Nathanael and I made our ABF reservation online (giving us a $25 discount) about three weeks before we left. There was no charge for the reservation or cancellation had we changed our minds about the date or about using ABF, which I didn't know until I called a service representative and asked a bunch of questions about pricing. By following the website's price estimator we were quoted more than a thousand dollars to move our "one bedroom plus" size apartment from the top of the country to the bottom, which was shocking at first, but ended up being similar to other options (uhaul, etc). However, since we were moving out the downtown area where parking was tight we decided to bring our belongings to the ABF terminal as an alternative to paying parking tickets for a tractor trailer. Seeing that this option would remove $200 from our bill we decided to do the same thing on the arrival end, removing another $200. On our reservation we chose to take up 6ft of space (the trailer is 9ft high and 8ft 6in wide), and since we ended up using just what we were charged $725 in the end. If we had used less space, or more space, they would have charged us for the final measured amount, with a small fee for having mis-estimated on our reservation.
When we were moving things to the ABF trailer we had help from many loving people without whom we would neither have met our packing deadline with ABF, nor the check out time for our apartment. Over three days 3 minivan loads, one trailer load and 6 car loads were loaded and unloaded. We had people who helped us pack, clean, drive and trailer our belongings to the terminal, and who fed us. And yet it still took over 5 hours to organize things just right in the ABF trailer, and then we stayed up the whole night cleaning our apartment and loading our own car for the long ride.
In hindsight, here are the tips we have for the loading...
* Realize you have three days to load and do as much as you can during the first two.
* Make sure you have a hefty stool (that does not need to be packed) so you can stack things high and organize them carefully.
* Perhaps buy some old blankets at thrift stores to tie around your furniture to prevent scrapes as you squeeze other things past them. We had a few rugs to help us, but some of our furniture have chips or rubber marks from the bikes.
* Have some extra large pieces of cardboard to slide between furniture (and to cushion them on the return trip if you go that route)
* Keep out tape, ratchet straps and a good amount of rope to secure strangely shaped items, as well as the whole load before the barrier is put up (we did pretty well with this and nothing fell on us when the barrier was taken down).
Once we were loaded (a Friday night) ABF guarantees arrival in 2-5 business days. Our things arrived the following Friday. Five business days for sure, but you still need to eat on the weekends. We were staying with Nathanael's parents for a couple of days, but then spent three days at our destination without our silverware, pans or can opener. So, our tip for the waiting time is to pack yourself a camping-like cooking kit.
Once the ABF trailer arrived at our destination we were very glad, but since we were acquainted almost know one (especially no one with a truck, minivan or trailer) we decided to rent a Uhaul 5x8 trailer for 6 hours. We realize this would not be an option for everyone, but since my Dad built and attached a super-duper heavy duty trailer hitch to my car last year, $29.50 was enough for us to move all of the large items from ABF to our apartment. Thus, in 5 car loads and 2 Uhaul trailer loads all of our belongings were with us once again. We definitely recommend this option, and it fits a queen sized bed...if you happen to have a bed. And if we had not gone to collect our things during rush hour and near the closing time for ABF we would have probably been able to load the trailer another time and cut down a couple more car loads. (Unfortunately, that timing was necessary for us because Nathanael was in class during the rest of the day.)
Unpacking the ABF trailer was so much easier than loading it. I could have done a dance.
I am not sure what kind of freight was loaded in our trailer. I tried to ask, but they didn't know. Whatever it was left large smudges of grease and bits of shattered glass on the floor of the trailer. This wasn't a big deal to us and was for the most part easy to avoid, but if you have a collection of fluffy white ottomans you might feel differently.
On both ends of our trip the ABF employees were exceptionally helpful, and though in both states we were pushing the time boundaries of when they should have been going home on a Friday night, they were definitely routing for our success. ABF left us with no complaints, which is really saying something for a company that had to deal with us when we boxed up our home, didn't sleep, and spent hours playing tetris with our belongings.
No comments:
Post a Comment