Alamo Car Hire - Any Experience??

[neil2jo]

Having read through lots of threads I notice that a lot of the posts seem to mention Dollar Car Hire. Can anyone let me know if they have used and have had good or bad experiences with Alamo Car Hire including child car seats. Thanks

 

[homerdog]

Always used Dollar until our last trip, when we tried Alamo. They were fine, the only difference being that you get to choose your own car, which is great. We'll be using them next time, via usrentacar.

 

[disneyholic family]

Having read through lots of threads I notice that a lot of the posts seem to mention Dollar Car Hire. Can anyone let me know if they have used and have had good or bad experiences with Alamo Car Hire including child car seats. Thanks

I don't have any childseat experience, but we've rented from Alamo for a few years now (due to the cheaper price we were able to get from Alamo).

We've had excellent experiences with them. They're located in the terminal at MCO (Orlando International Airport) and you get to choose the car you want from the type that you've paid for.

That is, let's say you're renting a minivan. After signing the forms, you'll cross to the parking garage to the Alamo section, find the row of minivans and then choose whichever minivan you want from that row (so you can find the particular features you prefer, or the particular model you prefer).

It's really nice to be able to do that.

We've rented all size cars and minivans from them and have been very pleased with all of them.

 

[wicket2005]

No problems at all using them, as Beth says you can pick the car you want too. I have had no problems with Dollar or Avis either.

 

[Minniespal]

We've used Alamo a couple of times and they have been great.

We got them from here

 

[Amyrlin]

I have always used dollar up to now, but next trip will be alamo. Do you choose at Sanford as well as MCO

 

[musketeer]

We used Alamo on our 1st trip and we've also used Dollar but i much prefer Alamo as you can choose which car you want.

 

[UKDEB]

Always used Dollar until our last trip, when we tried Alamo. They were fine, the only difference being that you get to choose your own car, which is great. We'll be using them next time, via usrentacar.

Ditto. It was also cheaper to hire Alamo via usrentacar than Dollar via Airline Network (which is what we'd done the previous few trips).

We'll be using them next time

Got something to tell us?

 

[homerdog]

Got something to tell us?

Well, we've got 8 unused days for WDW, so we need to go back sometime!

 

[paulh]

Another good thing about using alamo/national (same firm) is that they are at the car care centre at disney so if you only want a car for a week you get picked up from your hotel and droped of when you return.Good to keep in mind if you are using disneys magical express from MCO
Paulh

 

[steve_rob]

Another thing in favour of Alamo is that you shouldn't have to queue.

Because the Virgin Holidays brochure insists you book with Dollar, about half of every Virgin flight will then descend on the Dollar desk meaning huge queues, while the Alamo desk will probably only have two or three people waiting in line.

 

[mouseuk1]

hello there i work for national/alamo same company alamo is the consumer part of the busniess. in the uk all car seats are only at most 6 months ild before there are replaced i should think it will be the same in the us.

have you made you resavation yet?

as i could try to get you some discount that applys for any one else also


lee

 

[mouseuk1]

also guys if you book your hire cars through hoilday autos it always works out mnore expensive then booking direct ? why ? coz hoilday autos also has to make money for the deal ye.


if you ring up direct and tele them you been ringing round there are always suposed to beat any real qoute you guys get.

but always ring direct

lee

 

[Miffy2003]

Thanks Lee

I have always found it cheaper to book through a third party rather than direct with Alamo or Dollar, which has always confused me


Neil - I answered on your other post, but we preferred Alamo to Dollar. I have no experience of using the child seat though I'm afraid.

 

[martinrmn]

Yes, I have used Alamo and I found them excellent. I booked through YESCAR HIRE based in the UK and they were the cheapest I could find. As far as car seats go, we tool my sons booster seat which is light and easy to pack. I am going again this year but as part of the deal we have to use Dollar. I will post my experience on my return in December (counting the days).

 

[disneyholic family]

Another thing in favour of Alamo is that you shouldn't have to queue.

Because the Virgin Holidays brochure insists you book with Dollar, about half of every Virgin flight will then descend on the Dollar desk meaning huge queues, while the Alamo desk will probably only have two or three people waiting in line.

we've had many many many people in front of us at the alamo line when we walked up right after a virgin plane had unloaded a whole lot of people.....(in september, everyone else in line with us were Brits from the same Virgin plane)...

 

[UKDEB]

Whichever car rental firm you book with and whichever flight you arrive on, we have always found that it pays for the driver(s) in your party to go directly to the car hire desk whilst the other(s) go for the bags.

 

[steve_rob]

we've had many many many people in front of us at the alamo line when we walked up right after a virgin plane had unloaded a whole lot of people.....(in september, everyone else in line with us were Brits from the same Virgin plane)...

Just basing it on experiences I've had in previous years. Last year we flew to MCO with Delta and were scheduled to arrive just before the second Virgin flight got in, so we thought we'd book with Dollar.

However, our flight got delayed an hour and we ended up in a fifty person queue there behind virtually the whole Virgin plane (they beat us in by 20 mins) while every other car company's desks were virtually queue-less.

 

[disneyholic family]

Just basing it on experiences I've had in previous years. Last year we flew to MCO with Delta and were scheduled to arrive just before the second Virgin flight got in, so we thought we'd book with Dollar.

However, our flight got delayed an hour and we ended up in a fifty person queue there behind virtually the whole Virgin plane (they beat us in by 20 mins) while every other car company's desks were virtually queue-less.

Yes, it's really the luck of the draw.....we've had huge lines at alamo and no lines at all at alamo, and somewhere in the middle...
they ususally move the line pretty fast....July was really bad this year....we had a really really really long line (all americans - lots of planes all landing at the same time).....but National car rental took some of the people from the alamo line, so it moved faster....
i don't mind standing in the alamo line to tell you the truth....it's preparation for WDW..
and i always end up chatting with the people around me....it's so interesting to hear where everyone's from.....so it's no big deal....
in August, while there were a zillion people from Virgin, we only waited about 5 minutes to get to an agent (there were lots of agents working)...
and in september, we could have had 5 agents all at the same time....there wasn't a soul around.....