dashboard and basically I was stuck at the gas station occupying a gas stall with people honking, trying to get past the call. I tried calling the AVIS roadside assistance, five times -- calls dropped frequently (not because of cellular coverage, just the system hangs up), once got routed to US roadside assistance (and they could do nothing for Canada) and finally when I reached someone they demanded another $120-200 to send someone for a jumpstart, since I didn't buy breakdown insurance.
This is literally highway robbery after giving me a bad car in the first place.
Luckily my mother-in-law lived not too far away and I requested her to drive to the gas station with jumper cables (which she had to borrow from a neighbor). I was able to jump start the car, left my child in my mother-in-law's care, drove two hours in heavy traffic back to the Avis location. They wouldn't pick up the phone (given how busy they are servicing at the counter), so they only option was to go back there in person.
I waited yet another hour in the lines, quite apprehensive of whether I would get a replacement car (same, situation as the day before, and they were verbally telling waiting passengers that if they made reservations day-of or the day-before, those wouldn't be honored), Luckily they gave me another car. Again quite old (63K kilometers) and unclean inside. I took that car and requested that they remove the premium car surcharge, which I think they did. At least I got that.
Luckily the new car did not breakdown (though its wipers were basically useless in the heavy summer rain) and the tires were worn down (causing slipperiness in wet/slick roads). It showed signs of age, but at least it was more reliable.
This was about the worst rental experience I've had. I have lot of sympathy for the hard working folks at the counter. The counter folks were patient and courteous. I feel for them. I have no beef with them. They were as helpful as they could be.
But the experience as a Avis Preferred customer was extremely poor:
- Having to pay more since they didn't have the car type I reserved
- Car broke down
- Unable to get roadside assistance
- A half day of precious vacation time lost in dealing with the car.
- Waiting multiple times in long queues.
Restaurant La Belle Province
Excellent and tasty poutine, smoked meat sandwich, all dressed hot dogs, gyros sandwich, sousmarin, onion rings... greasy fast food heaven :-) Friendly staff. It is a pleasure watching them cook your food, and package neatly to go. ps. Try to visit only occasionally, for the sake of your ticker..