Not bothering with car hire - am I mad?

[stoneyloon]

I've decided not to bother with a car for the Easter trip.
Last trip I only used it to get back and fore from the airport and a couple of shopping trips.
This way I don't have to worry about having a few drinks on the way across and will get a taxi if we have to go to any shops.

I'm planning to get a Lincoln Town car to take us to and from the airport.

Does anyone else do a similar thing?

 

[Netty]

we always stay in villas so a car for us is essential, besides the usual parks we also like to go further a field these days and go to state parks etc, see more of the real world outside wdw!!! and driving over there is so much easier than here, we are always out in it!
everyone enjoys their wdw holidays with or without a car!

 

[fleurbie]

Hi, we never hire a car as stay on site, we just use mears for any trips outside disney, never felt we needed one, my DH is a motorbike instructor so he loves not being on the road for two weeks, plus as you said it's nice if you want to have a drink with a meal, you can have a nice relaxing time

 

[barnaby1]

No, not mad at all!

In 12 years and more trips than I care to admit to we have never hired a car. Stayed on / off site and with / without children.

We don't even use mears or taxis. We go everywhere either on hotel transport, walk or use lynx buses.

 

[wayneg]

Everyone is different, we wouldn't goto Florida without a car but I also haven't been on a bus in UK for 26 years or a train for 13 years(and that was a nightmare stuck in Leeds with a 1 hour delay)
Some people can easily use other forms of transport I can't, this August we used Disney buses once to get to Hoop Dee Doo, almost an hour to do a 5 min journey by car from OKW. Should have either got a taxi or not had a drink.
We visit so many places, Celebration, Manny's chop house, Port Canaveral, trip to coast, friends house at Hunters Creek, loads more, car is essential for us.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Have always rented a car irrespective of where we stay, and without one would never have been able to travel all over Florida.

Just find you get so much more freedom and flexibility to be able to go where you want, when you want.

If you can get by without one and do not need one then no guess you are not 'mad', however for us a car is essential.
I couldn't personally rely on public transport for my holiday.

 

[dc1964]

we could not and would not do it without a car, we like to travel around, shopping, beach etc. There is a lot more to florida than the theme parks and would find it difficult to experience this without a car.

 

[Muscateer]

I have done both but prefer a car as we like to go offsite at night a few times in the holiday to eat. Its great to have the car for all my shopping so we don't have to trail bags around all day when hitting the malls well should say DH doesn't have to trail the bags.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

In the 30 years we have been going to Florida we have never gone without a car - HOWEVER..... Next year we are going to attempt to do most of our trip without a hire car!!!

We are using the Magical Express to get from the airport for the first time and then have arranged our hotel accomodation around our plans (we love multi centre trips anyway so that helps!!) - so we will do MK & Epcot while we have the monorail during our BLT stay, and then we are transferring to AKL where we will get the bus to DHS & AK, and here we will also have a car for 3 or 4 days (which we will use to do some offsite dining, the mall, Celebration & visiting family in Clearwater).

Then we will abandon the car again, and catch the DCL bus to the cruise and after the cruise we will get a lincoln town car to pick us up and transfer us to Universal. I really resent paying Universal's hotel parking charges, so we won't have a car while we are there- but I am hoping that having no car will force us to relax a bit more and experience more of the City Walk facilities!! - then we will get a taxi or town car back to the airport.

I am hoping this will work out and lead for a more laid back holiday (as usually with a car we are always darting here, there and everywhere - whereas I think we are more likely to do less if we haven't got the luxury of a car at our disposal!! - at least I HOPE thats how it will work!!)

Anyway - I will let you know how it goes - although I still have over 12 months to wait!!

 

[2Tiggies]

Always stay on site - never take a car. That's us!

 

[Elise79]

We stay onsite and always have a car. We have found the more times we go the more we use the car.

I also think this has been pushed along by Disneys cost cutting on the bus service

The other thing it is easier with DD to strap her in her car seat and not have to hold her wriggling around on a bus!

We also like to go offsite to eat as well sometimes.

 

[T16GEM]

We did think about not having a car for a our last trip as the hotel that we stayed in offered a shuttle bus to the parks every morning, but upon investigation I found that your had to be at the bus stop at 7.30am for the shuttle, personally when we are away we like to relax and take things a little slower, getting the kids up and out for 7.30 while on holiday would not have been my idea of fun so we hired a car !!

 

[dc1964]

the quesues for the free shuttles from offsite hotels has always put me off, though they have been usefull if going out to city walk at night for a drink and do not want to drive.

 

[gemmybear83]

We have been twice and not used a car, were happy to use the disney bus service (never waited more than 10mins), and we have used taxis to get offiste.

However, we would have to use a car if we were staying offsite, and if we had kids I think we probably would do too, as we spend more time eating offsite to save money.

 

[The Fetherstons]

We hired a car for the very 1st time this year as DH was always a little scared of driving and we have always stayed on site, but this year we had a villa offsite with my brother and his wife and we hired a car,we are going back next year and we are definitely having the car we got to so many more places and DH got over his fear.

But I have to say you can do Onsite without a car and use disney buses, lynx busses or mears shuttle.

 

[mitchfishguard]

No, not mad at all!

In 12 years and more trips than I care to admit to we have never hired a car. Stayed on / off site and with / without children.

We don't even use mears or taxis. We go everywhere either on hotel transport, walk or use lynx buses.

with you all the way on this

 

[Kath2003]

Done it three times now. We get the bus to and from the airport and around Orlando. We use taxis if the wait for the bus is too long for us or it's raining, we're tired etc. We have never waited more than 10 minutes for the bus.

In terms of shopping last time we visited the Florida Mall, Mall at Milennia, Premium Outlets and Prime Outlets on the bus. In terms of convenience, on numerous occasions it would have taken us longer to walk to our car than it did to get to the bus stop and get on the next bus.

For two adults for 11 days last time it cost us $70 including four cab rides. Had we parked at the theme parks (Universal and Sea World were charging $12 at the time), it would have been $120 just for parking. It's a no-brainer for us. We'll be doing it again next Easter.

(Also: we like to have a drink with dinner...and lunch (it's a vacation, gotta have a cocktail!) so we wouldn't want to drive anyway).

 

[Hilary]

Horses for courses - if it suits you not to rent a car then of course you are not crazy!

For us, for trips when we've been focussed on the parks we don't hire a car. We stay onsite and use Disney transport and enjoy letting someone else do the thinking/driving while we relax (and can enjoy a drink if we want one).

For trips that include other Florida destinations we do hire a car although, if the trip also includes WDW, we know it will likely sit in the parking lot, unused for that part of the trip

 

[higgy66]

We've hire a car in the past when we've stayed off site but this year was our first time staying on site and we opted not to have a car.

Never waited more than 10 mins for a bus and that was rare - usually under 5 mins. Excellent being able to relax and have a drink if we wanted. Also it's great being dropped off at the entrance to the parks.

However, we had the DDP so we ate on site all the time - had we not have that we may have hired a car as we would have probably eaten off site on a few occassions.

The only time we found it a bind was getting from resort to resort one night. It involved a bus the the park, bus to resort, bus back to park then bus back to our resort. If we were to do that again we'd get a taxi. The other times we ate in the resorts we were going straight from a park or to a park anyway so didn't seem such an issue (if that makes sense?)

We're planning to stay on site again next time and we won't be hiring a car so it can't have been that bad.