Dallas Travel Forum

I will be in Dallas for 16 days staying in Days Inn Dallas/Ft. Worth area...approx 10 minute drive from DFW and approx drive 10 minute drive from nearest mall. There is no bussing or public transportation from the hotel. The hotel provides me with transportation to and from the airport (when I arrive and depart). I am kind of on a budget, other than Aug 22 and Aug 23, I have no set itinerary so I can come and go when and where I want.
With the price of a car rental (including gas, insurance, etc), would it be cheaper to take a taxi cab to the mall or airport and use the dart system (or whatever) or use the buses to get around. I am not concerned about the time factor as I can leave earlier to get to my destination. One place I do want to go to for sure is the Southfork Ranch, so not sure how I would get there.

I arrive in Dallas Aug 19 evening and leave morning of Sept 3. I am excited about my trip, but I will admit that I forgot to check into transportation...I know I would probably have been better to have had a hotel close to public transportation but I booked this trip in January this year, so I will not be making any changes at this point.

I would appreciate any help possible.

Thank you in advance.

Trisha (paykrahn)

Dallas Taxis charge you .10 per 1/9th of a mile, plus flag fall of $2.50. That is $11.50 to/from the mall every day. If you want to go to Southfork on the other hand, that would be $50 or so each way ( I know, I live out by it). I would recommend renting a car a couple of the days and doing a large majority of your sight seeing on the days you rent the car. Then turn the car back in for the days you will just be relaxing by the pool or heading to the mall.

Thank you very much for your quick help and great response.

It is too bad you will not be here later in September, as many of the VT members will be meeting in Fort Worth on the 26th!

Happy trails!

Hello


I'd agree with the above, rent a car for the parcial time your there, Southfork Ranch approx 56 miles from Ft. Worth or 1.50 mins drive time


Best wishes

You must have a fast car! 1.5 minutes is very fast for 56 miles!!

Have you checked to make sure you can't change hotels ? You would be giving them about a month's notice. I've cancelled hotel reservations a lot closer to my travel date than that. Even if there was a slight charge for cancelling the reservation, you would probably make that up in savings if you can find lodging closer to the areas you wish to visit, or that do offer shuttle services. Gary

Good answer adawn412 if you had a brain sell 1.50 mins, stands for 1 hour 50 mins, shame you haven’t!

If you do decide to make a hotel change, you have several options: (1) If you have a web site, or contact number for the event you'll be attending, use them. Event organizers will frequently have lodging information available. Make sure to mention the transportation needs. (2) Contact the Dallas or Ft. Worth Tourist Office. Many times the tourist bureaus can be quite helpful. Again mention your transportation needs. (3) Here on VT, cick on the "Book Travel" block at the top of the page. On the next page, click on hotels. The "Hotel Club", "Expedia", "Kayak", "SideStep", "Travelocity", and "Intercontinental Hotel Group" web sites can be checked for you without ever leaving VT. It does take a bit for all the screens to load, but that saves you going from site to site. You can do a similar search for rental cars. Gary

Trisha, If you haven't done so,you may wish to visit the DART web site. You can download system information, the cost of passes, and system maps. If you have a AAA membership, I know they offer free route-planning guides for you. They may also include help with lodging. Gary

On the Southfork trip, and shopping, take a look at the following web site to see if they have tours that would meet your needs: www.grayline.com/Grayline/destinations/us/dallas.go. Gary

Thank you Gary, I definately will. Trisha

Hi Gary,
I just checked out the site. This is the most helpful at the moment. Now I can do a little more planning and figuring out where I have to meet the tour bus closest to my hotel. Thanks again. Gotta go. Trisha

USA... thanks for the correction. By the way, I believe you meant to insult me by saying that I do not have brain "cells". Hope you have great travels in the future!

Trisha, sadly, the DFW area is not made for people without a rental car. That is, there are plenty of places you can't get to by public transportation at all, not to mention that many of the place you can get to by public transportation, you get to only by bus, having to go downtown first (that is to say, we don't have a lot of crosstown buses).

For example, the city of Arlington (wouthwest of the airport) is the largest city in the US without public transportation at all, so naturally, that's where Six Flags amusement park, the stadium for the Texas Ranger's baseball team, and the holy temple to the divine Jerry Jones, er, new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys all are.

There are 2 Days Inn by the airport, both about 10 minutes from the airport and Irving Mall. One is on 114 (Carpenter Freeway), and the other is out the south side of the airport right off of 360. Which hotel are you at?

The hotel off of 360 should be relatively close to the CentrePoint station for the TRE (a rail line that runs between downtown Dallas and downtown Ft. Worth)...ah, yes, it's just 9/10ths of a mile. Once you get to that station, you can catch a train in either direction. In Dallas, you will want to go to Union Station, which is downtown. From Union Station, it is an easy walk past "Old Red" (our original couthouse, now a museum), Dealey Plaza (where President Kennedy was shot), and up into the West End (lots of restaurants). Also, once you are at Union Station, you can transfer over to the DART light rail system, which will take you south to the zoo (not much else to visit in that direction) or north to a number of stations, such as the Pearl Street station near the Catholic Cathedral and the museum district, Mockingbird station (which is a rarity for Dallas because there are residential, commercial, and entertainment uses right next to the stop (i.e., movie theater, several restaurants, etc.)), and the Northpark stop, where you catch a shuttle bus over to Northpark Mall, the first covered mall in the US, I think (lots and lots of shopping here).

See http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/centreportdfwairport.html for the TRE.
NOTE: the TRE does not run on Sundays or holidays (like Labor Day)!

As for Ft. Worth, the public transit system is "the T". If you look at the top of the page that I just gave you, you will see links to both DART (Dallas) and the T (Ft. Worth). See http://www.the-t.com/maps/system.pdf at the T website. In the insert in the lower right corner there is a blow up of downtown Ft. Worth. It looks like the TRE station is at the bottom, and the interesting parts of downtown Ft. Worth are up near Sundance square (near the top). You can take a bus or just walk up the west side of the Water Gardens and the Convention Center. Oh, look at the station map...it looks like the ITC station (the Intermodal connections, like to Amtrak) is actually closer to Sundance Square, being on the east side of downtown (see http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/fortworthmap.html ).

In any case, I would hate to be stuck in a hotel in the Dallas area for 16 days without a car, because we just assume that everyone has a car...but if you have to stay at that hotel (you really can't change it???), I hope it's the one near the CentrePoint station off the south side of the airport...

Bill

Hi Bill, Thanks for all the information. It looks like I am going to have to rent a car. What is the price of gas there? It is almost a $1.40/litre where I live in Alberta, Canada. Is the traffic there about the same as Los Angelos, or closer to Edmonton and Vancouver traffic. I am a good driver, but do not want to be stuck in traffic for hours either. Trisha

Oh by the way I am on the hotel closest to the Carpenter Hwy. Trisha

Trisha, gasoline here (regular) is about $4.00USD/gallon, or $1.05USD a liter; of course, everything is sold by the gallon here - most people don't even know how to convert gallons to liters ;-).

Carpenter Freeway is Highway 114. Like many places in the US, we put the highway number on the maps, but use the highway name in normal conversation, which completely mystifies visitors. As you can see from the map, 114 runs southeast to downtown Dallas (after merging with I-35, which is called "Stemmons Freeway" or usually, just "Stemmons"). Your conference on Aug. 22 & 23 is just off of Stemmons in the American Airlines Center (and easily visible from it) just north of downtown.

If you take 114 to the west from your hotel, you will come to a funny conglomeration of highways at the north end of the airport where 114, 635, 121 and maybe some others all merge to become one for a short distance. Keep following 114 until you get a chance to take 121 either south or west (I forget which it says on the signs). Don't continue on 114 to Bridgeport. All this happens just about at the exits for Grapevine, where there are 47,000,000 restaurants right on the highways. If you follow 121, then, this will take you directly to downtown Ft. Worth (or at least to the highways just outside the downtown core).

One more thing on public transportation...even if you can get from A to B on a bus...the bus trip is likely to take you more than twice as long as just driving. The majority of our traffic congestion is on certain highways at certain times of the day. Avoid those, and you'll see why everyone drives here, even at $4 gallon. Our rush hours tend to be 7:30 to 9 am and 4 to 6:30 pm (yes, the afternoon one is longer), but even so, not all highways are crowded at all places the whole time. Well, the hotel staff should be able to give you particulars related to the immediate area...

Bill

Thanks Bill. It appears I will be renting a cheap car and drive instead of bussing it. I thought your gas was a lot more than ours. Thanks again. Trisha