Does anyone rent a car to drive to WDW?

[luvthatdisney]

We are going in June (19-26) and have been thinking we might rental a larger vehicle as I only have a small SUV for 4 adults. Our drive is about 10 hours from NC to Orlando and just want to make the ride a comfortable as I can. Does anyone know of a cost effective way to rent a car locally and drive down?

 

[famsen]

We have rented a car several times to drive down from Chicago.
We don't own an SUV or minivan and we like to have space and I feel safer in a larger vehicle on long road trips.
We just returned two weeks ago and we rented a Full Sized car category. They gave us a Chevy HHR and we loved it. It is a cross-over so it was similar in size to an SUV but had GREAT gas mileage. I paid less about $260 to rent it for 8 days.
I rented a Jeep Liberty once and that was kind of a no frills, rough ride. Another time we rented a Full Size SUV and it was fantastic but too big for us.
The rental car places have minivans. They aren't cheap but there are always coupon codes and last minute deals to get a better price.
I'd rather put all those miles on a rental car than my own. It seems like every time we go on a long road trip with our cars, something goes wrong; tires go bad, had my windshield cracked by a rock, air conditioning conked out in two different cars. not worth the worry to me.

 

[anabelle]

We are going in June (19-26) and have been thinking we might rental a larger vehicle as I only have a small SUV for 4 adults. Our drive is about 10 hours from NC to Orlando and just want to make the ride a comfortable as I can. Does anyone know of a cost effective way to rent a car locally and drive down?

We (5 of us) drove from Northern Virginia last year in my Jeep Liberty. Let's say it was a tight squeeze. The air conditioning also broke. That cost me $200 to fix. This year I priced out renting a van. But when you add the rental cost, fuel cost, food and hotel, it was the same price to fly. I couldn't find a van in the DC area cheaper than $780 and it didn't come with unlimited miles. So I had to add in the extra mileage cost.

 

[Kim&Chris]

A few years ago, we rented an SUV to drive from South Jersey to WDW. I was money well spent. We rented from a local National office. Thanks to Mousesavers, I found a great code and we saved a nice chunk of change.

 

[tinkerbell615]

We have rented a minivan previously and will be renting one again to drive to WDW. We like it because we can do this as opposed to taking two cars, split the gas money and it is much cheaper than flying. Plus... the kids love it.

 

[francie57]

We have rented cars in the past to take trips out of state. Make sure that you are allowed to take the car from NC to FL. Some rental car companies don't allow it in their fine print and you would have a lot of trouble if anything happened to the car. Also, make sure you get unlimited mileage since some have started putting in limits of 1,000 miles.

 

[toywaltz]

In addition to what others have said, one big PLUS for renting is that you don't have to worry about your car breaking down. Nevermind the expense/concern going to an unknown mechanic/dealer, but you'll have significant down time while your car is being fixed. With a rental, if you have a break-down they bring you a new one and you're on your way much quicker.

 

[PatMcDuck]

We rented a car to drive to Cedar Point (Ohio) from NJ. We were set to take our old minivan. A week before the trip I finally found a great rental deal on a SUV, so we did it. It was a brand new Buick something, leather seats, HD radio, so quiet and comfortable........ To get the best deal, I had to rent it from an airport (Newark NJ I think it was Alamo, and it was an email special.

Last year i had to rent a minivan (we no longer owned one); DD had surgery and was in a wheelchair for 6 weeks (I drive a VW bug). The best deal then was thru Enterprise, but at Philadelphia,PA airport.

 

[WI_DisneyFan]

I personally have not done this, but we seriously considered doing it prior to our last trip to avoid putting those miles (2600 miles round trip from Wisconsin) on one of our cars. (We ended up getting a great rate to fly Southwest after they started flying out of Milwaukee, so we didn't have to go this route.) But my plan was to rent a car in Wisconsin, drive it down to Disney. Drop it off once I got down there, and then rent a car for the drive back, thus saving us the rental fees for the week that we'd be using Disney transportation. Although now that I think about it, I wonder how much more they'd charge for a 1-way rental vs. a round trip rental and if that difference would offset us saving that week's worth of rental fees.

 

[bumbershoot]

We have rented cars in the past to take trips out of state. Make sure that you are allowed to take the car from NC to FL. Some rental car companies don't allow it in their fine print and you would have a lot of trouble if anything happened to the car. Also, make sure you get unlimited mileage since some have started putting in limits of 1,000 miles.

Seconding that. I've read of it happening; so be sure to check what states "unlimited mileage" is allowed to happen in...