Renting a car

[Mr. Pig]

I'm surprised there aren't more replies on this!

We will be staying onsite in Sept for the first time, and I am not sure if we should keep a car or not. We'll be at the Carib Resort, and plan to get a car to go "off campus" for the first 2 days, but are not sure if we should keep it for the rest of our stay.

My travel agent suggested renting a car from the rental place inside Disney. Pros? Cons?

Anyone willing to offer up more info on Bus Wait Times, and (especially) making it on time to dinner reservations using the busses/onsite transportation?

Thanks!!

Pros - Onsite. If you call a day ahead they will pick you up with a shuttle to take you to the Car Care Center (near the parking lot toll booths at MK). They will also take you back to your resort when you drop it off. There is a Hess station right at CCC so you can fill the tank right there when you return it. You can make use of ME bus from and back to the airport. We usually rent a car for just a portion of our stay so this works well for us. I usually get in and out of the CCC pretty quick.
Cons - It does take time out of the vacation to pick up and drop off. If you rent at the airport for the entire stay it would be quicker. I believe it costs a little more to rent onsite.

Bus wait times are hard to pin down. Usually you want to schedule about an hour to get to a reservation just in case. The buses run about every 15-20 minutes but not on a set schedule. You can get lucky and just walk on or wait half an hour. CBR has several stops that the bus has to make but is fairly centrally located distancewise to the parks. Buses are most crowded early in the morning and at park closing.

 

[miprender]

I find the prices at the Car Care Center quite high.

You could also rent from Enterprise. They have an office on World Drive. They picked up DH from POFQ and when we returned the car they dropped him off again. We just needed to schedule a day ahead for the pickup at our resort.

Our next trip we will be using Dollar and they have an office at the Regal Sun Resort and their prices were more reasonable for a midsize car we are getting. We haven't used them before but we are told they will pick us up at our resort too.

Personally I love having a car. We have 3 little ones and with the strollers I didn't feel like I was taking up all the space on the bus. We didn't need to wait for the bus and it was no big deal if they fell asleep in the car.

The only con, like another PP stated it just takes sometime out of your vacation, but not too much maybe a 1/2 hr each time.

 

[sigmaphi289]

With regards to a great deal on minivans, we were able to get one from Advantage from Oct. 17 to 24th, just over a week for $186.22. With all the other stuff the total cost will be $250, which killed everything out there from the other guys. With Advantage, you need to reserve as fast as possible the minivans sell out so quickly due to their cheap pricing.

 

[dansyr2514]

We are going in October for DH's 60th birthday surprise. He is not the disney enthusist that I am however the F&W fest will be right up his alley. ( I hope) Plus, we are taking his bestfriend, DGD. He always likes a car no matter where we stay in the kingdom. The last time we did without and he was miserable. I think no matter where you stay in the park having a car is a good thing. Bus scheduling aside, its just nice to have your own set of wheels for that emergency when running late for a dinner res. etc.

I can totally relate. First time my dbf and I went to Disney together he was miserable waiting for busses. Although, we has some abnormally long wait times. Over an 1 1/2 hrs one time at typhoon lagoon....you want to see some angry people
Next time we rented a car and it was so much easier. You didn't have to leave an hour early to get to a dinner reservation 5 miles away.
I wholeheartedly recommend car rental, plus it gives you the option of running to a grocery store, drugstore or shopping at the outlets if you want. We rented right at the airport and we flew into sanford. With a car, really not a long drive at all...maybe 40 min .

 

[kehlyrsmom]

I found a good rate for dollar on mousesavers.com for a min-van. This is our 4th trip in a row and we have always rented a mini-van but I also have two kids on the autism spectrum and want to be able to have our own space and be able to leave in a hurry if we have to.

 

[satorifound]

With regards to a great deal on minivans, we were able to get one from Advantage from Oct. 17 to 24th, just over a week for $186.22. With all the other stuff the total cost will be $250, which killed everything out there from the other guys. With Advantage, you need to reserve as fast as possible the minivans sell out so quickly due to their cheap pricing.

I checked. Their minivans are sold out. Thank you though.

 

[VAN]

We've camped at Ft Wilderness many times so I know the situation there. If you don't want to spend the extra money to rent a car, you will be perfectly fine without a rental car. Just use one of those grocery delivery service to order some bottle water, snacks, etc since you will have a kitchen at the cabins.

Now, if you do have the money, I agree with the others that you will be happy to have a car. It really cuts down on the frustration of waiting for a bus, etc.

However, the nice thing about WDW is that they do have transportation, so if your group splits up the ones without a car still have a way to get around. This is especially nice when you have older children that may want to stay later at a park, etc.

From Ft. Wilderness, I would NOT drive the car to the Magic Kingdom though. Just take the internal bus to the marina and take the boat. Such a relaxing and magical way to get to the MK. If you drove, you would still have to take a boat or monorail, so you have just saved yourself some time/effort by taking the FW boat to the MK.

The other resorts, though, I would most likely drive.

Now, we are going to be at Pop Century on Sept 25th and I had a car reserved through National to pick-up via the Car Car Center and then dropping off at the airport (8 days) ... the price was $205 for a mid-sized. Today, however, I was able to get a car to-from the airport for $192. Far out the rates were lower, then they got sky-high, now (three weeks out), they seem to be coming back down.

I signed up for the Emerald Club through the mousesavers.com link (free) and am using the AAA discount code (also listed at mousesavers.com) and a $35 off e-coupon.

Another note ... if you think you need a big car specifically to carry your luggage, you may want to have part of your group take the DME and then the luggage will be delivered to your cabin. You can pick up the car, making a grocery stop, and meet them at the cabin. You'll all squeeze into the car for your trips to the parks etc. When leaving, use the DME again or if your airline is a "partner" airline, do remote check-in with your baggage.

This may work for you so that you don't have to get such a large car (e.g. keep costs down).

 

[satorifound]

I am thinking renting a compact at National on site and returning it there sounds like a good idea. Dilly can sit on his brother's lap. That way the luggage problem is taken care of and cost is much lower for a compact.

 

[Praying Colonel]

1. Keep checking on rates right up to the end. We rented a car for our 07 trip, and 4 days before we left we got a $115 rate (including taxes) through AAA for a midsize for a week. That was about 40% less than what we were going to pay.

2. Always sign up for the VIP program, especially if it's free. We rented through Thrifty and signed up for their Blue Chip program. It was free, and we were in and out in 15 minutes, passing up the other line that ran out the door. We felt like we had FastPasses.

 

[wolf2961]

Check prices @ Priceline or Hotwire. You'll save a significant amount of $$$ and they only use companies IN the terminal @ MCO, so no time wasted on shuttles off-site. For us, it's absolutely worth the $35 a day that we spent on a car to get around. At the Cabins you park right in the driveway of your home, instead of taking a bus from the Parks, then another bus into the Campground. The Cabins also have kitchens, so having a car makes it easy to stop on the way from MCO for provisions (We use the Super Target on the way).

 

[Brian_WDW74]

I've moved this thread to the Transportation board.

 

[FigmentChick]

UGH The decision is SOOO hard. What makes it harder is we need a mini van because there are 6 of us. It costs double of a small car.

I'm with you there! Although...I might have good news for you. I got a minivan rental for ten days for $416 through Thrifty. It also has an additional driver free.

I cannot reiterate enough that you have to continue to check the rental websites to see if the rate has gone down!!! Example - when my family last went in Oct 2007 I had originally made ressies months in advance. Four days before we left, I checked the website again and, lo and behold, the rate was cut in half!!!

Good luck all. BTW - mousesavers has excellent rental car coupon codes!

 

[Stinky_Pete]

I am thinking renting a compact at National on site and returning it there sounds like a good idea. Dilly can sit on his brother's lap. That way the luggage problem is taken care of and cost is much lower for a compact.

?!? Am I reading this correctly? You are going to have someone sit on someone's lap in a compact car to save a few bucks?

I thought that kind of thinking went out in the 60's or 70's. Now-a-days there are seat belt laws. I don't see how they could be adequately restrained if one person is sitting on someone else's lap.