Detroit without a Car

25 comments

• RickyBoyDugan

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  10 years ago

  IronFox: "Now, the advantage to this is that I can drink without having to worry about driving. " Worry about drinking and driving? Be a real man and do what I do - just drink and drive and don't worry about it. Quite being such a pussy and be like the RickyBoyDugan!
• rentz2

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  10 years ago

  Use über. I can send you a code where your first ride will get a free 10 dollars of credit
• wwpmi

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  10 years ago

  Location, Location, Location. Detroit is somewhat spread out. If you are staying at the airport (Inkster) there are 4 to 5 clubs within a reasonable cab ride. If the Eight Mile strip is your flavor then I would think your cab ride would be a hindrance and you would not want to stay at any local hotel which would make the cab cost better. I have had great Dollar rental rates at about $35/day. Good hunting.
• motorhead

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  10 years ago

  Are you staying at one of hotels near the airport? I think the Flight Club in Inkster, (Near the airport, hence the name) is currently the best option. The FC and Penthouse on 8-Mile battle for supremacy but I think the Flight club is winning.
• IronFox22

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  10 years ago

  I don't have a hotel just yet. I've never been to Detroit before, so staying near the airport is the default option. I'm assuming that the 8 Mile area, while offering plenty of excellent high-mileage opportunities, is not a very nice place to stay overnight.
• Tyres

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  10 years ago

  If you are there multiple nights, rent a car for one night and explore lots of clubs, including 8 mile. Just be responsible about drinking. Then if you find a place you like, take a cab there the next night and have a few drinks. If you're only there one night, take a cab to Flight Club. Stay by the airport.
• jackslash

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  10 years ago

  Detroit without a car? The motor city without a motor? Are you un-American? If you stay at a hotel near the airport, you can find plenty of clubs within 5 to 10 miles in suburbs that are not dangerous. Most of the clubs are on or near Michigan Avenue. Flight Club Bogart's Henry VIII (north) Criket BT's Landing Strip If you want to go to the 8 Mile Road clubs, you could stay at a safe hotel in the suburb of Southfield within a few miles of 8 Mile. 8 Mile Road is the northern border of Detroit and is a little dicey, but you should not be afraid of waiting at a club entrance for a cab. Penthouse Trumps Players HT's Coliseum
• sinclair

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  10 years ago

  Rent a car on your own dime or take cabs. If you are worried about money, you probably should not be going to SC's.
• lotsoffun201

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  10 years ago

  8 mile road wasn't a great place 20 years ago and it's not now. Southfield is ok, but if I had my choice it would be Farmington or West Bloomfield. It's not all that far to 8 mile. Inskter and Romulus wouldn't be my first choice either where Livonia and Westland are a safer bet by the airport. Renting an inexpensive car is still your best bet. Public transportation in Detroit can be iffy.
• AJ47

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  10 years ago

  What jackslash said... If u stay by the airport I would recommend Flight Club or BTs for above average looking girls with good-great mileage. Bogarts/Henry VIII are seedy dive bars with great mileage & average looking girls. I don't like the Toy Chest, haven't been to the Silver Cricket in the evening & haven't been to the Playhouse or Landing Strip right by the airport in over a decade. So can't comment on those. If u stay in the burbs - the 8 Mile clubs such as Penthouse, Coliseum or Players shouldn't disappoint but it all depends on the night/time you go. PM me if u want more specifics. Depending on where your business is - staying around Dearborn isn't a bad option anyways.
• Papi_Chulo

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  10 years ago

  If the OP is willing to pay for cabs; then not renting a car is probably *not* due to $$$ issues – I assume. But – if it is $$$ issues – your best bet is to NOT rent at the airport (airport rentals can often be 2x the cost) – use Enterprise to come get you at your hotel and that way you’d be renting from a neighborhood location instead of the airport and it would be much cheaper – the only caveat is that if you are too close to the airport; then a neighborhood Enterprise may not come get you and may tell you you need to rent from the airport b/c the airport location would be the closest (you would need to call an Enterprise neighborhood location ahead of time and ask them if they would pick you up at the hotel you are stating at). What I usually do is search for hotels on [view link] – they have an option one can select for hotels that have airport pickup – thus I book at a hotel w/ free airport pickup and then have an Enterprise neighborhood location pick me up at the hotel. On my recent ATL trip; with this “system”; I was able to rent a midsized car (VW Passat) for $133 total for 5 days – but I did take advantage of the fact that Enterprise had a weekend deal promotion where Fr-Mo rentals started at $9.99/day for subcompacts (and I think $14.99 for midsize) – unfortunately Enterprise I don’t think runs this promo during summer time.
• LittleTex

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  10 years ago

  The Landing Strip advertises a free airport hotel shuttle and Flight Club says they have a limo service.
• gowestman

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  10 years ago

  Uber good, drinking and driving in a new city NOT GOOD. Motorheads advice about Flight Club is good but only of you want a BJ, FS covered or not, DATY, CB and all the rest; it's all available from spinners to cougars. Bring 4 to 5 bills, treat the staff well and I can intro you to a couple of "helpmates" to assure a good time as opposed to a visitors time! But remember the rule; they're all it in for $$$
• rickdugan

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  10 years ago

  I rarely rent cars when I travel anymore. They are just more trouble than they are worth to me in most cases, including the extra time needed to rent them and then return them (especially if I am running tight on time for a flight), having to deal with parking wherever I go, the pain in the ass if I ding one up for any reason, etc. On the flip side though, in many places cab services are slow or even downright unreliable, especially when it comes to picking up from the clubs. I too am usually reliant upon cabs when I club in travel locales and I generally find it difficult to visit more than 2 clubs in a given night.
• farmerart

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  10 years ago

  I just returned to home base from a week-long business trip to Eastern Canada. No car rental. Two club visits. Three booze nights. Cabs only on this trip for me. Here is a tip that seems to work well for me. On your outward bound taxi ride give the driver a generous tip and request his card or his personal cell number. Almost always this guarantees me prompt taxi service for my return to the hotel. Cabbies are like strippers; they all remember generous tippers.
• rickdugan

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  10 years ago

  Good tip FA and I do the same thing when I can. Sometimes it really makes a difference. But in many cases it doesn't completely alleviate the wait time issue as the guy can be 30 minutes away when you call him, or with another passenger who he has to drop first, etc. Also, in some places, the guys who bring me out are not on duty when I am finished. Another tip I will throw in there is this: Always have the numbers for a few different options for the return. In some of the smaller cities in which I travel, whether or not you can even count on being picked up is sometimes in question. I was once stranded outside of a club in N. Charleston, SC, for almost two fucking hours, until I finally got the cab company who brought me there to admit that they could not guarantee me a pickup and gave me the number of another cab co. to call. In Greenville, SC., I was at Trophy one night when a bad rain storm knocked out power in the city and none of the cab companies would send out cabs, period. The hotel shuttle had brought me out to the club, so I did not have the direct number of one of the cabbies handy. I ended up paying another customer a nice piece of change to give me a lift a few miles back to my hotel. In other places, like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, you can usually count on being picked up, but the wait time is the issue. Same with many of the clubs in N. Dallas if you can believe it, since a lot of cabbies do not like to pick up in that part of Dallas. Fortunately the cabbies in Dallas tend to work long shifts, so I long ago learned FA's lesson to get the number of a good cabbie, hold onto it and pay him well. Anyway, I could go on but I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that FA's advice is good and having multiple options is also important.
• zipman68

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  10 years ago

  IronFoxDude, do you have any other modes of transportation? Like hoverboard, teleporter, personal helicopter, UFO, etc. if so use them. If not, go with Art's suggestion.
• zipman68

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  10 years ago

  Wait...IronFox...is that anything like Iron Man? Well, all I can say is that NOTHING would stop Tony Stark from flying to the club in his armor and getting som lappers. You should take off the armor befor getting the lapper though. Say "hi" to Nick Fury for me.
• farmerart

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  10 years ago

  Another tip that I find very useful. Use the experience of the hotel concierge or front desk staff. Most larger hotels oriented to business travelers have exclusive pick-up contracts with a single taxi company. Cabbies always like trips back to their 'exclusive' hotels, knowing that there won't be a bullpen of cabs waiting for the next trip and that the next trip could easily be a juicy airport run or something similar.
• Tiredtraveler

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  10 years ago

  Using a cab also avoid the hassle of valet parking. Where you stay in Detroit depends on where you business is. There are good choice out by the airport and you have good club choices in a relatively compact area. In a close area you have Flight Club and Bogart's with in blocks of each other and are very different types of clubs. To the east on the same street you have Silver Cricket which is on step down from Flight but many steps above Bogarts and to the north there is Henry VIII a 1/2 step down from Bogarts and to the west on the other side of the airport is Landing Strip which is rough equal to Silver Cricket but has much larger and more private rooms. I have no opinion of BT's. The disadvantage to the clubs on 8 mile (Penthouse,Trumpps, Coliseum) is that is a neighborhood you would not want to get lost, if you want to check out a dive club the ones around there are not ones you want to go to and all require valet parking. I was turned away at Penthouse one very busy evening when I arrived in a cab because the cab dropped me where the douche-bag doorman did not see the cab and told me entrance was only for valet customer only. I got po'ed and left and haven't gone back. Make sure if the cab drops you that the doorman know you do not have a car and are cabbing it and they should let you in (the rule is because the neighborhood around is looking for an excuse to shut them down and cars parking everywhere is one). The Inkster/Romulus/airport area is a good area to go.
• rickdugan

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  10 years ago

  Farmer, I guess this is where our experiences diverge. First off, the nicest hotels in the biggest cities often have cab stands in the front and door staff to whistle one up. At nicer hotels that don't have cab stands, the door staff will usually be more than happy to call a driver, as will the front desk staff at hotels that don't have door staff. The problem in allowing door staff and, in lesser hotels, front desk people, to choose for you is that you don't know what you will get. Many will call an unmetered car service or a particular preferred cab driver, but that is often not for the benefit of the guest, but because they are getting a kickback from the driver. In principle this would not bother me, except that it often lead to a more expensive ride and/or longer wait times. In my experience, it is almost always better to source your own option if a cab stand is not present.
• RickyBoyDugan

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  10 years ago

  ^^^ Now that I have mastered greasing bouncers, taxi cab drivers will be next!
• farmerart

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  10 years ago

  @rick, Misunderstanding, I think. For my business travel in Canada's large cities I use one hotel chain exclusively. Each hotel in this chain has a contract with a taxi company guaranteeing that there will always be taxis at the stand for the hotel's customers' benefit (or within mere minutes of a request). In exchange the hotel grants that taxi company exclusive rights to pick up customers at the stand. Any taxi company can drop any customer at the hotel and any hotel customer can summon any taxi from any company for a ride. But, no non-contracted taxi can park at the hotel stand waiting in line for a casual customer. Concierges and doormen would be reprimanded or even fired if a non-contract taxi was summoned to the hotel on their dime. All this sounds restrictive and anti-competitive but it works because these hotel stands are on private hotel property. It ensures that hotel customers always have easy access to a taxi; no long waits for a cab when an airport deadline must be met, for example. Taxi companies adore these exclusive contracts because the hotels are always among the city's premium hotels, attracting expense account business travelers or well-heeled leisure travelers. Apart from Houston my business travel to large US cities has been minimal. Do arrangements such as these exist in large US cities; e.g. NYC, San Francisco, Chicago?
• rickdugan

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  10 years ago

  Farmer, as I said, just a divergence of experiences. There may be something similar at some hotel somewhere in the U.S., but what I described above is really the norm. IN NYC, Chicago, and Boston, by ways of example, the finer hotels often have very limited (if any) private room for cars to idle, so the taxis will often line up on a public street in front of the hotel. Same thing in most other decent to larger downtown city areas IME. In most of these cases, several different taxi companies can be found and it is first come, first serve. The door guys earn their tips from grateful guests and are motivated to keep things moving. Where it gets dicier is with the nicer hotels that are located outside of downtown locations and those in the smaller cities. This is where things get murky. I'll give you, by way of example, Le Meridien in Dallas. Gorgeous hotel, but it is in the Galleria area, about 6 miles north of the downtown business district. There is no cab stand and, if you rely upon the staff to call one, you can easily wait 30-40+ minutes, especially during peak travel times. What they don't tell you, however, is that the sole reason for the extended wait is not due to a lack of cabs, but that they are funneling the business to one particular driver. And when the driver arrives, he needs to go in for a minute, quite obviously to stroke the staff member with his/her cut. Sadly, this is not an unusual occurrence at many of these hotels. I learned the hard way, when I am staying in hotels like this, not to rely upon the staff.
• Dougster

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  10 years ago

  +1 for Uber