Rental Car Return

[goodywagon]

I am sure this is one question that has been answered sevaral times....sorry for the duplication.

I will have a Rental Car prior to the cruise. Is there locations to return cars at the Cruise Port or is it best to return at the airport and grab a cab/shuttle back to the Port?

Thanks for your help. Renting via Budget.

 

[dizneefreak29]

I am going on a cruise in June. I reserved a car through Budget. We are staying the night at the Radisson the day before and then returning the car to the Budget Rental at the Cape Canaveral location, They have a free shuttle to Port Canaveral. I've never done it this way before so I hope it works out okay!

 

[sherrias]

We just returned from our cruise and we had rented from Budget. My husband dropped the kids and me off at the terminal and we checked in while he returned the car and came back on the Budget shuttle. We were all checked in when he returned. It worked great!

Sherri

 

[mom23]

How did you get back to the airport after the cruise? I was wondering about this because we are going on Wonder October 23rd. Since we are going to Universal Studios and NASA before the cruise, I thought it would be easier to rent a car. I thought I read somewhere that you could park your car for free at the Radisson while you cruised. I just hate to pay for 4 days that it will sit in a parking lot. I would be interested to hear what others have done in the past.

 

[Greysword]

I dropped off at Budget before our Jan 23rd cruise (a Sunday). We actually got to the car rental place a little after 9am, and there were quite a few people there from the RCCL ship. They took the keys for my Taurus fast and got whisked me through the line to get it checked in for a quick turn around.

Budget had three passenger vans running to and from the port. The driver took us right to the Wonder and we were the third family in line about 9:45am.

Showing up early made all aspects of the arrival process move very swiftly.

As for getting to the airport, you could buy transfers. We did that to get to WDW afterwards, and it took no time at all. Plus you can check your luggage early on specific airlines with transfers.

Oh, the Budget car center is down the road from the Raddison opposite the port. I wouldn't hold the car for the cruise, just get a new one when you get back if thats what you want. It may be cheaper, however, to keep the car on a weekly rate and return it back into the airport after the cruise than to do a one way rental.

 

[mmouse37]

As mentioned, you could keep the rental the whole week and pay for parking at the port, or keep it at the Radisson. Or, you could do two one-way rentals...drop off your car at the Cocoa Beach/port location on the morning of the cruise and then pick up another car the day you get off the cruise. This way you have a car for whatever you want to do before your flight home.

check out www.mousesavers.com for some rental car codes that may save you some bucks. We have often done the two one-way rentals and it has always worked out great!!!

MJ

 

[mom23]

I will look into the price on both. It was about $200 for a full size car rental for the 10 days or so that we were going to be gone which I thought was pretty good since the transfers would have cost us more than that. I will check into the one way rates as well. Thanks for the heads-up on the discount codes...will check those out as well. How far in advance should I book the car? We are going in October.

 

[mmouse37]

I always book a rental car right at the rental agencies website....most sites let you modify a reservation. I book it and then keep checking the prices every once and awhile or try a new code if one comes available......for our January cruise I booked the car in October (when we booked the cruise). I kept checking the website and went from $337 original quote booked for 8 days for an SUV) down to $207 for the same period!! I just kept redoing the reservation. I would price out a new reservation and then if I like the price I modified my existing reservation to show the new discount codes, etc. Then

MJ

 

[Corryn]

Hello,
We're doing this exact thing.
We all rented from Budget. We're traveling in on a Wednesday, picking the car up at MCO, staying for 4 nights at Disney, then Sunday morning travel to Port Canaveral for the 4 night cruise. We're dropping our car off at Budget when we get there, then going on the cruise and when we come back, we'll go back and pick it up from Budget again. Then we're spending 4 more days in Orlando and dropping the car off at MCO.
I got my car, for 11 days, for $250. With Taxes. That's also with a Costco discount. That's pretty cheap for a Full Sized Taurus. There's also a coupon for Budget for a Free Tank Of Gas that I'm using when I get there.

Veranda Man was very helpful when I posted on this same topic, because he did the same thing.

Hope this helped

 

[goodywagon]

Thank you all for the help. Seems to be pretty straight-forward. We will plan to do the same. Only 3 weeks until we leave. Looking forward to it.

 

[TooPure4u]

I booked through budget and dropped it off before the cruise and set up a separate reservation for the day I returned from the cruise. Since my plane wasnt taking off until 430, we used the car and went to downtown disney for a couple hours, drove the rental to the airport and dropped it off. Cost me 33 dollars for the day....worked out great and budget van shuttles are pretty prompt.