Foothill Area Rapid Transit

Terrible customer service and experience all around! Here are the details:
I booked the short bus for our annual Amador County Wine tasting tour at a price of $ 72/​hour plus 20% tip. All communication is done through text, as no emails or calls are ever returned. I was told to send an email with all the details and that I would get a confirmation email which would serve as our contract. My email was sent to Mike, an return email was never sent. I then texted him to ensure that our party was booked, as wine tasting takes planning, and got a response of ‘yep!’.
I asked if Mike would be booking the wineries and was told that he did not do this part, as he wouldn’t put the tasting fees on his credit card. Fair enough, I thought! I soon realized on the day of the tasting that the reason why he doesn’t do this is because his company has burned far too many bridges in Amador county and wineries have actually banned his company from stepping foot on their properties.
On the day of the tasting, the driver was 20 minutes late to pick us up, making us late to our first tasting, so we had to rush through that — and of course, the winery was very upset! The next winery, Terra D’Oro, stopped us before we even entered and told us we were not allowed in & that had they known we were riding with Mike’s company, they never would have allowed us to book a tasting with them. After begging and of course, informing them that I had no clue this was the case, they allowed us to taste there. The next winery, upon seeing the bus, also told us that they did not work with Mike, but would let us taste this time. Our group of 12 was VERY annoyed at this point and guaranteed to never use this company again, however, we tried to make the best of a bad situation and ‘let it go.‘
I will say that our driver was great, if not really engaged at all, but got us to our destinations with no issues (other than being late). As we were dropped off at our home that afternoon, we paid the bill by credit card and were told a receipt would be sent to us later that night. Well… it was, but was not for the amount we owed. We were overcharged for an hour ($ 72), including a $ 25 credit card fee that we were never told about, and have yet to have either matter addressed by Mike. I have, of course, emailed and texted, without a response.
I am beyond livid, annoyed, and upset that a company like this can continue business. With so many of us being self-​employed and working tirelessly to ensure client satisfaction and fairness, companies like this blow my mind. I am a local Folsom resident, who 9 out of 10 times gives businesses the benefit of the doubt, but it’s only fair to future customers to understand that you’ve been warned when it comes to Foothill Area Rapid Transit!

If I could give «0» I would. We had booked with Mike 5 months ago for a birthday party wine tasting trip in Amador for 12 people. I had a bad feeling about him initially as it took me 3 emails to get one response. If you don’t check your email — don’t list it as a way to communicate. The morning of our trip at 9AM (scheduled to be picked up at 10AM) he emailed (not called… emailed) to cancel saying he was having mechanical issues. Here we were, 12 people, at my house ready to leave for a trip we had planned for 5 months stranded… we called multiple other limo companies and some of them informed us that this wasn’t the first time that he has cancelled on a reservation.
Yes — he may be cheaper than other limo companies. But it’s worth a little extra money to know that someone is going to actually show up and not ruin a 5-​month in the making trip.
Another side note as well — when making reservations at wineries, one of the wineries wouldn’t allow Mike’s bus to even come on property. This should have been a sign right there and then.
DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM.

Just got home from a wine tasting trip in the Eldoardo area, Mike was great and the bus was great as well. We all felt very safe and Mike was very professional yet personable as well. We will be using Mike’s Short Bus again for sure! Thanks Mike!

We booked one of Mike’s buses for a Saturday of wine tasting in Amador.
Pros
Mike was very nice & flexible with our planning
The bus was fun — it def got some interesting looks at wineries and on the freeway
The sound system was good
The bus had lots of space and it was easy to move around in
Cons
We had to do all of the planning — he didn’t book any of our stops
Communication is definitely not his strong suit. I asked questions via email that I never got answered and getting a hold of him was a little hard
His buses were recently broken into, apparently, and he lost all of his TVs, video games, etc. He told me that by the time we did this trip, that the buses would be outfitted again with everything. When I spoke with him on the phone a few days before, I wanted to confirm that the bus we were going to have would have the electronics in place. he said that he’d check and get back to me… well, he never got back to me. So, it was when he picked us up on Saturday morning that the gaping hole in the front told me that we indeed did NOT have the flat screen and video game available to us. That was kind of a bummer.
For 7 hours, with the tip that Mike added on, it was $ 605 ($ 505 for the bus & $ 100 tip). That’s a little steep, all things considered. There are so many Groupons & other deals out there where you can hire a limo for 8 hours for mid $ 200s, and the bus didn’t even include any of the electronic amenities that I had expected, except for the ability to plug in one of our phones for music.
We had fun and that the most important part. Mike was nice and the ride was an original one, so if you don’t mind spending a bit more money and dealing with unpredictable communication, then I don’t see a problem. I’m not sure that we’ll use him again. I’m usually a real stickler about communication, but this time I was so overwhelmed with other things going on that I let it slide. I would also much rather spend half the money for a limo. Just sayin’.

They suck to put it simple! My girlfriends birthday party and 1 hour before they were suppose to show up and a phone call from some guy that said he was the driver and the bus is not functional!!! Huh? Did they just find this out??? Had 13 people waiting to go and no ride! I wouldn’t give this place even 1 star!!! Still haven’t heard from mike! After numerous texts, calls, emails, no return calls! This guy is a piece of garbage!!!

They showed up on time for a ride to the Journey concert. It was 102 °F that day. The A/​C was nonfunctional in the bus. The radio did not work either until we were able to scrape together the right battery from my house for the controller of the radio. We brought some spray bottles on board and sprayed each other in order to keep cool. The driver was safe and friendly, but we definitely did not get what we paid for. When we asked about the A/​C, the driver said it just had to warm up. She had driven from Placerville to Roseville. It didn’t need to warm up, it needed to be fixed. It’s great to have a ride to a concert so you can not worry about drinking and driving, but they really dropped the ball as far as the actual bus. I won’t be using them again. Sorry

Mike is a great guy, and will make your special occasion memorable. I will be using him again for my son and his friends this fall to take them to homecoming!

My daughter and her friends hired Mike from
for a tour through the wineries of El Dorado County. The girls never stopped talking about the trip. They had fun, were safe, and it was all very professional as well. Foothill Area Rapid Transit has been featured in
«Girlfriend Getaways» and Style Magazine — February 2014. I highly recommend Mike and his company.

Worst experience ever!!! I’ve tried for a month now to book this bus for my sisters bachelorette party and Mike has yet to return a call. When I text Mike he responds with «I’m not in the office and will call you back tomorrow,» with no call back. I was able to get pricing via text at a whopping $ 72/​hr. When I asked to book it via text, surprise surprise, no response. I’ve called about 3 different times since and still no response! Good luck trying to get this booked!!! I say pay the extra money and get a real bus! TERRIBLE customer service MIKE! TERRIBLE! It’s not even worth 1 star!

I will make this to the point as this is a local company. I called Mike (owner) on the morning of 12÷19÷13 to make a reservation for 12/20/13(Friday) for a limo bus service for our business Christmas party. Mike checked his schedule and said he had an opening to pick us up at 6:00PM in Cameron Park that Friday. Friday afternoon (day of party) I spoke on the phone with Mike and he asked me to send him a text message telling him the details of the night; we also went over pricing and agreed the details looked good. I told him we would be heading to Sacramento for dinner and drinks; most likely winding down around midnight.
6:00PM came around, all of our wives and rides had dropped us off at the pickup location that Mike had scheduled us to meet at. 6:19PM comes up; Mike or any of his drivers are no where to be found. I call him to find out ETA, only to get his voicemail. I leave a polite message asking what’s up. 6:33(over half hour late) comes with no call back; so I call Mike again. He gives me some run around answer saying he «needs to check his database» to see what’s going on. At this point he gave me at least 3 different partial excuses for being late. He then asks if I can give him the details again for the night. Keep in mind this is the same cell phone I had texted all of the details to that afternoon.
6:40PM comes, WITH NO PHONE CALL BACK! I then get a text message from the same exact phone I had text the details to; saying that a driver had never shown and that he suggests I do not wait for his company. At this point our Christman party is completely ruined. Our dinner reservations were at 7:00pm, and we were still standing in a parking lot waiting for our rides to come back.
Mike had totally dropped the ball on his services with us that night. As a local guy I had always liked the idea of his company. I wouldn’t recommend this guy if it’s the last option available.
Merry Christman Mike.