TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Empress Car Rental -sorry another car rental post!

This will be our fifth trip to the island, less than three weeks away. Hurray! Have never used Empress before and cannot get them to respond to emails. I have a confirmation# from online booking but they said they would send a confirmation email last week and have not yet done so. This makes us uneasy. Is it normal?

I usually call them on their toll free number @ 1 866 978 0849. I've always had good luck with them. Their booth is at the baggage pick up.

I had a bad experience with Empress upon return of the vehicle. They claimed I scratched a bumper and charged me $200 for the repair. With the number of scratches on the bumper they must have made 10x of my bill in one season. Clearly they never repair the scratches. I would highly recommend you take many pictures of the vehicle upon pickup. That way you have proof if you caused any damage.

Many people experience problems receiving email FROM the island. Your internet provider is usually blocking the emails. This has happened with numerous car rental agencies and many times it has been discussed.

They are very likely responding, your provider is blocking the emails.

I would suggest calling them if you have doubts.

Never had a problem with them. Just have a copy of your confirmation number and take it to there desk in the lobby.

Most times they reply, it goes in my spam. Then Verizon won't even let me reply, because it treats my reply as spam!

It's not in our spam folder. We got one initial email from them for a quote and then no more replies. Thank you JoeandLori for the phone number, we will call them.

...and the phone number worked and we are confirmed! Hubby can relax now.

Happy it worked. Received a lot of good advice on here - happy I can help someone. Enjoy your vacation - we'll be there in June for 2 glorious weeks. J & L

We just used Empress on our trip this month. The first car we had kept losing air in one of the tires. We took it back and they gave us a different car. When we checked out the second car I took photos of the car and they did not say anything about me taking photos. We had no problems when we turned the car in.

overall we had a good experience with empress.

We made contact by email well before our trip, negotiated a price, and figured we were good to go, complete with confirmations just prior to our trip.

Upon arrival at their office, a woman came to the desk, and basically said "yeah". We explained that we had reservations for a car. She mumbled something and then said she doesn't have a reservation for us. We showed her the printed emails, and she mumbled something else. When we asked if there was a problem she simply just ignored us like we were not even there.

Eventually a man came to the counter and from that point forward everything went very well. No issues when we returned the car.

It was just a very weird experience with the woman....

Can't say enough good things about Empress, they've gone out of their way for me. And when we see Marvins great big smile we know we're home. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Marvin is great - worked with him several times now!