The rental desk is inside the lobby of the Swan. The car is then given to you by the valet parking crew. It is only a short walk from the Boardwalk but you can get the WDW boat if you don't want to walk.
Er, no. The rental desk is inside the
Dolphin.
National & Alamo Car Rental Desk
Disney hotel guests can enjoy the convenience of on-site car rental service through National & Alamo. Located in the guest services area of the Dolphin, guests can make arrangements for automobile pickup and drop-off right at our door.
Aside from that though you're correct. The lobby is circular, around the edge is a doorway that leads to room which has the car rental desks in. If you ever flew with Virgin Holidays a few years back, it's the room where they used to have a holiday rep based too.
It's not a huge trek, but there is an escalator to navigate when entering the Dolphin. On the (big) plus side, picking up the car rental there is normally super quick - we've always walked right in with no wait, they don't usually try and up-sell you in any way either and it's assumed that if you've got that far you know what you're doing so they won't give you tips on driving in the area like they often do at the airport (unless you ask of course) - so you're normally in and out in no time.
As mentioned, you then go out front to Valet and they'll bring your car round the front to you so you'll need to tip and if you need any instructions on how to use the car they'll help you if you ask.
Edit: Actually it's just occurred to me that unless you've stayed at Boardwalk you might not be familiar with how to get to the Dolphin from there. The
DCL bus will drop you off outside the front entrance. You cannot get directly to the Swan/Dolphin resorts on foot from the front due to the canal that goes to Hollywood Studios, so you through the main doors into the lobby, to your left you will see the check-in area - walk past that along a (teensy) corridor thing past the shop and you will come to the lifts (so you don't have to drag your suitcases down any stairs) - Boardwalk is split level so you'll need to go down 1 floor to get out the back to the Boardwalk bit itself.
Once out of the lift, go past the gym to the exit and you come out on a sort of outside corridor, if you turn left there will be the main pool - you can walk around the edge of this to get to the outside path that will take you to the Swan/Dolphin. If you feel self conscious about walking through the inside of the resort, turn right instead. This will bring you out to the 'village green', you turn left there to get onto the main Boardwalk bit where the boats and shops are, and head towards the Atlantic Ballroom thingy which ultimately will bring you to the main pathway to Swan/Dolphin.
