Logistics Question - Car Rental/Uber/Other

[mmbrad02]

I've never visited the west coast so keep that in mind (as in, this may sound silly and not be a good plan at all). We are flying in on a Sunday afternoon and should land about 2:30pm. Originally I thought we would Uber to the Disneyland Good Neighbor Motel area (TBD). We are there till Thursday afternoon.

Being that close, I really want to add a Pacific Ocean visit in. It doesn't have to be lengthy or too exciting but really want to dip my toes in the ocean, take some photos, etc.

That said I had thought we would uber from airport to hotel, from hotel to beach, and then back. But then I got this crazy idea that maybe we should do a 1 day car rental instead. In my perfect world we would pick it up at the airport, visit the beach, maybe get dinner "off site" (Looking at you, In and Out Burger, as a potential anyway), maybe pick up some snacks/see off site souvenirs at Target/Walmart, and call it a night.

But I'm finding a lot of car rental places are not open on Sundays and don't have key drops. Does anyone know of any in the DL area that offers you to drop the key after hours? The alternative is to do an overnight rental but then we tack on hotel parking as well and have to leave the park the next day to return it. All doable, just not desirable.

Also with a car rental adds parking costs at the beach and so forth. Should we just do ubers instead?

Anyone have any opinions or info to share? Thanks!

 

[LKing]

Before I got to the end of your post, I was thinking, "Parking at the beach isn't easy and isn't free." Are you from an urban area where you are used to driving in traffic? I think ride-share might be your best bet.

Did you look at the set up that Enterprise has in the Pixar Place hotel?

 

[mmbrad02]

We are not from an Urban area but for what it's worth we have navigated larger cities like Atlanta, Orlando, Indianapolis, St Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Baltimore, etc. The most driving we have done in the west though was Las Vegas to Hoover Dam.

If we opt to rent a car, after looking at a map, I was wondering if our best bet might be a one day car rental from the airport and return it to the airport. Go from the airport to the beach, explore, and then return the car to the airport and uber to our hotel at the end. This is a June trip so I suppose I have a lot of time to mule it over

I can rent a car for $50-54 either for just that day (airport return) or for overnight. I know the beach parking is at least $15. But Ubering seems like it would add up to more than that, I know part of that though is just ease and convenience.

I have not looked into the Pixar option but I i will check on that now.

 

[mmbrad02]

Well after putting all the numbers in a spreadsheet - Yes, I think we will just Uber/Lyft. Is it save to say it's pretty easy to get a ride from the beach back to Disney?

We will uber from the airport to hotel. Hotel to beach. Beach to hotel. We will cut out In and Out Burger most likely and offsite shopping - we have Walmart+ so instead we will arrange for some drinks and snacks to be delivered to our hotel.

 

[Mle8308]

Well after putting all the numbers in a spreadsheet - Yes, I think we will just Uber/Lyft. Is it save to say it's pretty easy to get a ride from the beach back to Disney?

We will uber from the airport to hotel. Hotel to beach. Beach to hotel. We will cut out In and Out Burger most likely and offsite shopping - we have Walmart+ so instead we will arrange for some drinks and snacks to be delivered to our hotel.

Check out the prices for ride share, you can go into the apps on the same day (not same date) and time that you would expect to be requesting a ride share and entering your destinations. It will give you an approximation of the cost. I think the last time we used a rideshare from LAX to Disneyland (DL Hotel) it was a little over $100, around 11am on a Sunday. The airport wasn't too crazy. Renting a car would have been less, we did that the next trip.

 

[mmbrad02]

Check out the prices for ride share, you can go into the apps on the same day (not same date) and time that you would expect to be requesting a ride share and entering your destinations. It will give you an approximation of the cost. I think the last time we used a rideshare from LAX to Disneyland (DL Hotel) it was a little over $100, around 11am on a Sunday. The airport wasn't too crazy. Renting a car would have been less, we did that the next trip.

We are flying into SNA - it appears to be, on average, $38-41 for an Uber from there to a Good Neighbor Hotel.

I'm not opposed to renting a car but the idea not having to handle the navigation has its perks also.

 

[Mle8308]

We are flying into SNA - it appears to be, on average, $38-41 for an Uber from there to a Good Neighbor Hotel.

I'm not opposed to renting a car but the idea not having to handle the navigation has its perks also.

My apologies, I do think I remember reading that you said SNA. Yeah, rideshare is much more reasonable from there. And if you haven't downloaded and signed up for either Uber or Lyft, wait until about a week before you go. They usually offer discounts for new accounts that are valid for 1-2 weeks. And definitely check the price to the beach, it might be less to rent a car from one of the hotels in the area for the day. Plus, you could stop at In and Out Burger!

 

[mel2014]

Both the Enterprise on South Harbor and the Alamo on Katella allow after-hours return. We've done returns to both. As long as you are either picking up or dropping off at an airport, I've found Costco Travel pretty reasonably priced for one-way rentals.

We're renting for a day in April post-Disneyland to do some college tours -- picking up at Katella Alamo and dropping at Long Beach Airport for $60 total.