I finally got talked into giving Uber a try for airport transport in Brazil.
After spending a lot of time trying to find the meeting spot at Rio airport (got conflicting info on the app and forums), going up and down between the arrivals and departure levels and asking people who didn't speak English, I finally figured it out.
Gave myself the length of the free hour of wifi to sort it out and had it not been successful, I would have taken the official prepaid taxi. Did have an interaction with a couple of guys who tried to up sell me on a better level of Uber, not paid through the app, to save me from walking to the meeting place.
It was quite the impressive organized system, with wifi available all the way to the waiting area so you can communicate with your driver. They even had someone announce vehicle arrivals and names of passengers.
The app didn't update as well while I waited for my ride back to the airport. Plus my driver couldn't find a place to park right in front of my hotel so he was waiting for me in front of another garage... all texted to me via the app in Portuguese...luckily he came out of the car and found me.
Everything worked well with the credit card payments through the app. I was very apprehensive about loading my card number there after all my fraud stuff but decided to get back on the horse.
Rio was as beautiful as ever.
Below is the in flight safety video from Air France.
Still one of my favourites. It's So French!
