Car rental return near Port Canaveral

[Tahoenation17]

We will be sailing in late May out of Port Canaveral. We are traveling from Fort Myers and will have six people plus luggage.  I am thinking of renting a van to get us there in one vehicle.  Is there a drop off and pick up location near the port.  We tried this years ago in Miami and it was a disaster for us.  I am trying to avoid taking 2 cars and having to pay parking fees for both.  Any advice is appreciated. 

[rbell]

Budget 5 mins away,and they have a free shuttle to and from port.

[Tahoenation17]

Thank you.

[robtulipe]

Enterprise has a location at  710 Mullet Rd  in Cape Canaveral which is about 3/8 of a mile just west of Terminal 1. 

[1025cruise]

A better place to ask would be the Florida Departures Board.

[WeMissSeaView]

Dollar is not far away and they have shuttles to and from the port.

[Mbelle97]

There are quite a few rental places just a few miles away. My husband dropped off our whole group and luggage and then went to return and shuttle back. Worked great.

[Capt_BJ]

national alamo enterprise ... shared office

hertz

budget

dollar thrifty

avis

 

from nearest to further .. all run shuttles all wiithin 10 min.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Capt_BJ

[voyager70]

We've also used Budget multiple times with positive experiences.

 

[ATC cruiser]

19 hours ago, Mbelle97 said:

There are quite a few rental places just a few miles away. My husband dropped off our whole group and luggage and then went to return and shuttle back. Worked great.

And when you return the following week do the reverse. One person takes the rental shuttle to the agency and comes back with the rental car to pick you up. Much easier than trying to get six people on the shuttle with luggage. 

Edited February 11, 2020 by ATC cruiser

[Illbcruzn4life]

we just used Budget last week with no problems.

 

If you were asking about getting a car from Budget after the cruise that is another story.

[TiiiSailor]

Although many of the car rental returns are only a couple minute drive from the terminal, due to the potential crowd of people returning cars and needing a ride back to the cruise terminals, give yourself plenty of time. 

 

We had seen of us in a minivan.  He dropped off everyone and the luggage, than drove to the rental car return.  Due to the multitudes of people, some with all their luggage and family the driver didn't return for over an hour.

 

That was our experience.

[Teeara]

We used Alamo and it is right by the port.  Fantastic location that was like 2 minutes away from the ship.  They have a shuttle that goes back and forth between the office and the ship.  We dropped off the car there and were whisked away in no time.  Just make sure you get on the right shuttle!  They are listed on the front as to which ship they are going to.  They have dedicated shuttles to each cruiseline, so one only goes to Disney cruises, one to Carnival and one to RCI there at PC.  I wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

[Baowen]

I have used Enterprise which has a drop off at the terminal (710 Mullet Road)  We just dropped off the car and then walked over to the terminal.  No waiting for a shuttle bus.

[Another_Critic]

58 minutes ago, Baowen said:

I have used Enterprise which has a drop off at the terminal (710 Mullet Road)  We just dropped off the car and then walked over to the terminal.  No waiting for a shuttle bus.

 

I used Enterprise back in November when we were docked at terminal 1 and also walked back after dropping off the car.

 

I booked Enterprise again for later this month, but we'll be docked at terminal 6.  From what I understand you cannot walk across the bridge to get to/from Enterprise.

[Russ Lomas]

A word of advice, be sure to drop everyone and ALL luggage off at the pier and then take the vehicle to the rental place by yourself, and vice versa after the cruise, go by yourself to the rental place and then go pick up everyone and the luggage from the pier.  If you try to take the shuttle from the rental place (or to it) with you entire party of 7 or so, you will have a very hard time fitting everyone plus the luggage into the shuttle since so many people want the shuttle.  It is simple to do if you are a single person with no luggage - just hop on and claim the best seat while all the others worry about seeing their luggage get loaded before boarding the shuttle.

 

Walking between the pier and the rental place is an option too (without family and luggage).  I did this once and it is a simple walk if you know where you are going, the weather cooperates, and depending on which pier your ship is docked at.  Five minute walk.

[Illbcruzn4life]

12 hours ago, Russ Lomas said:

A word of advice, be sure to drop everyone and ALL luggage off at the pier and then take the vehicle to the rental place by yourself, and vice versa after the cruise, go by yourself to the rental place and then go pick up everyone and the luggage from the pier.  If you try to take the shuttle from the rental place (or to it) with you entire party of 7 or so, you will have a very hard time fitting everyone plus the luggage into the shuttle since so many people want the shuttle.  It is simple to do if you are a single person with no luggage - just hop on and claim the best seat while all the others worry about seeing their luggage get loaded before boarding the shuttle.

 

Walking between the pier and the rental place is an option too (without family and luggage).  I did this once and it is a simple walk if you know where you are going, the weather cooperates, and depending on which pier your ship is docked at.  Five minute walk.

 

Our experience with Budget only "picking up" a car, I would not recommend leaving your party at the pier while you get the vehicle as Budget has very few cars onsite after the cruise and you will have to sit and wait until people going on the next cruise bring their cars back starting about 10a - 10:30am.

 

Your party could be waiting for awhile back at the pier. Just my experience with Budget. This happened twice although my whole party came over on the shuttle so we all sat at the Budget office until we got a vehicle.

 

YMMV

[jcjrsmith]

The last time we sailed out of Port Canaveral, we flew into Orlando the day before the cruise and rented a car from National. We spent the night in a new (then) Homewood Suites near the port, then drove over to the ship after breakfast. I dropped the wife and kids at check-in and drove over to the National return center (maybe 2 miles). Dropped off the vehicle, then grabbed the free shuttle back to the ship. I was gone for maybe 20 minutes. 

[Russ Lomas]

20 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

 

Our experience with Budget only "picking up" a car, I would not recommend leaving your party at the pier while you get the vehicle as Budget has very few cars onsite after the cruise and you will have to sit and wait until people going on the next cruise bring their cars back starting about 10a - 10:30am.

 

Your party could be waiting for awhile back at the pier. Just my experience with Budget. This happened twice although my whole party came over on the shuttle so we all sat at the Budget office until we got a vehicle.

 

YMMV

We used Alamo/Enterprise when going into/out of Port Canaveral and had no issues at all.  I will keep in mind to maybe avoid Budget out of there if we cruise there again.  Thanks for the input.

[rbell]

20 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

 

Our experience with Budget only "picking up" a car, I would not recommend leaving your party at the pier while you get the vehicle as Budget has very few cars onsite after the cruise and you will have to sit and wait until people going on the next cruise bring their cars back starting about 10a - 10:30am.

 

Your party could be waiting for awhile back at the pier. Just my experience with Budget. This happened twice although my whole party came over on the shuttle so we all sat at the Budget office until we got a vehicle.

 

YMMV

If you pre book your car it is waiting for you when you get there.

[Illbcruzn4life]

1 hour ago, rbell said:

If you pre book your car it is waiting for you when you get there.

 

I always have a reservation months ahead whenever going on a trip. We are fastbreak members.

 

Believe me there was no car there for my family nor a few others. We had an other family with us and they also had a reservation which I made.

 

We both had to wait. They got their car first while we waited for another vehicle to be returned.

 

When another vehicle was returned about 15 minutes later it was not cleaned or checked for a full tank of gas which I did not realize until on the road. The paperwork I received said it was a full tank of gas when in fact there was only about 3/4 tank when we received the car and when I returned the car it filled it to where it was when I received the car.

 

Also when I realized it wasn't full I pulled off the road and took a picture of the odometer and gas gauge. At the Budget office at the airport they accused me of taking a picture of another vehicles odometer and gas gauge.

 

There were still other families waiting for a car but I can't say whether they had reservations or not.

 

Budget at MCO charged me a fee of about $150 for not filling it back up completely. It took me about 2 weeks of back and forth with Budget to get the fee dropped.

 

Because of that incident when we were down there again last week we just took the cruise lines bus to avoid any problems since it was just 2 of us.

 

[bobmacliberty]

If you do plan to rent a car after the cruise, I'd suggest that the person picking up the car get off the ship early...ahead of the rest of your party.  Walk off with no luggage and go straight to the rental car location.  As others have noted, picking up cars can be challenging.  These are not large rental car locations with many cars.  They will have a few on site but then need to wait for the people going on a cruise the following week to drop off before more cars are available.

 

I got there early, grabbed a car that was available, and then drove less than a mile to the Burger King in front of the Residence Inn.  Meanwhile my family had breakfast at Windjammer and then proceeded off the ship with my luggage at a normal pace.  While I was relaxing over a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich, they texted me saying that they were waiting at the curb.  I picked them up and we were off to the airport. 

 

Be careful relying on a rental car return for an early flight out of MCO.  Even with a reservation, you don't know if a car will be available.  My strategy has worked (2 for 2) but is no guarantee.  You may be stuck at the rental car counter waiting until after 9:00 for a car.

Edited February 17, 2020 by bobmacliberty

[cruisecraze96]

We rent from National due to no one way fees and low rate. Our experience is to get to the rental car area early.  We dropped off in the morning and they put our names on the shuttle list. It took about 2 or 3 shuttles before we got on one to head to port, roughly 20 minutes.  
 

On the day we returned I picked up another car to head to Ft Lauderdale and that was pretty quick.  Didn’t have to wait long to get return shuttle and get our suv and run off.