For my June 23-27 trip with just me and my son, I rented a compact car to save money. I got a pretty good deal - $140 total through Alamo. But what I forgot about compact cars is that they often have:
Now, I don't want to sound like a spoiled brat, but this is kind of a PITA when you aren't used to it, particularly the door locks. I was constantly worrying that the car would be left unlocked because DS would forget, and the window thing was an annoyance when driving back into the resort and needing to activate the gate with a KTTK. At the prices they wanted to upgrade, I would have still booked a compact, but it was still an annoyance.
I looked for a car on the compact aisle that had auto windows/locks. I found one, but the keys weren't in it and the agent helping outside said it wasn't "ready." ??? I found another one and turned it on to cool off while I loaded the luggage and got DS settled in the booster. After about 10 minutes of futzing around, I got in the car to leave and the a/c was not cold AT ALL. That spelled disaster for a week in the hot Florida son, so I had to find yet another car. No power window/lock models left, so I ended up with a Kia Rio. Without the power options, my remaining criteria were lighter colored interior and no funky smell.
The choices on the compact aisle were Chevy Aveos and Kia Rios. There was only one Nissan Versa, and that was the one with no keys.
- manual door locks
- manual windows
Now, I don't want to sound like a spoiled brat, but this is kind of a PITA when you aren't used to it, particularly the door locks. I was constantly worrying that the car would be left unlocked because DS would forget, and the window thing was an annoyance when driving back into the resort and needing to activate the gate with a KTTK. At the prices they wanted to upgrade, I would have still booked a compact, but it was still an annoyance.
I looked for a car on the compact aisle that had auto windows/locks. I found one, but the keys weren't in it and the agent helping outside said it wasn't "ready." ??? I found another one and turned it on to cool off while I loaded the luggage and got DS settled in the booster. After about 10 minutes of futzing around, I got in the car to leave and the a/c was not cold AT ALL. That spelled disaster for a week in the hot Florida son, so I had to find yet another car. No power window/lock models left, so I ended up with a Kia Rio. Without the power options, my remaining criteria were lighter colored interior and no funky smell.
The choices on the compact aisle were Chevy Aveos and Kia Rios. There was only one Nissan Versa, and that was the one with no keys.
