KAUST has two major companies monopolizing the transit services: Saudi Oger and Hanco.
In the past Hanco was known as bad (and interestingly more expensive) and Saudi Oger was known as good.
Hanco had earned its bad reputation by late arriving booked cabs (not 5 minutes late, 30-40 minutes late!), not showing up at the pick up time, changing the pick up/drop off stop with no notice, etc.
We were still feeling lucky, at least we had a reliable cab/bus source on campus: Saudi Oger. This feeling started to fade away with the terrible service quality Saudi Oger has reached.
They started to behave exactly like Hanco. Plus, their drivers are becoming more and more rude everyday. For example, recently I got a full-day cab which is 12 hours (as it is written on their webpage and booking form). Driver came almost 30 minutes late, and he didn't even apologize. Moreover, he started to push us to finish trip in around 6-7 hours instead of using our fully paid 12 hours! If it was a personal trip maybe I would consider doing a favor to this rude man, but our return time was up to the consulate from where we would pick up our visa. Consulate told us to come back to pick it up at 4PM (~7 hours after taxi came to pick us up). This time, taxi guy started to bargain with us about the time, and it didn't matter for how long I tried to tell him that it's not up to us. He took us to the consulate 45 minutes earlier and kept asking my husband to go and check the consulate door if it is open. By the way, all of these are happening under the Arabian summer sun, and the temperature was more than 60 C! Of course he couldn't reach his goal, since the rule is rule and consulate wouldn't plan things around him! After we got the visa, he didn't even ask if we will go somewhere else in Jeddah as he was supposed to do and just drove straight to KAUST!
Another Saudi Oger fiasco was on Mekkah bus couple of weeks ago. Driver changed the drop off location by himself (by car 50 minutes away from Kab'a instead of the announced drop off/pick up place around Kab'a) and we learned about this when he parked the bus! After Teravih prayer finished it took 20 minutes for us to get out of Kab'a because of the crowd. Outside was bursting at the seams and there was no bus (only one goes there has a thousand people trying to get in), no taxi (they only go to Jeddah), no other means of transportation and no way of walking! We were 30 minutes away from our bus to go home, all our food and water was in that bus (we couldn't break our fast by food, we just ate couple of dates they gave in Kab'a), we didn't have much money or our credit cards since we came and were planning to return by Saudi Oger bus! After several injury risks we hardly managed to get into one of those sardine cans as a side layer of fish and called the bus driver that we are on the way and asked him not to go without us since we don't have another means of transportation. He promised to wait for us and 10 minutes later when we called him to say we are approaching, TA TA!!! His phone was TURNED OFF and when we arrived there he was GONE! We had to struggle all night long to find a way to go back home. We reached home around 6AM next day with no breakfast and no sahoor!
Last, but not least, the cab to go to airport we booked days ago came almost an hour late and we were about to miss our international flight! Again, as a Saudi Oger classic, driver didn't apologize or give an explanation for his delay! During the waiting period we kept calling their call center but of course nobody picked up!
If you live in KAUST and you need to use transportation services, I have some suggestions that might make your life easier and longer (since you would skip the extra stress) :)
* Book the cab at least 30 minutes earlier than the time you actually need it.
* If you are using the bus,
- don't leave your stuff inside the bus, never trust the driver.
- always keep extra money and card with you just in case you might need to go back home on your own.
- you can only find cabs (limo cars with no taxi sign) that can enter KAUST campus from the parking lot across Hera Mall, but make sure that the driver has his iqama and driver's licence with him.
- always ask the driver time to pick up, his phone number (although they do turn it off), pick up location at least twice so that he will have it in his mind and hopefully will not change on the way.
