Car rentals? Advice?

[archdandy]

I'm looking to rent a car this trip. I've never rented before so I'm unsure of how it all works. Is it usually cheaper to rent one from an off airport site? How does that work? Do they bring the car to you at the airport?

Anyone have any advice on where I should look for cheapest options? Also what does shuttle to car mean? I've seen that a few times when looking to rent a car from the airport. Thanks!

 

[BigTigger]

You have lots of choices on how you get the car, but it depends on where you are staying. If you are staying at a Disney Resort, you can take Magical Express to the resort and then pickup a car onsite at the Swan/Dolphin or Car Care center.

Many other non-Disney hotels of a large enough size have onsite car rental desks, but don't have free airport transfers. If that is your situation, then you can rent on or off airport. The All About MCO thread at the top of this page tells you what rental agencies are on and off site. I've never found the offsite ones to be cheaper, so I always try for the cheapest rates for the onsite ones. Shuttle to car means you board a bus at the lower level at the airport and they drive you north of the airport to where they are located. See the Rental Car threads by month on this forum as well for discount codes. The DIS also has a section on discount codes. Reading up on these should give you all you need to know.

One other thing to note, if you plan on paying via debit card, all car rental agencies will freeze a very large amount of money. This can impact your trip spending if you don't have lots of money in your checking or linked account. Most credit cards have some secondary credit card benefits as well, so figure out how best to pay in advance. Happy travels!!

 

[richmo]

Most of the "major" rental agencies are now on-site at the airport, including: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, National, Dollar, Thrifty, Firefly...I'm sure I missed a couple. For those, you won't have to take a bus at all...just check in at the counter, then walk across to the garage and get your car. Several agencies have ways you can checkin online in advance and just head straight to the garage without stopping at the rental counter in the terminal. Procedures vary, but you often will need to sign up for their frequent renter program, which is free.

You probably can save some money by renting at an agency "off-airport". For those, you will need to take a shuttle bus to the agency. Unless you're saving a lot of money, I'd recommend staying with an on-airport agency. Off-airport will slow you down getting to Disney and you have to be especially careful and build in more time upon returning the car, since you'll have to be shuttled back to the terminal.

Once you have your flights set up, I would go ahead and book something, just so you have a reservation. Do not prepay anything! Major agencies will not even take your credit card to hold a car...all you need is your name, email address and reservation times. The rates will probably be high when you first look. Don't panic, but continue to look. In most cases, you will see rates drop as the trip gets closer...often you'll see the lowest rates about a week to three weeks before you leave. During that period, and even up to departure day, you should check rates frequently if you want to save some $$$.

 

[ParrotBill]

Onsite airport rentals are sometimes a little more costly because there is an airport fee added... rates fluctuate all the time so on any given day they might be a little more or not. What you can do to save money is only rent for a few days from a location in or near WDW. Take Disney Magic Express to and from the airport. Make a rental reservation with one of the sites listed in the stickies. We use Dollar at the hotel next to Downtown Disney. They have a shuttle van or you can just walk over from there. Almost every chain has a location on site or just outside WDW. Be careful of operating hours - most of these are not staffed 24/7.

 

[HeatherL1985]

We are also renting a car but do not intend to use it for the entire vacation. Since we are staying on property, we have reserved a car through Alamo that will be at the Disney Car Care center. The center does free pickup and dropoff transportation by appointment, as well. We only needed it for one beach day so it works out perfect for us!

 

[robinb]

I'm looking to rent a car this trip. I've never rented before so I'm unsure of how it all works. Is it usually cheaper to rent one from an off airport site? How does that work? Do they bring the car to you at the airport?

Anyone have any advice on where I should look for cheapest options? Also what does shuttle to car mean? I've seen that a few times when looking to rent a car from the airport. Thanks!

I would rent from the airport as it's easier.

The best place for checking car rental prices is www.carrentalsavers.com. They have a specific "Orlando" search which has some of the better prices.

You should also check out this thread for May Car rental deals: http://www.disboards.com/threads/may-2015-car-rentals.3340914/

 

[Rosebud123]

The easiest thing to do is check Dollar every day. The prices fluctuate quite a bit. Book one (no cc required), and then everytime you find one cheaper cancel the prior reservation.

There are always a million codes floating around but booking through Dollar has always resulted in the lowest price for us. They are super expensive today for my August trip for some reason!

The prices almost always come down when you're within a few weeks/days of your dates.

 

[robinb]

The easiest thing to do is check Dollar every day. The prices fluctuate quite a bit. Book one (no cc required), and then everytime you find one cheaper cancel the prior reservation.

There are always a million codes floating around but booking through Dollar has always resulted in the lowest price for us. They are super expensive today for my August trip for some reason!

The prices almost always come down when you're within a few weeks/days of your dates.

OP, the bolded is true for whatever company you choose. Your vacation is pretty close. I would book something now and then work on getting a better price.

 

[elaine amj]

The annoying part is that I often find one day rentals more expensive than several days. One time I was there for the 3 day Disney Dream cruise and it was cheaper for me to rent my car for the 5/6 days total and pay to park it near the cruise terminal rather than book 2 separate rentals.

I want a 1-way rental right now (was hoping for about $30) from the airport to Universal Studios (just to get me there) and it's pricing out to be at least $45. I'll take a cab instead for $50.

Renting from the airport incurs approximately an extra $10 in fees at the MCO location. That said, I will often compare onsite vs offsite rates. Most of the time, I find onsite rates are cheapper even with the extra fees....every once in a while offsite is cheaper and worth the cab fare to get to the offsite location.

 

[robinb]

Renting from the airport incurs approximately an extra $10 in fees at the MCO location. That said, I will often compare onsite vs offsite rates. Most of the time, I find onsite rates are cheapper even with the extra fees....every once in a while offsite is cheaper and worth the cab fare to get to the offsite location.

Some places will pick up up and drop you back off.

 

[archdandy]

Thanks for all of the replies. It really helps out to have all of this information. I'll get on booking something ASAP and then keep checking for a better deal.

 

[elaine amj]

Some places will pick up up and drop you back off.

My understanding has been that they can't do pickups at the airport. But yes, most off-site places will pickup and dropoff from offsite places.

 

[gwb]

If you are a member of Costco or Sam's check them out. Also check out Mousesavers.com for deals. Got a 7 day SUV rental for 1st week of Dec. for $300 through Sam's club. Best I could get (yet) anywhere else was through Unionplus and AARP which was for a standard size car through Enterprise picked up af Car care center.for $340. So even paying for a short taxi to pick up I'm getting a bigger vehicle for less.
I have gotten rentals from airport before and won't do it again. It's far too crazy trying to get out of the rental areas at airport. Then fighting the crazys on the Florida roads and there's no gas station close to airport to fill up on return Also if you're staying on site you can use Magic express and don't have to worry about picking up luggage then go to car rental site and load up car then get to WDW. Then you'll have to pack up car drop it off at airport, got to airline get boarding pass then drop off luggage at counter. We found that it was easier to rent from agencies on WDW. And found it was cheaper.

 

[richmo]

...I have gotten rentals from airport before and won't do it again. It's far too crazy trying to get out of the rental areas at airport. Then fighting the crazys on the Florida roads and there's no gas station close to airport to fill up on return Also if you're staying on site you can use Magic express and don't have to worry about picking up luggage then go to car rental site and load up car then get to WDW. Then you'll have to pack up car drop it off at airport, got to airline get boarding pass then drop off luggage at counter. We found that it was easier to rent from agencies on WDW. And found it was cheaper.

The thing with asking for advice is you're going to get different sides on everything and somewhere you'll hear the answer you want.

If you are staying onsite, I agree that Magic Express to and from MCO and renting the car from the Car Care Center (or other) is definitely a viable and maybe preferable option. However, I don't think renting at the airport is a problem at all. In many cases, you just collect your bags, head down the escalator, out to the rental garage, pick your car and off you go. Then you follow signs for the South Exit out of the airport and in a half hour or so, you're at Disney. I haven't found the drivers heading from MCO to Disney to be crazy at all...actually, you have to be more careful once you're on Disney property. As far as getting gas, I've always picked up gas at a Disney Hess station or a Hess (now Speedway) that is just before you get on 417 going back to the airport. The tank is plenty full at MCO.

Also, picking up a car onsite at Disney may be less expensive, but often it is not (assuming you keep the car roughly the same amount of time). The only way to find out is to price it out.