Rent in Orlando, drop at Fort Myers?

[smkaether]

We will need to rent a car the first week of April, for after our 5 days at WDW, we will be driving to visit family in Naples for a few days and then flying out of Fort Myers. Does anyone have ANY suggestions, experiences, or any info at all they could share with me? I'm totally new at the car rental thing, and don't even know where to start!

 

[LKMang]

we are planning on doing the same thing in December (disney then captiva island). ive starting pricing around and found dollar rental cars to be the cheapest by far. it was still pretty expensive to me (about $450 for 9 days) but others were almost double. my advise is to check each rental car company and keep checking as ive found prices to change all the time.

 

[debster812]

We are doing exactly this in 10 days or so. I could not get flights that I liked flying into Ft Myers, so we booked a non-stop flight with a great time, into MCO. We'll rent from Alamo there, and drive to my parent's house in Bonita Springs. We stay 8 days, and are flying out of RSW.

Most car rental sites have the option to put in a different drop off location. As of right now, Alamo & National do NOT have a drop fee. I believe when I was looking, Thrifty did have a sizable drop fee, I don't recall about Budget, Avis or Hertz.

Now, if you wanted to save some money, and are staying on-site at WDW, you could fly in to MCO, take Magical Express to your resort, and not pick up your rental until the following day. There are several companies that have locations on-site, and will come with a shuttle to pick you up. (Alamo/National at the Car Care Center), and there are other locations at a couple of the Downtown Disney hotels. We've done this in the past, even if we were staying at WDW for the whole vacation. We pick up the car on Day 2, and drop it off the day before we leave for home, and let DME bring us to and from the airport. That way we save on 2 days rental fees, and DH does not have to ride the buses all week. (He is not a fan of public transportation)

 

[smkaether]

We are staying at POR, and don't care to have a car rental until the day we leave. I will look into Alamo and National. Anyone have any deals they know of for 1st week of April?

 

[JennSaint]

www.rentalcodes.com is a great site that offers different codes for the car rental companies.

 

[tegdig]

I do this all of the time. Either rent at MCO and return to RSW or TPA. Just got back from a trip that we rented at RSW and returned from MCO. I used to use National all of the time, but now it seems that Alamo is a much better deal. A couple of trips ago I used Budget and just was not impressed with their agents upon renting....just real hard sells for ad-ons,etc. With Alamo I just always rent online then check in at the kiosk and don't wait in any lines. This past trip I booked in the fall and kept watching my reservation for better deals, I was OK with my cost on original reservation with Alamo because it was the best of the companies then, but within the last couple of weeks before I went it dropped twice and I really got a wonderful rate by the time I went. Atleast as of now, there doesn't seem to be a big difference in price to me to drop the car at another city and all of the major companies are usually onsite at the airport. Just make sure you get one that is.

 

[emmabelle]

I'm picking up at RSW in March and dropping off at the small airport in Naples when I visit my parents. Alamo had a compact for $22 a day doing it this way. The price went up to $40 a day from Alamo if I did a round trip back to RSW. I'll just get my dad to drive me over to the Naples airport to drop off the car on my last day. I'm lucky that he can take me back to RSW to fly home.



Edited to add-

glad I booked this last week, it went up to $38 a day from $22 for the one way rental. It would be $56 a day for a round trip rental (for a compact).