If you are renting a car in Orlando

[xuxa777]

What company is that with? I never have to talk to anyone with Avis or Budget.

Budget in this case, had the same with hertz too.

Car Rental at MCO is currently a cluster even for the "skip the line" preferred members. Can't imagine how bad it is this weekend and will probably last through some of the summer.

 

[georgina]

DME service ends in January 2022, and even after DME service ends there will still be airport transportation options via the new Mears Connect service. Your statement regarding WDW buses is rather dramatic and frankly #firstworldproblems .. There are much worse things to deal with this world than a complimentary air conditioned bus taking you to a Disney theme park for fun..

Everything about a Disney trip is a First World thing. There are a lot of us who do not like Disney transportation and prefer to rent a car. We are often offsite with free parking, but will even pay if onsite.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

I hope the mess is done by Nov 2022. I will deal with the mess if I have to but I'd really rather not. What is causing the mess at the counter?

 

[xuxa777]

I hope the mess is done by Nov 2022. I will deal with the mess if I have to but I'd really rather not. What is causing the mess at the counter?

Lack of cars, rental fleets sold off a good bit of their cars last year to stay afloat, Hertz went bankrupt. Now having a hard time buying cars due to microchip shortage https://www.businessinsider.com/rental-car-shortages-us-travel-demand-chip-shortage-2021-4

 

[Spartan86]

Yikes! Thanks for the heads up. We have a reservation through Hertz for September, we will definitely have to sign up for their preferred customer status. We have always rented cars at MCO and never had issues like that, but I know the way things are now, we could definitely run into this. Thanks!

Good idea. But be advised, the first time you rent as a Gold member, you will have to go to the kiosk for Credit Card and DL verification. I had to do this for the Avis program as well. Anyway with Hertz it was straight to the parking lot, name was on the board with “see agent” (expected that), a quick kiosk visit (was not busy @ 9:30 AM) and off to the car. First Hertz rental in ages and it went off perfectly -1st week of May.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Hopefully things will be back to normal next year when we go. We have rented with Enterprise (or maybe it was National) before and we got our luggage from the carrousel, walked out of the airport, across the lanes, into the garage, to the Enterprise parking spots, got in a vehicle, and checked out on the way out of the garage. The rental sale was charged after the vehicle was brought back at the end of the trip. Easy peasy.

 

[EACarlson]

Hopefully things will be back to normal next year when we go. We have rented with Enterprise (or maybe it was National) before and we got our luggage from the carrousel, walked out of the airport, across the lanes, into the garage, to the Enterprise parking spots, got in a vehicle, and checked out on the way out of the garage. The rental sale was charged after the vehicle was brought back at the end of the trip. Easy peasy.

Six months ago that was still the process. But now with fleets down 90%, an inability to get new cars due to parts shortages, increased consumer demand for new cars since there is so much extra money in the system right now, manufacturers are prioritizing consumer rather than fleet sales and the fire that took out 4,000 rental cars in Fort Myers. It may be years until the rental market is where it was two years ago.

 

[xuxa777]

Six months ago that was still the process. But now with fleets down 90%, an inability to get new cars due to parts shortages, increased consumer demand for new cars since there is so much extra money in the system right now, manufacturers are prioritizing consumer rather than fleet sales and the fire that took out 4,000 rental cars in Fort Myers. It may be years until the rental market is where it was two years ago.

Also add in no Magical Express at the end of the year increasing demand

 

[jjb1974]

The rental car companies are the perfect "illusion of choice" model. If you don't want to ride MDE (and unless your resort is first on the circuit of stops for whatever your route is, I can't see how you'd want to), hire a car service to get you to Disney and back. Those options are well documented. Then use the internal buses so you can get into the parks early, and then either buses back to resort or Uber back. Time value of money for me, but other folks may have completely different preferences.

I rented a car, but it's for the end of my trip where I leave Universal and drive over to Cocoa Beach/Cape and have to be back at MCO at "Ungodly O'Clock" for the first thing smoking out of MCO. I just checked the websites and my rental back in February is still $50 cheaper than a similar vehicle right now.

 

[Carlnne]

Is there a better time of day to avoid the huge lines at the counters? If my flight lands at 10pm is it just as bad as 1pm?

 

[EACarlson]

First thing in the morning, or whenever there aren't a lot of flights coming in.

 

[holyrita]

First thing in the morning, or whenever there aren't a lot of flights coming in.

Is 9am considered first thing in the morning? Or would you create the reservation for earlier than that?

 

[EACarlson]

Is 9am considered first thing in the morning? Or would you create the reservation for earlier than that?

Certainly would be to me. You are going to see a lot of returns in the morning from people flying out and not too many people have landed yet. The further in the day you get the higher the number of people that have landed at MCO. I'm a little concerned with my 1pm landing time, it could be a wait, but I don't have anything else I need to do that day, work doesn't start until the next morning.

What do you mean "create the reservation for earlier?" What time you say you're going to pick up the car is irrelevant right now. If you are stuck waiting you'll be waiting in the order you showed up, not based on when your reservation was for.

 

[2PugMom]

I think we just made arrangements in Orlando to rent a compact SUV from Budget in July...but the whole car topic has given me major anxiety! We NEED a minimum of a compact SUV because we're renting a scooter and staying off-site.

 

[Robbydj13]

Isn't DME going away? And I would rather shove a steak down my pants and jump into a pit filled with hungry badgers than to get back on a WDW bus.

I honestly didnt use to feel this way as we didn't mind Disney busses to and from the parks....now days, we always rent a car, or use ride share. We always get a car if it is not too crazy priced, which now days thats hard to come by. But I am not sure how anyone could prefer Disney transportation over their own car to use....Disney transport has become madness...especially now with all the restricitons

 

[leebee]

Looking at the first post, I was IN that line in April, at Hertz, except it curved out into the walkway to about where that guy is standing. Crazy.

DH landed at MCO tonight at 6:45. He said he was in line for over an hour at Budget to get his rental (reserved). He said the agents were announcing that if you didn't have a reservation, they wouldn't have a car for you. He said it was worse in the garage, people lined up at the "skip the counter" desks. It took him 35 minutes to get out of the garage. Good times... NOT.

 

[holyrita]

What do you mean "create the reservation for earlier?" What time you say you're going to pick up the car is irrelevant right now. If you are stuck waiting you'll be waiting in the order you showed up, not based on when your reservation was for.

Yeah, I just meant that the pickup time for my reservation is currently 9am, so I plan to show up by 8:30am to get in line. I was asking if people were experiencing very long lines that early because I would modify my reservation (obviously pending availability and price at this point) to pickup earlier to try and avoid standing in line for more than a couple of hours.

 

[Weedy]

Hopefully the shortage of rental cars will be get better soon.
Here’s some pictures of one of the rental car companies car staging areas near the Orlando airport.
Looks like lots of new cars

 

[Tim215]

Hertz at rsw ( ft myers) has been getting cars in they just put a bunch of ford edges in service yesterday. Plus they have been sending extra cars to mco from here. I've seen new cars being dropped to all the major rentals at rsw. Its hit and miss on when the trucks show up with the new cars.

 

[Doug7856]

The rental for our July trip is Alamo. As I read this thread I haven't seen Alamo mentioned. Is the experience renting Alamo similar to Avis and Hertz with regard to car availability? In mid-May, we rented from Enterprise and had no problems at all, in fact, it was a very positive experience.