changing car

[rpbert1]

OK i am changing the car i have booked with Virgin, they are ringing me tomorrow to confirm the change [cost £25] was considering a Full size, they quoted me £180 cheaper than the convertible, so i am thinking a luxury ,but still undecided so need to know if anyone has got any thoughts on this, i know a lot like the bigger 4x4 but never appealed to me

 

[disneyholic family]

OK i am changing the car i have booked with Virgin, they are ringing me tomorrow to confirm the change [cost £25] was considering a Full size, they quoted me £180 cheaper than the convertible, so i am thinking a luxury ,but still undecided so need to know if anyone has got any thoughts on this, i know a lot like the bigger 4x4 but never appealed to me

how many people do you need to carry? Also how much luggage?

also do you know which company you will get the car from? (e.g. alamo?)

if you have many people and lots of luggage, the best car would be the minivans (that carry 7 and have lots of space for luggage)....

if you only have a few people and not much luggage, you really can hire whatever, depending on your preferences........

convertibles are definitely not advisable in the summer (when are you going?)....and the rental convertibles tend to be small without space for luggage...

we used to hire the big luxury cars (cadillac or whatever), but they always have leather seats, which is terribly uncomfortable in the summer....for the past few summers, we've taken one of the 7 people minimans (like the chrysler voyager).....they tend to have regular seats (rather than leather) and tons and tons of room (everyone in the family except me is super tall, so the more room the better for them)....we much prefer them now...

 

[JohnnySharp2]

We usually hire a Minivan, however for our August trip we have just got an F4.
The price was just so much cheaper and with the high fly-drive price we wanted to keep the cost down.

Having checked on Dollar's website looks like some of the vehicle type's have changed, for eg the F4 looks like an estate car and the Premium like a 4x4 type.
If you want to upgrade from an F4 I guess it depends on how much more you want to pay, from that size onwards the price does increase quite a bit.

 

[Soprano]

Side issue: Would it not be better to change when you arrive at MCO and save yourself the £25 admin fee Virgin are ripping you off with?

 

[mushumadness]

we have just changed ours through airline network, we had one booked with tcd, a twelve seater as there 8 of us going to florida, but now we have downgraded to an 8 seater with tcd for my brothers family and we have gine seperatly through airline network,

we got a 4 by 4 simply because I feel safer higher up, I am a terrible passenger if I dont feel safe, its costing us 436 with platinum insurance, well worth it
plus it will carry loads of luggage.

 

[patdavies]

Side issue: Would it not be better to change when you arrive at MCO and save yourself the £25 admin fee Virgin are ripping you off with?

Why is charging a small admin fee to cover all the extra work required because a customer changes their mind a rip-off?

 

[Claire L]

Usually with VH if the overall cost of the holiday goes up there is no £25 admin fee, its only if the price goes down! I would wait until you get there though, we got a fab upgrade to the Jeep Grand Cherokee last year

Claire

 

[mushumadness]

we upgraded to the grand cherokee laredo last year brilliant car, have booked the same or similar for this year, cant wait

 

[keasden]

Whilst on this topic, has anyone been recently with Virgin and can confirm what car they got.

I am particularly interested in the Premium Class of vehicle as that is what I have upgraded to (via FVC ) and on the Dollar website it says this will be a Chyrsler Pacific, or similar.

Its the 'or similar' that worries me as the Pacific looks absolutely perfect for us and I just wondered what the chances were of getting one of those.

 

[Stuart D]

We got a Pascifica when we went in May 2005. We had booked a compact car through Virgin but when we got to the Dollar desk they managed to persuade us to take the brand new Pascifica which had never been rented out before. We had the pleasure of running its counter over its first 500 miles during the course of the holiday and returned it with a small bump thanks to some idiot who hit the car in the car park...

Anyway I loved the car and would gladly buy one here. It was so much better than the Great Caravan that we got in 2003. Cars are great, but this one was more like a mini bus.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

They have changed some of the models recently it appears, for instance the F4 used to be a 'Dodge Intrepid', but is now shown as a 'Magnum'.

The Premium used to just be a luxury version of the F4 but looks now like a 4X4 type.

 

[rpbert1]

ok , i took the F4 and saved myself £180 , probably stay with that when we arrive and use the money saved to upgrade to WL as planned

 

[Miffy2003]

ok , i took the F4 and saved myself £180 , probably stay with that when we arrive and use the money saved to upgrade to WL as planned

That sounds like a good plan to me

 

[rpbert1]

thanks Miffy, was going to ask him for the luxury car but when he rang had already arranged the F4 like i told him , so decided to just leave it and use the extra to upgrade hopefully ,as we will be checking in on the 5th July just hope there will be rooms available

 

[keasden]

We got a Pascifica when we went in May 2005. We had booked a compact car through Virgin but when we got to the Dollar desk they managed to persuade us to take the brand new Pascifica which had never been rented out before. We had the pleasure of running its counter over its first 500 miles during the course of the holiday and returned it with a small bump thanks to some idiot who hit the car in the car park...

Anyway I loved the car and would gladly buy one here. It was so much better than the Great Caravan that we got in 2003. Cars are great, but this one was more like a mini bus.

Many thanks for the reply Staurt, I'll keep my fingers crossed that we get the Pacifica as I've checked it out on Chrysler website and it looks fantastic. Being a bit of a car nut its quite important to me what car we get while in the States as it is the only chance I get to drive some of these big exotic gas guzzlers without worrying about the cost of patrol, sorry GAS.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Many thanks for the reply Staurt, I'll keep my fingers crossed that we get the Pacifica as I've checked it out on Chrysler website and it looks fantastic. Being a bit of a car nut its quite important to me what car we get while in the States as it is the only chance I get to drive some of these big exotic gas guzzlers without worrying about the cost of patrol, sorry GAS.

I agree, however, petrol prices have risen, the Minivan for example is just 18 mpg, whereas the F4 is 24 mpg....sorry getting a bit too deep with this car thing here aren't I

 

[disneyholic family]

Many thanks for the reply Staurt, I'll keep my fingers crossed that we get the Pacifica as I've checked it out on Chrysler website and it looks fantastic. Being a bit of a car nut its quite important to me what car we get while in the States as it is the only chance I get to drive some of these big exotic gas guzzlers without worrying about the cost of patrol, sorry GAS.

I prefer the minivan to the Pacifica. I'm not sure which one we had. We rented from Alamo, so we ran down the row of vans until we found the one that had the two things we wanted: bucket seats for all 4 of us (no bench seat in the middle - each of us had an individual bucket seat with armrests) and as much luggage space as possible.

We found one that was perfect and we took it, but i never paid attention to the make. If i had to guess it was a Chrysler or Dodge, but i wouldn't swear to it. It also handled really well.

I just looked on the Chrysler website. It's the Chrysler Town and Country with the 'stow and go' option. Tons of space. The back is so deep it fit our huge suitcases.

I'm not a big fan of the Pacifica. But then there hasn't been an SUV made yet that I like, so it's no surprise.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

When we rent a minivan from Dollar they are either Chrysler Voyager or Dodge Caravan, only differences apart from the badge are the seat layout's at the back.
The Chrysler Town And Country have single passenger seats at the back, whilst the Dodge tends to have a bench type one.