We spent 4 days in Prague in early January. It was amazing and exceeded or expectations. The art nouveau and food was wonderful. Just a word of caution. I%26#39;ve read many times on the money exchange problems in different countries. Well in Prague, you should believe what you read. Five minutes after getting off the plane I was collecting our luggage, as my wife went to get some money in the airport. I hadn%26#39;t really warned her about the problems to watch for and hey, we were in the airport right. Big no no.
Here is the classic rip off they use. The women counts back your money quickly and then leaves the room. You don%26#39;t figure anything and count your cash as you walk away. Wait a second, that lady screwed me out of 40 bucks. Good luck getting it back. Not a nice way to enter a new country. Then you can go get in what is supposed to be one of the good legit taxi%26#39;s and
get screwed again. Don%26#39;t get me wrong it was a great vacation, and we didn%26#39;t let it get us down, but we were on edge for the first evening. One great think about taking a trip in the winter with the economy down the tubes is you%26#39;ll have some restaurants all to yourself. I%26#39;m talking friday evening 8:00 amazing food and fancy modern interior. Any other town should be a hot spot. We were all by ourselves. Kind of weird. Go to Prague if you can.
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I am sorry to hear this happened, could you perhaps give us some more information about the taxi? Are you talking about the yellow taxis parked in front of the airport? Did they rip you off?
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The airport cash %26amp; taxi scenario is often reported, not just in Prague but many major european cities that attract tourists. It does happen.
The two important points IMO, when arriving at a new city airport is to know exactly what the taxi fare should be, Ta ideal to post the question.
Then you must always set a price before getting in the taxi. Even metered taxis will tell you the price, don%26#39;t listen to arguments, just say I%26#39;m going to X hotel, how much? There will always be drivers that speak english and there will always be an honest driver somewhere that will speak to you and understand you won%26#39;t be ripped off.
Regarding money, if you are confident ( I travel a lot so am) I always tell the taxi driver to stop at an ATM in the city near my hotel because I have no cash. I have never had a problem with that request. If you are not confident, then only charge enough cash for the taxi, no more, as you%26#39;ll usually get a poor rate at airports even when they don%26#39;t rip you off.
Glad you enjoyed Prague, DWP, and that the experience didn%26#39;t sour your visit. Good for you.
Stoofer
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I certainly hope that the OP was not ripped off by the bureau in the baggage hall. I am sure it must be some misunderstanding. Or just simply an error.
And as Pivo says, it would be interesting no know the story behind the taxi rip off. I must say that during all my years in Prague I%26#39;d never been ripped off to such an extent that it warrrants a comment.
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There are a lot of similar comments on this forum, Penny.
I had a long conversation with our taxi driver in Prague, one we booked in advance, and he said there were a high number of dodgy characters, even driving licensed cabs. They can only prey on those that aren%26#39;t prepared IMO and not enough victims take the number and report incidents. The odd warning doesn%26#39;t harm IMO, I think it%26#39;s a nice OP, drawing attention to an issue without blaming all czechs and Prague as so often happens.
I get the same taxi issues in Belgrade, if I walk into arrivals speaking english, I%26#39;ll get offered cabs for 2000 dinars then when I speak Serbian it%26#39;ll become a lingustic mistake because of course he meant to say 1000.:-)
Stoofer
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I work as professional private guide in Prague, snd I give some advice to my clients and warnings. As concern the official exchange at the airport, I agree with other comments, that it was probably mistake than ripping off and it is general advice to check the rate, make a count and control the Czech money you obtain, before you leave.
One of the advertising tricks with licensed exchange offices is that in big letters and numbers is rate for selling foreign currency, which is not the rate you need as a foreign visitor and by second look you find much smaller letters of %26quot;buying%26quot; rate, which does not look so good. Also there are big differences in rate. At the airport is usually the worst rate, because, there is no competition. But next to exit from arrival hall is couple of ATM machines. If you prefer to change cash, I would advise to change not more than 1000 Czech Crowns at the airport (usual charge of taxi is under 600 CZK) and than use place with better rate in the town (good rate has for instance exchange opposite the house, where Franz Kafka was born near Old Town Square)
As concern taxi I have got good experince with AAATaxi, which has yellow cars and has a stand with yellow sign at the airport. Martin
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I myself stick to banks and ATMS and cant think of an exchange opposite Kavkas house,having been in the restaurant many times.
Quote here from one of Martinas posts.
%26lt;%26lt;The best exchange rate you get in Exchange sro, Kprova street across from the white church on the Old Town Square. That%26#39;s what I use. Check on www.kolik.cz the current exchange rates at the Czeck banks.%26gt;%26gt;%26gt;
TORII
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