Two of us will arrive at terminal 1 at EWR on a Monday night at 9:50 PM. We want transportation to the Hilton Garden Inn on South Ave., Staten Island. I am considering Carmel car service for $57. Would we pay significantly less if we used a regular taxi? The bridge fees and add-on fees have me doubting my choices.

Significantly? Probably not.

And the car service may be more comfortable than a cab . . .

At that time a fair fare estimate would be $35 plus bridge toll plus tip for a regular cab.

Does that $35 include the additional cost for the taxi to return from Staten Island to New Jersey?

By law, only a New Jersey taxi can make a pickup at EWR, but a NJ taxi cannot make a pickup on Staten Island, which is in New York State. It will have to return empty and by law can charge a pricey additional fee to cover the empty trip.

The same thing would happen if you were headed from EWR to Manhattan.

The same is true heading the other way--a New York taxi will charge extra to take you to EWR since it cannot pick up a fare at EWR.

CAR services are exempt from such laws.

Remember that you have to give a 20% tip plus the fare and one way turnpike and bridge tolls. And yes, for a NJ taxi you have to pay bridge tools both ways.

Just noted that the hotel says it has an airport shuttle. Have you called to see what hours it operates?

Not sure what you are doing in Staten Island, but hope you have a car to get around, since this is a really terrible place to stay if you are trying to be a tourist in NYC.

Not sure if there is a deadhead surcharge.

Thanks, everybody for the great replies. You Fodorites are the best! I had heard of the restrictions on taxis, and of their not being able to pick up fares outside of their state of origin. I just had not understood how that played out for the passenger. Thank you for the explanation.

nytraveler, I was not even aware that the hotel we booked ran an airport shuttle. I called today, and we are arriving too late at night. I think we will go ahead and take a car service to the hotel. But the good news is that the rest of our party are coming in earlier, and they will be able to use the hotel shuttle. My goodness, that little mention of yours sure did us a service!

Our friends chose this hotel because it offers shuttles to both the Cape Liberty cruise port, and to the Staten Island Ferry. We will use both of those destinations while we are there. We have tickets for the 911 Museum before our cruise.

I hope you don't mean the same day as your cruise.

The Museum takes about 3 hours to visit and to get from there back to Staten Island to your hotel to get luggage , then back to NJ to get a cruise would take hours.

Thankfully no, we will not be in a much of a hurry. We will arrive on a Monday night, sightsee on our own on Tuesday, then meet friends and go to the memorial on Wednesday. The cruise departs on Thursday.

When the cruise is done we will come back, stay in Manhattan, and sightsee for a few more days on our own. We hope to move pretty leisurely and just want to feel the energy of the city, eat some good food, go to just one museum, maybe seebone show, see the skyline and the bright lights of the city, but not be bound to a schedule. We could have planned to go north or south from NY after the cruise, but this time we just want to take it relatively easy and be wowed by the city itself.

That's a pretty inconvenient location for getting to and from Manhattan. It's likely to take you about an hour to get into the city from there even with a shuttle. So just plan for that.