disembarkation - rental car - time crunch

[AndreAggie]

Just a helpful tip...if you're disembarking to get somewhere, say WDW by a certain time, I'd strongly suggest getting Uber to take you to the rental car location in Port Canaveral. We were off the ship by 7:30 with hopes to get to WDW by 9. We waited 30 minutes just for the rental car shuttle to arrive. Then we stopped and waited at 2 other terminals to pick up other guests. We should have just called for an uber, spent a few bucks and been on our way. If time isn't an issue, then by all means, wait for the shuttle.

 

[Rabb it]

Ughh, that's rough Thanks for the tip!

 

[Bethany10]

So it's not a walkable distance? (from leaving the ship to the rental car location?) If I'm going to be forcing my family off the ship at 7:30 am only to have them wait there will be bloodshed. Thank you for the tip and I'm sorry you had to wait.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

So it's not a walkable distance? (from leaving the ship to the rental car location?) If I'm going to be forcing my family off the ship at 7:30 am only to have them wait there will be bloodshed. Thank you for the tip and I'm sorry you had to wait.

All the car rental places are in town, not at the port (map courtesy of openwater):

 

[AndreAggie]

No, not walkable. And of course, we rent with Avis, the furthest away!

 

[clten]

So it's not a walkable distance? (from leaving the ship to the rental car location?) If I'm going to be forcing my family off the ship at 7:30 am only to have them wait there will be bloodshed. Thank you for the tip and I'm sorry you had to wait.

If you look at the distances, it would seem to be very walkable. However, don't walk it - it can be pretty dangerous. There are no sidewalks, there is one bridge you'd have to go over to get out of the port area and then the main access road is a fairly busy road. For your safety, it is worth the extra few dollars for Uber or a taxi if you don't want to wait for a shuttle.

 

[chik1987]

Thank you for this info. We were planning on doing the shuttle but would rather not wait we will for sure look into an uber or taxi to make it quicker. We are hitting kennedy space center afterwards so we want to get there asap.

 

[Bethany10]

For your safety, it is worth the extra few dollars for Uber or a taxi if you don't want to wait for a shuttle.

Thanks, I will up our transport budget by a few bucks to save on a divorce lawyer down the line.

 

[DisneyKarenG]

Thanks, I will up our transport budget by a few bucks to save on a divorce lawyer down the line.

LOL, same!

 

[AndreAggie]

If you look at the distances, it would seem to be very walkable. However, don't walk it - it can be pretty dangerous. There are no sidewalks, there is one bridge you'd have to go over to get out of the port area and then the main access road is a fairly busy road. For your safety, it is worth the extra few dollars for Uber or a taxi if you don't want to wait for a shuttle.

Please don't walk it. I couldn't imagine walking along a highway, schlepping my luggage and wrangling kids!

 

[OKW Lover]

No, not walkable. And of course, we rent with Avis, the furthest away!

The difference between Avis and the closer ones is no more than 5 minutes.

 

[LSUfan4444]

Last cruise we rented through Budget got in the car and off we went. This time around we are going through Alamo and I know they have shuttles leaving every 20-30 minutes so we're going to try to get on the first shuttle.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

By all means, get a taxi if you are in a hurry. But just to share experiences, we rented from Budget, they had four shuttles (of various sizes) running concurrently. We didn't hurry off the boat, so we got through customs at maybe 9 or 9:30 and got to the rental agency and were in our car by 10. Not that long. Not the 8 AM the OP is shooting for though. It depends on how much you have planned for that day.

One other tip, when we got to the front of the line, there wasn't enough room for all of us, so my wife and teens stayed behind and I took the last space in that shuttle. That way, by the time they joined us, I was just about through the rental line and they could hop into the car.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Have you checked the price of renting for the duration of your cruise (plus parking)? We found it wasn't much more expensive to have the car waiting in the parking lot for us. We were able to rent MCO to MCO, so no return to other location fee and we were renting for longer than a week, so there were discounts for that, too. For 11 days, we paid $293 (minivan) + 128 parking over spring break. For the few days we actually needed the car plus the fee for different location dropoff, it would have been about $311 for 3 days and then another $121 for the remaining 2 days. The convenience of having the vehicle right there was nice. But we needed the van on either side of our vacation, too.

 

[bbel]

Just a helpful tip...if you're disembarking to get somewhere, say WDW by a certain time, I'd strongly suggest getting Uber to take you to the rental car location in Port Canaveral. We were off the ship by 7:30 with hopes to get to WDW by 9. We waited 30 minutes just for the rental car shuttle to arrive. Then we stopped and waited at 2 other terminals to pick up other guests. We should have just called for an uber, spent a few bucks and been on our way. If time isn't an issue, then by all means, wait for the shuttle.

We were once waiting for a shuttle by 7.30 (probably earlier). We also waited nearly 30 minutes. But, it got us the the rental place just after 8, minutes after it opened, and we were first in line.
So sure, we could have got an uber when we got off, but then we would have just 'paid' to wait at the other end.

I'm not saying don't do it - just make sure you know the opening times. I'd rather wait at the shuttle stop at the port, than by the side of that road.

 

[elvispursley]

If I could have a "do-over" from my rental car nightmare from my first cruise, I'd either do what we did this last time (which would work for OP scenario): take Disney transport to MCO and rent, try @FigmentSpark's idea and rent and leave the car in the garage, or Uber/taxi to rental agency in PC. Our nightmare was getting of the Fantasy along with 3 other cruise ships docked. We waited and waited for a shuttle to take us to Budget. When we got to Budget, there was a fairly long line to check-in from all the other cruise ships doing likewise. We had reserved a mini-van but because they were still waiting for the mini-vans to be returned, they tried to give us a FULL-size van. Uh, yeah...not happening for a party of 5! We opted to wait and luckily there was a minivan being returned right as we were telling them "we'll wait." We told them we didn't care about the car being ****-n-span clean, we just wanted to be on our way. Never...again!