Avis - Port Everglade

[RealDeal]

Does anyone have recent experience returning a car there? They're supposed to have a shuttle to the ships, but I've read numerous reviews saying no shuttle. 

[CruiserBruce]

Dig up the office phone number and call them. Best to hear the situation direct from the horse's mouth, as things have been all gummed up post Covid.

[Vagabond Knight]

Not recent, but we used them two years ago on our last cruise, and it was extremely stressful.  Getting to the rental car lot was a nightmare.  The traffic was gridlocked in the area and I can't even tell you how long it took to get into the lot.  Now you may experience the same issue if you're driving your own car in... don't really know because I'm not familiar enough with the area to know if we'd be trying to get into the port the same way or not. It took an hour and a half to get on a shuttle into the port, not counting the actual drive. The line of people waiting for a shuttle was wrapped around the building, with everyone standing out in the hot sun (I guess I should have been glad it wasn't raining, though).  I don't recall if they were running one or two shuttles, but the round trip for the shuttle took quite a while because they also had to deal with the gridlock.  There are probably far fewer people these days with the more limited capacity on the ships, so may not be as bad.  Can't answer whether or not they're running shuttles these days or how positive/negative an experience it is, but last time it was awful.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Vagabond Knight
Clarification

[TXGREG]

Has anyone returned a car to the Airport and then gone to the Port? Does Avis have a shuttle to the Port or should I just call an Uber/Lyft/Taxi?

[Corby114]

There is no shuttle service from FLL to Port Everglades from any of the car rental companies. That service was discontinued more than three plus years ago. My recent cruise in January 2022 I dropped off my rental at the Budget airport location and carried our luggage out of the terminal to the ground floor arrivals area. The taxi line for a Sunday was very short and we ended up with a minivan for the short ten minute ride over to Port Everglades. The trip with tip was twenty dollars. At the conclusion of the sailing the trip cost me twenty five dollars. Before the pandemic some major  car rental companies provided free shuttle service from there locations just outside of Port Everglades. They included Alamo with their location on Eller Drive. 

[FreestyleNovice]

There is a Budget/Avis location with a free shuttle to and from Port Everglades. Good service, they shuttle per ship so no unneeded waiting. Will use them again!

 

https://www.budget.com/en/locations/us/fl/fort-lauderdale/ev3

 

A bit further down the road is a large Sixt branch, although Streetview showed some courtesy shuttle looking vans I was not able to find out online if they actually do shuttle to Port Everglades. Budget also had better rental prices so I kept to Budget.