hire car wait

[brent44]

not long now, a question, a friend has said the queue for the hire car ,on arrival is horrific and would be best to get a taxi to our hotel and return next morning good idea?????.
thanks

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

It can be busy at the car hire desk, although I've never waited for more than 30 minutes (even though it actually felt like a lifetime after the long flight to Orlando!). I really wouldn't like to give up at least a morning on Day 1 of my holiday to return to the airport to collect a car. The time we have in Orlando is precious enough as it is without doubling back to the airport for the sake of avoiding a 30 minute queue (not to mention the cost of two unnecessary taxi rides). The airport is air-conditioned and you've got the excitement of your long-awaited holiday to sustain you in the queue - I'd say tough it out and start on Day 1 with a bang!

Regards

Rob

 

[shellbell]

I asked this question on a earlier post and people recommended that once you have been through immagration and you collecting your bags for the final time, The person who will be driving the car goes and does the paper work for the hire car and the other people collect the bags. This way you will be the first in the queue and won't have to wait

Alot of people seem to do this

Michelle

 

[calvinjtodd]

That's probably the best way unless your like us and there's only two of us and were both driving, so we both need to sign the paper work. Just a bit of advice though check the car over Very carefully, the last one we had had so many damage "reported" stickers on it it told anyone who might want to take notice that it was a hire car, so we refused it for our own safety!!!!

Calvin & Anne

 

[sharstra]

We waited nearly 2hrs at the car hire counter.. with ours being the only busy one it appeared. (alamo) but I have to say they were very efficient it was just that the amount of people was phenomenal. This was on 22 may ..just over two weeks ago, and it wasnt even school holidays. I dont think going ahead would help much because so many flights came in from Uk at similar times and the queue never seemed to diminish even when we left
good luck!
sharone

 

[brent44]

thanks for the advice seems better to wait it out

 

[juliebro]

On our last trip we too were waiting 2 hours in the queue - for an Alamo car. Not pleasant - especially as it was after midnight by the time we got our car.

On previous trips when we have been arriving late at MCO we have stayed overnight in the Hyatt airport hotel. After a pleasant breakfast in the Hemisphere restaurant, we could get our hire car straight away.

Might do this on the next trip too.

Julie

 

[UKDEB]

Wow! 2 hours?! That really isn't acceptable. For as many trips as I can remember we've never been in a queue at MCO using the "one person goes for the car, the others collect the bags" plan. We've always used Dollar, either by booking directly with them or with a Virgin Fly-Drive. Whenever we've used the main Dollar desk, dh has maybe had to wait whilst those already at the desk are served, but he's never been in a queue as such. On the one occasion we did a Virgin Fly-Drive (which we're doing again for our upcoming trip), he was at the dedicated Virgin desk so quickly, they didn't even have anyone ready to man it - they were really surprised to see him, but they did find someone very quickly.

 

[juliebro]

Alamo did apologise - and when we told Airline Network about it they got Alamo to give us some compensation. I think that Alamo had a particular staffing problem that evening - so it is probably not typical.

We can't do the 'one get the cases. one get the car' plan as we are both named drivers. Not that I do drive over there. It's just that we were caught out on this when my husband had an accident on our holiday in Portugal last year. He was unable to drive as a result and I was not on the insurance for the hire car. I couldn't be added either as we didn't have my driving licence.

From now on we will always both be on the insurance.

Julie

 

[penlanspice]

Hi Brent

Which airport are you flying into?

sam

 

[Rob Ford]

Got back only yesterday aftera great two weeks.

We had to use Premium Economy on Virgin out of Manchester as the cattle class was full and I have to say it was the best £600 or so ever spent. Not just for the extra room on board but for the breathtakingly fast passage through MCO.

We were one of the first off and with a brisk walk found the immigration hall completely empty!! We were first in line & cleared immigration within 5 minutes. Then when we got to the first baggage carusel, there were the bags. No questions asked by Dept of Agriculture or whatever they were called, then straight onto the monorail after dropping bags onto second carousel. I sped down to the car hire desks whilst DW & kids waited for bags. Couldn't believe my luck as I was again met by a deserted hall. Second in line with Alamo & I was all done in 10 mins including upgrade to Jeep Grand Cherokee (nice!!). Back up in the lift, family & bags waiting, down again, cross the road, pick up car & away. Must have taken no more than 45 mins all told.

Way to go!

 

[UKDEB]

You're right, Rob. I was forgetting about the added factor of PE - I guess that has a lot to do with our success in avoiding the queues at the car hire desk. Our average time from landing to leaving the airport is 30 minutes and our maximum has been around 45 minutes.

 

[jockey]

We flew PE last trip and had to wait in the baggage hall for 45 mins on our bags!!! The UC, PE and E bags all came off together, we did however only have a 10 minute wait at ALamo!

 

[juliebro]

We flew indirect and were in first class on the internal flight, so were expecting our bags off quickly. As it turns out, our bags were actually waiting for us (in an office) when we arrived in the baggage collection hall at MCO! We think they had probably been put through on an earlier flight. If it hadn't been for the long queue at the hire car desk - we would have been out of there in 10 mins!

Julie

 

[brent44]

not quite sure sam,dont get tickets untill next week all i know its a twenty minute drive to the quality inn cheers

 

[Little Starfish]

We were expecting it to take quite a while to get through this trip but it turned out to be one of the quickest. We only had about 10 minutes wait at immigration and only about 10 minutes maximum at the Alamo counter. Then we were faced with choosing a car from the selection in the Alamo lot ( that took us a lot longer because we kept changing our minds!!)