I know that it’s officially spring, my calendar told me so a few weeks ago. Somehow I still feel like I’m stuck in winter. I spent last weekend cleaning up the yard, trimming the bushes and preparing our garden for planting. I’ve already put away my winter coat for the year because it’s starting to get too warm. I’ve moved my cardio from the treadmill inside, back out to the fresh air now that it’s warm enough. Yet somehow, it doesn’t feel quite like spring yet. I’ve still got icicles on the brain, snow balls in my belly, a corncob pipe and a button nose... Ok, that last part was farce. However I’m sure there are many who know exactly what I’m talking about. Even if you are questioning my sanity right about now, you should still considering joining us sometime over the next week down in Newport! One thing I look forward to more than anything else is the first sunny day I get to spend in Newport, RI every spring. And the timing couldn’t be better! Starting this Friday April 5th, 2013 and running all the way into the following Sunday April 14th, 2013 GoNewport.com is hosting the Newport Restaurant Week 2013! It doesn’t matter when you go or even how much time you are able to spend there. During the Newport Restaurant Week about 50 restaurants throughout Newport, Middletown, Jamestown, Portsmouth, Bristol and Barrington will be featuring uniquely designed Pre-Fixe menus which highlight the tastiest, local eclectic dishes each venue has to offer! For a list of participating Restaurants and to view their special Pre-Fixe menus please visit GoNewport.com Restaurant List.
In addition to participating restaurants offering special menus and pricing throughout the Newport Restaurant Week, there will be several exciting events taking place! The first foodie event is a Chocolate and Wine Pairing hosted by the Gas Lamp Grille this Saturday from 3pm until 5pm at their main location, 206 Thames St. Newport, RI. The next two events are sponsored by Newport Cooks! on the evenings of April 9th and the 11th. The first even on the 9th will feature Pastry Chef Laurent Vals showing participants how to make French macaroons and three tasty contemporary tarts! The second event sponsored by Newport Cooks! on the 11th is titled a “Culinary Exploration of Maple Syrup”. Participants will follow Chef Nancy Brush as she teaches them to cook their own full meals with every course featuring New England’s liquid gold; Maple Syrup! Each course will be paired with wines specially chosen by the Newport Wine Cellar to compliment the dishes. Lastly, on April 10th at 7pm the Newport Wine Cellar (yes, it’s the same people doing the pairings for Chef Nancy’s Maple Syrup Bonanza) and Le Petit Gourmet are hosting a class to explore an array of different domestically produced old world Pinot Noirs. These events are all designed for participation and space is limited so visit GoNewport.com's Events Page for more information.
If you’re going to make a night of it out in Newport, chauffeured transportation is a fantastic way to impress a date or just keep everyone safe and legal for driving if you’re not a teetotaler. Even just for an afternoon visit, parking in Newport can be impossible on busy days and renting a Sentinel Limousine or Town Car will afford you extra time to do all the things you want and not worry about those which would normally be a burden. Our chauffeurs are all well acquainted with Newport and its beautiful beaches, majestic mansions and quaint shops and piers along the water. The island size makes walking to all your destinations difficult but RI car service is just a click or call away. Let’s shake off the hibernation daze together this weekend in Newport! I hope to see you there!
The Lincoln Town Car sedan has been a staple of the chauffeured transportation industry for more than a decade. It's supple rear seats, smooth ride, and distinguished shape have been the expectation of business travelers many years. It is with great regret that we must acknowledge that Lincoln has stopped production of the Town Car and will be replacing it with the new MKT Town Car crossover. The chauffeured transportation industry has been mixed in it's reception of this change and many companies are now looking outside the Lincoln brand for a new replacement going forward into the next decade. While everything from the Hyundai Genesis to the Toyota Avalon have been brought up in conversation, there are really three main players vying for the title of chauffeured transportation industry standard vehicle.
In no particular order we have;
The Cadillac XTS
The Lincoln MKT Town Car
The Chrysler 300c Luxury Edition
Each of these contendors have their benefits and drawbacks. We all have our own opinions here at Sentinel but we realized the most important and valuable opinion is yours! So please take a moment to vote on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/sentinel.limo and let us know what you think the Town Car replacement should be. This is a touchstone moment in our industry and your decision could help to shape the direction for an entire industry for decades to come. Thank you for your help!
Do you ever see something and just shake your head in disappointment at the conspicuous lack of evolved civility in modern humans? Something where the two people involved are both acting completely wrong, immature, asinine, brainless and quite simply proto-human? The kind of behavior that a dirty hillbilly sitting, on the porch in a rocking chair, wearing only torn overalls would cluck his tongue at in disappointment? Move over Honey Boo Boo, this video comes to us live from New York and it’s not Saturday Night!
Two grown men having a sissy fight over a cab. Pushing, shoving, biting, scratching and acting in every way but like gentlemen. You’d think that New York City was having a cab shortage or something. Lucky for the rest of the civilized world, there are alternatives to stepping into an MMA octagon in order to secure a ride. Chauffeured transportation is a great alternative to duking it out. I’m assuming that between these two super-important businessmen they had at least one cell phone. (401) 434-2700. *Ring, ring* “Thank you for calling Sentinel Limousine, how may I help you?” Shortly thereafter a beautiful black Town Car will be waiting right outside your building ready to take you anywhere you need to go. No bruised knuckles, no getting hot and sweaty, no wrinkles in your business suit; just a courteous chauffeur, a clean car, and impeccable service; exactly the way you like it. Next time, I hope these two Neanderthals realize that airport limousine service and corporate car transportation are only a phone call away, not a twelve round championship bout.
http://www.newportmansions.org/events/wine-and-food-festival
Join Sentinel Limousine, Foodandwine.com along with the Preservation Society of Newport County as we celebrate the 7th annual Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival all this weekend! There are 8 different wine tastings and seminars over the next 3 days along with two very special events. Internationally recognized French chef Jacques Pepin and his daughter Claudine Pepin will entertain an intimate group on Saturday morning in the Gold Room at Marble House for a one-of-a-kind brunch! All those attending will also receive an autographed copy of Chef Pepin’s most recent cookbook, Essential Pepin. Then on Sunday the 23rd world famous Master Chef Emeril Lagasse will be hosting a cooking demonstration as part of the Grand Tasting from 12pm to 4pm at the Marble House. Including Emeril’s demonstrations there will be fabulous food from more than two dozen restaurants and dozens of different vintners representing their products and offerings.
All these exciting affairs are happening across three different stunning mansions in Newport, RI. The Elms, Marble House and Rosecliff will all be hosting different functions throughout the weekend. If you are going to be joining Emeril and chef Pepin in Newport this weekend consider allowing Sentinel Limousine to provide you with that finishing touch; safe and reliable transportation! This wine-centric event is sure to be a magnet for DUI checks and roadblocks. Safeguard yourself against the unthinkable with chauffeured service today! Reservations are booking up fast so don’t delay. Call or email us 24 hours a day at (401) 434-2700 or info@sentinellimo.com.
Strange as it may sound, a chauffeur is not a driver. One of the many responsibilities of a chauffeur is to drive, but being a chauffeur is so much more. Drivers provide one thing; transportation from point A to point B. Drivers operate cabs, taxis, delivery trucks and tractor trailers. Chauffeurs provide complete service in every sense of the word. From the most luxurious limousine to the smart and humble town car service to the airport or other destination; every chauffeur knows that the experience must be flawless and without compare.
According to the all-knowing, great and powerful Oz (Wikipedia), the word chauffeur is derived from a French term meaning ‘stoker’. In the early 1900s, only the very wealthy were able to afford an automobile. Additionally, some of the very earliest automobiles were steam powered and required the firebox below the boiler to be stoked. These first automobile owners employed a chauffeur to heat-up the engine before a departing, chauffeur the owner around wherever they needed to go, and maintain the vehicle in the interim. The chauffeur was entrusted with the complete care of the automobile including learning how to fix it because of the frequent breakdowns. If the automobile was one of the first internal ‘explosion’ engines, the chauffeur was also given an allowance to make sure that they purchased enough essence from the local drug store. That’s right; essence, also known as good ‘ol gasoline or petrol, was first sold in drug stores along with cocaine cola and aluminum powder for “The remedy of any ailment under the sun!”.
Now as then, the chauffeur is someone to be trusted; a guardian of your pride after a little too much to drink, a trusted confidant on a long ride back from business, a good friend after years of repeat service. It doesn’t matter if you only use chauffeured service for your wedding limousine once in a lifetime, or you book corporate airport limo or sedan service twice a week! Every client is treasured and treated as the wealthiest landowner would have been more than a century ago at the advent of the chauffeur profession. Every chauffeur here at Sentinel Limousine knows that to provide the best limo service in Rhode Island and throughout the world we must know where we came from and who we really are. We are chauffeurs, and we are here to serve you.
Are you an airport nomad? Do your bloated frequent flier miles sum up your job description? Do you exchange Christmas cards with flight attendants and touchy-feely TSA agents who address you by your first name? Do you still worry that you may have left the front door open when you were last home 4 months ago? Have you perfected the art of folding an oxford shirt in just the right way so that when it arrives at your destination 1200 miles away there is not even a hair-line trace of a wrinkle?
Don’t you think that you deserve a break? Yes, yes, we know… Kit Kat bars are sold at the duty-free shop just to the left of the register, 3rd shelf down, 5th box in from the edge of the counter………………… Come on people! The answer is a deafening YES! So take it! What are you waiting for? The next time your wanderings require ground transportation, look into chauffeured service! There are many benefits to using airport chauffeured service when compared to other modes of transportation and recent changes in the industry have made it even more accessible to everyone.
Gone are the days when only Penny and her husband Otto Wellington used chauffeured service when traveling from their second week of April home, to their third week of April home. The cost associated with any type of limousine service has decreased dramatically relative to the increasing costs of tolls, parking, and permits along with the stress of driving yourself or convincing a friend to give you a ride to the airport at 3am! While your friends and family may be sleeping at 3 in the morning, Sentinel Limousine is fully operational and staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
Hiring an established professional car or limo service is one thing you can do to give yourself piece of mind, and a well-deserved break. Unlike other options such as taxis, chauffeured transportation can be set up many months in advance which will help you finish all your travel plans well ahead of crunch-time. Email confirmations will be sent promptly and billing can be set up to best suit your personal or corporate transportation needs. Many times, an airport car service will have detailed resources and information on Airport Meeting Procedures so that your inbound trip will be stress-free and seamless.
Luxury car service is accessible and affordable to everyone and is a smart option in many circumstances. All silliness aside, in Providence, RI airport car and limo service is growing every day because travelers such as yourself are finding it to be an economical, safe and reliable option. Boston Logan airport limo service has always been a popular option due to the size and complexity of Massport. Limousine service to Logan airport is used by thousands of private and corporate business traveler. Providence, RI airport parking charges are driving many travelers to choose private limo service and private car service over having to drive and park themselves. Quotes for any service at any airport are always graciously available.
Are you shopping for a limousine for your wedding? If so, you may be visiting transportation companies’ websites to see their vehicles. Buyer beware: these photos may be outdated or even fake. To truly see the quality of a company’s vehicles, it is critical that you visit its showroom.
Since it is part of a service-based industry, a chauffeured transportation company should welcome visits from its customers. You should be wary if your prospective wedding limo company discourages you from visiting because it most likely has something to hide.
Recently an engaged couple from Woonsocket, RI, were sorely disappointed after they rented a limousine for their wedding day. They were impressed by the company’s website and decided to book the transportation without seeing the vehicle in person. The limousine that arrived was not what they expected.
“We noticed right away that it was absolutely filthy on the exterior. There was rust, there was body rot, there were pieces of duct tape painted white... It was disgusting,” said bride Valerie Enos in an interview with WPRI’s 12 for Action team:
Limo letdown for bride and groom: wpri.com
Do not let this nightmare happen to you. Here a few simple steps to help you in your search:
- Check availability of vehicles by calling companies. By having a headcount and date in mind, you can narrow down your list of potential vendors. Calling ahead saves you the time of visiting companies that have already booked the vehicle you need.
- Call ahead to ensure the vehicle is in the garage. Schedules continuously change in the transportation business and it can be difficult to set up appointments in advance. By calling the day that you want to visit, you can be sure the vehicle you want to see is in the showroom before you leave home.
- Play with the features of the vehicle. In many vehicles, the passengers have control over everything from lighting to music. Take your time viewing the vehicle and try out all of the seats.
- Talk with staff and chauffeurs to ensure they are knowledgeable and professional. It is important to feel comfortable with the staff of whatever company you choose as you will be placing a lot of trust in their hands.
Feel free to come visit us anytime at our headquarters in East Providence, RI.
It is a commonly found public opinion that a limousine company spends all day transporting rock stars in the largest and most luxurious limousine we can find. Whenever I tell someone that I work for Sentinel Limousine their initial responses are almost always very similar. "Who's the most famous person you've ever driven?". "Wow, you drive limousines? What's it like?". "Do people really stand up out of the moon roof while drinking champagne out of the bottle and shooting their gun?!"...
I always smile and kindly attempt to redirect their perception of what the chauffeured transportation industry is all about. First off, I start by explaining that I work in the office and am not a chauffeur. Secondly, the privacy of our clients is paramount and discussion of who, when and where we transported anyone is strictly prohibited. Lastly, Hollywood doesn't have the best track record when it comes to accurately portraying the daily reality of anyone, any place, anything really. So yes, we do provide service to celebrities. No, I can't tell you anything about that. And no, hanging out of a moon roof while drinking champagne and shooting a gun is dangerous, immature and best of all, illegal!
So what is it really like? Well, every morning I'm the first person into the office. I sit down at the computer with my coffee and review the entire day. I open every reservation, check every detail, every address, verify every flight. Then I go through each chauffeur's schedule to make sure that their trips make logical sense, their hours are DOT compliant and their vehicles will be ready on time. I then coordinate with the cleaning crew to make sure that every vehicle is ready to go in the correct order.
Now that the schedule is double checked and we are rolling out our VIP service for each and every client, I'll let you in on a little secret. The vast majority of our business is providing premium chauffeured car service to business professionals and to families celebrating a special event or even the start of their vacation. We service all the airports in rhode island, provide Boston airport limousine and car service, green airport providence (which is technically in warwick...), jfk airport limousine service to providence or to literally anywhere else on the planet you can think of.
That's just it, the daily in and out of being a limousine service provider is serving ordinary everyday people like you and I with the best possible transportation worthy of any rockstar or celebrity. Every single passenger in any of our vehicles is a VIP, plain and simple. Whether you're Will Smith, former President Bill Clinton, Lady Gaga, or the Williams family who lives next door; everyone in a Sentinel Limousine receives the same outstanding service and commitment to excellence. I can neither confirm nor deny that any of the celebrities above have ever used our service. I can tell you that when you use our service, you will feel like a celebrity because you will finally receive the rockstar treatment that you deserve.
At Sentinel Limousine the idea that something is ‘good enough’ is never good enough. We are tirelessly committed to growing, adapting and examining ourselves closely to improve the way in which we serve our valued clients. Over the course of more than 2 decades we have honed and polished our procedures, equipment and technology into the cutting edge services we offer today.
Our dispatch and reservations departments both share responsibility with confirming and double checking all details of reservations. We use every possibly tool at our disposal to retrieve and apply the most up-to-date information for everything from flight details to traffic conditions, venue addresses, weather, current applicable news and so much more. One of several different resources we use for flight tracking and flight detail confirmation is FlightView.
Their software solutions pull data feeds directly from the FAA, Airlines, Airports, NOAA and other meteorological and news databases to create an all-inclusive picture of real world events and occurrences which may affect flight arrivals and departures. This information is then compared and contrasted to data from other similar products focusing on any discrepancies or anomalies to ensure the highest possible level of information accuracy.
Our entire fleet is monitored 24 hours a day as well using a dual layer integrated GPS system. A standard retail GPS unit is hardwired into each vehicle and connected to a ‘brain’ module which integrates with the vehicle harness and ECU. On the surface the GPS unit functions similar to one you would find in your own vehicle. However the integrated ‘brain’ module allows us significantly more functionality in regards to tracking and communication between the vehicle and our dispatch department. One of the more useful features includes remote-address programing of the GPS from our office. Using our software here in the office we are able to clear, modify or re-program address and route information remotely for any vehicle in our fleet! This means that a destination change mid-trip can be absolutely seamless with our dispatch department reprogramming the vehicle GPS remotely while the chauffeur focuses on a smooth ride for the passenger.
Airport pickup procedures are enforced fully and strictly by the monitoring agency for any given airport. Each airport and even each terminal within an airport will have a unique procedure for how a chauffeur may greet the client. While some airports such as Providence T. F. Green Airport and New York JFK Airport do not allow chauffeurs to pick up guests curbside and mandates that all chauffeurs greet their guest inside the terminal, other airports enforce exactly the opposite regulations. We have dedicated multiple pages of our website to providing in depth information regarding airport meeting procedures. Please visit http://www.sentinellimo.com/airport-pickup-procedures.htm for more information.
It seems like everyone is coming out with a new service search and repository website lately. In order to get the word out about Sentinel and the incredible service we offer part of our job is making sure that we're listed on as many search sites as possible. Thumbtack.com recently contacted us about providing chauffeured service for those searching in Rhode Island! We were more than happy to oblige and just finished our profile. Please check out our Limousine and Chauffeured Service listing on Thumbtack.com and leave us a review if you have time.