Car Rental Question

[MrsSaraG]

Hey all! I did a search for car rentals but everything I found was for Orlando. We are WDW vets, but heading to DL for the first time in June. We are flying into LAX and I'm thinking renting a car is the best option for us (vs booking a shuttle or Uber). We are a family of 3 (our DD is 8) and while normally we travel very light, we will have just gotten off a cruise to Alaska, so we will have some luggage with us this time. Our flight lands around 2:15 PM. If we rent a car, we may try to do some minor sightseeing before heading to our hotel in Anaheim. (The driving and traffic will be fine for us as we live in the Philadelphia area and have also driven in NYC many times. Traffic isn't fun there either. I've also driven across the UK for a few days, so driving isn't an issue.)

We are staying at the Four Points by Sheraton Anaheim. What is the closest/best car drop off point? Google is being confusing. I plan to rent the car from LAX and then drop the car off near our hotel that evening. I was trying to find something near the hotel that would be walkable so I could take DD to the hotel pool while DH returns the car. We are flying home from SNA so I figured we would Uber that trip to the airport.

Is this the best option for us or am I missing something? Where do you drop your car off near DL?

Any guidance is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[CeCe0906]

This is a weird coincidence, because while I don't have any experience with this personally, I've been doing so much research for my upcoming, my cookies must all be disneyland. I'm getting emails, pop-ups and email for all things Disney.

Enterprise Rent a Car is apparently the "offical" rental car of the Disneyland resort. So I dont know about other companies , but I believe the email I got mentioned locations on Harbor and near the convention center. I deleted email, since I'm not driving, but there was some special involved.

 

[sophy1996]

There is an Alamo location on Katella near Harbor (711 W. Katella) that we used before. I believe there are Budget and Avis locations at 200 W. Katella and an Enterprise at the Paradise Pier Hotel and the Hilton Anaheim.

 

[brightlined]

I've used Avis before. If your trip is short, I discovered recently that a one-way trip between airports (ie, LAX to SNA) might be cheaper than dropping it off at one of the neighborhood rental places in Anaheim. (That might not make any sense if your trip is long.)

Having said that, there are several neighborhood rental places on Katella. The Avis/Budget and Alamo places are close to the Toy Story lot. It's not a huge walk back to the Esplanade if he can handle that, but dropping the car off and taking the Toy Story bus back to the Esplanade would be another option if he wanted to save some steps.

 

[gelatoni fan]

National and Alamo are probably the closest and they share a parking lot. You drop them off next to the Desert Palms at the corner of Katella and Harbor. Then you walk the entire length of Harbor to the Four Points. Enterprise returns to the Hilton near the convention center but I did have some issues there once. Hertz returns to the Marriott across from the Hilton.

The National and Alamo are about a mile while the convention center options are just under 1.5 miles if you walk.

 

[ParkHopper1]

Be sure to also price dropping the car at SNA and taking an Uber to your DL hotel. Airport drops plus an Uber can often be significantly cheaper than neighborhood location drops and only adds 20 min to the process.

 

[MrsSaraG]

Thanks everyone for your help! It was exactly what I was looking for. I think we will do the Alamo drop off on Katella and Harbor. We can get a great price.

 

[felice]

Alamo also tend - unlike some of the other hire car companies - to have an unlimited mileage policy when you rent from them. Might be something to bear in mind too.

 

[StarSeven7]

In case you haven't flown into LAX before, I will give you a tip for getting your rental car. We just flew in there for the first time and we have travelled a lot and we were totally flummoxed by the lack of signage for rental cars at the airport! It didn't help that it was 11:30pm PST/2:30am EST (where we flew from) so we were exhausted and wandering around the airport with luggage and kids is not enjoyable! This is for terminal 5, where we flew into, so it might be different at other terminals. There's signage pointing you to ground transportation, but once you get outside, there's no signs saying where to go to get a rental car shuttle. The lane closest to the terminal is for buses that take you to a different area where you can get a cab or Uber. You have to cross that lane and there's a median area with different concrete pillars with numbers on them. Below the numbers, it lists (in smaller print that we couldn't easily read when standing near the terminal) what type of ground transportation it is. I think the one for rental cars was purple and it listed which companies picked up there below that. Hopefully that helps!

 

[DharmaLou]

I always use the Alamo on Katella. They used to be in DTD. They're convenient and have the best prices IMO

 

[felice]

I always use the Alamo on Katella. They used to be in DTD. They're convenient and have the best prices IMO

I believe the Alamo DTD office moved into one of the hotels nearby, but I'm not sure. If they merged with the existiing office on Katella that does make sense.

 

[DharmaLou]

I could be wrong. I just figured with the proximity it made sense.