Transfer & Car Rental Advice

[staceyatdisney]

We land in Orlando International and need to get to Port Canaveral to embark on a 5 day RCL cruise. After the cruise we want to rent a car at Port Canaveral, drive it to Disney and use it during our 4 day stay at Disney. Lastly, we want to leave the rental car at Disney and use Magical Express for transportation back to Orlando International.

Is this doable? If so, can anyone provide advice on the most cost affective way to do it?

Thank you

 

[seashoreCM]

Shop around for your rental car. Sometimes there is a large fee for renting it at one locartion (e.g. Canaveral) and dropping it off at another (e.g. Disney). This varies during the year, so keep checking.

With car rentals you can book something and, if you see something better, cancel and rebook.

Book directly with a rental company, not with a third party such as Orbitz.

How are you doing the first leg (airport to Canaveral)?

 

[staceyatdisney]

Shop around for your rental car. Sometimes there is a large fee for renting it at one locartion (e.g. Canaveral) and dropping it off at another (e.g. Disney). This varies during the year, so keep checking.

With car rentals you can book something and, if you see something better, cancel and rebook.

Book directly with a rental company, not with a third party such as Orbitz.

How are you doing the first leg (airport to Canaveral)?

Thanks. Not sure how we'll do the airport to Canaveral leg. Have you done this? Seems we have no choice but a shuttle at around $35 per person.

 

[nacho113]

We land in Orlando International and need to get to Port Canaveral to embark on a 5 day RCL cruise. After the cruise we want to rent a car at Port Canaveral, drive it to Disney and use it during our 4 day stay at Disney. Lastly, we want to leave the rental car at Disney and use Magical Express for transportation back to Orlando International.

Is this doable? If so, can anyone provide advice on the most cost affective way to do it?

Thank you

Most cost effective way is probably to use the shuttle round trip, then take DME from MCO to your resort (just give DME a flight with a time of similar to when the shuttle should arrive back at MCO)

On a similar excursion (split stay cruise/WDW) we priced out 2 one way rental cars and found that the price was similar to the cost of the shuttle for the family (don't forget, the shuttle price is per person so costs can add up quickly if taking the whole family - our is 5).
In fact on that occasion (after watching prices for awhile), we actually booked the car for the whole 10 days and paid for parking at one of the offsite lots at Port Canaveral all for less than the cost of the round trip shuttle for our whole family!

For the cruise portion of our trip, we packed all our needed items into our carry-on bags and left our main suitcases in the trunk of the car at the parking lot. Actually saved us a little in tips since we carried our own bags on (and off during early departure) so we didn't have to tip the porters for all the checked bags. It was only a 4 day cruise so our carry-ons were plenty of room and everyone could manage their own luggage easily.

The rental car will give you more convenience if you want to do some shopping on your way back from the Port (or even on the way to the Port if you need to purchase anything for the cruise).

The rental car adds some incidental costs also: the Port is about an hours drive with $5-$6 worth of tolls in each direction so don't forget to factor in fuel costs, tolls and possibly parking (if you keep the vehicle the whole time)

 

[grumpytx]

Look at Dollar they offer city specials and sometimes they are pretty reasonable.

 

[staceyatdisney]

Many thanks. You gave an idea and I THINK I found the most cost effective and convenient way to do it. Grab the rental car shuttle (will watch prices as trip nears) at airport. Rent a car to drive port (one day rental) AND a car to drive and use at Disney. Second car rental is located at port, again, we drive that at Disney and drop it off there. We then use magic express to get back to airport. Rental is definitely cheaper than shuttle. However, the drop off (at diff location) fee is still a question regarding the cost. I called 2 agencies and both said its no problem as it's done all the time. .....neither would tell me what it would cost. The said I'd have to call back near the trip date as "rates change daily". What do you think of this plan?

 

[nacho113]

First, almost all the car rental companies are on the airport at MCO (with a couple of the real budget places needing a shuttle)
You can try checking prices directly on the car rental companies websites (alamo.com budget.com dollar.com etc.) or use a search engine like carrentalsavers.com to search several at once to see who has the best pricing (I recommend booking on the actual car rental company's website after you use the search engine to get an idea who has the best pricing first)
When you do your search on the rental car website (IE: Alamo.com) the Orlando airport code is MCO, uncheck the box that says "return to the same location" . This will give you a second box where you can type in Port Canaveral, then pick the location from the list that pops up (probably something like Cape Canaveral-Port Canaveral. Put in your dates and times (note that you will be charged the same price whether you book it for 2 hours or the full 24 hours so book to give yourself enough time to make the trip comfortably.
Most rental companies have a shuttle that will take you to the port (and one that will pick you up at the port and take you to the rental location when you return)

For the return trip use Port Canaveral again as your pickup location, for the drop off location start typing in Disneyworld and a drop down will appear with possible locations (ie: Disney Car Care Center, Disney Dolphin Resort etc). Pick the location that works for you, Car Care Center is popular (near MK) and offers a shuttle back to you resort for drop off or pickup.
Plug in you dates and times and see what you come up with (prices change often so don't get discouraged if they seem high at first).
Book what you are comfortable with and check back regularly, if prices drop book the new lower price then cancel the old reservation.
If you are finding the return prices to the CCC are high, try checking out returning to the airport (MCO). If the airport return is a lot lower, I would consider just returning the car directly to the airport and forgo the DME ride back to the airport.
If you are flying on a "participating airline" you can still use RAC and check-in your luggage at the resort (don't have to ride DME)