Rental Car Help!!

[trampslady]

Well, I thought I was so ready and prepared but I started doing some last minute (actually our cruise isn't until May 10!) confirmation calls, etc. and found that Budget may not be the best car rental company to use for this trip. We plan to fly into Orlando late Wednesday night, pick up a car (for the first time ever!) and drive to WDW. We are staying there three nights and plan to drive to Cape Canaveral on Saturday morning and drop off the car there. Our plan was to also pick up another car on the date of our return from the cruise and drop it off at Orlando airport the same evening.

I called the Cocoa Beach Budget office direct to confirm that they were indeed the closest location to the terminal and to verify that they have shuttle service. The Manager seemed very unsure whether shuttle service would be provided. She said "we could always take a cab to and from their office and the terminal" .......NOT!!!! I asked if there was a problem because she wanted to know what dates and she then said, "well, we should have shuttle service then."

I'm not happy with the uncertainty of her response! Can you guys help me with a sure bet on rental car service that DOES provide a shuttle to and from their office to the terminal? Also, any great ways to ensure a good rate would be helpful too!!

thanks!

 

[Dave_from_Marietta]

Although you dialed the local #, your call was routed to a national call center. If you had spoken to a person at the local office, (s)he would have been able to tell you definitetively that they <b><i>do</i></b> have a courtesy shuttle. The person at the national call center didn't know, but she bluffed her way through her answer because she didn't want to seem unhelpful.

 

[mmouse37]

I hope so, becasue we are renting from Budget for the first time this May 24 when we leave the ship.....we always booked with Avis who definately has the shuttle, but this time we needed a 15 passenger van and budget had it and Avis did not. Worse comes to worse, one of us will take a cab to the Budget location and drive the van pack to the terminal to pick up the rest of us.

MJ

 

[trampslady]

I sure hope you are right, Dave. She seemed like she was there and talked a bit about hiring, staffing, etc. Very bumfuzzled woman.......

 

[DonnaDavid]

I'm positive that when I got off the Magic on March 30, we waited a while for a spot on the one Avis shuttle. There were 2 lrg. Budget shuttle vans parked right in front of us - totally empty.

 

[markey]

We used Budget last August, and unless something has changed there was a van, just like Avis which we had used before. Just told the porter we were using Budget and he took our luggage to the pick up location. Used before curise also and husband had no trouble dropping off the car and returning to the terminal. Have a car booked for August this year to do the same thing.

 

[mcnuss]

I saw the Budget van in November and at the time, remember regretting that I had not used them bc there were so many darned people for Avis and about 3 for Budget.

You made the best choice! (Plus, imho, Budget cars are nicer.)

 

[tkd lisa]

We've used Avis and Hertz for our cruises. I had checked with Budget. For our first cruise (May last year) they didn't have a shuttle. I did see a budget shuttle on our Jan cruise.

I understand that Hertz has now moved closer to the port. When we used them last May, it took us about 20 minutes to get to them, then the van had just left so it was about an hour after we dropped the car before we got to the ship.

Avis in Jan took us about 40 minutes due to waiting through 2 shuttles to get on. For our return though we waited about 10 minutes.