Kauai Rental Car

[seamare]

I had reserved a car through Thrifty for the airport - this morning I was going over all my reservations and saw that there was a Thrifty for the cruise port - which was over $30 more than at the airport. Is there two different locations and will I have to change to the cruise port pickup?

[seamare]

Well I guess I have answered my own question - I have done a search and have found all the information - should have done that first!

[birdsfly]

I have discovered the same thing. Could you please tell me what you found out???

[beachchick]

There are not two actual locations. There is only one physical location for Thrifty rental cars in Lihue (Nawiliwili is the cruise port). The difference in the two listings is this: Renters coming in by air are supposed to choose the airport (LIH) and renters coming in by cruise ship are supposed to choose the cruise pier. Thrifty sends shuttles to the piers and takes them to the airport location.

 

These secondary listings have been added by most rental companies over the past year or so. Partly this is so that they will know how many pax will need shuttles (and sometimes the drivers do have lists and will not let anyone onto the shuttle who is not on the rental list) and (this second part is primarily a guess, but logical) partly this is because the costs of sending shuttles to the pier all day and most days of the week have started to add up. It's not a long distance, but even though the cost might be small, it includes shuttles, maintenance, fuel, drivers, etc. It costs the companies more to rent to cruise pax than it does to rent to air pax. Not much, but some. The choice seemed to be to raise prices for everyone or add a second listing with higher prices for cruise pax. This seems fair to me because air pax shouldn't be expected to pay more for a service provided to cruise pax. However, the increased rates I've heard about are quite a bit higher; sometimes as much as $25 per day. That's absurd. Yes, I can see $5, but $25, no. I think they should have the same price for both pickups and give cruise pax the choice of adding shuttle pickup ($5 to $15 per rental, not per day, depending on which port because some piers are further away from the airport than others) or getting to the airport locations on their own (usually that would be by taxi, which in Lihue would cost probably $10 or so one-way).

 

As an FYI, there are no car rental companies or cars available for pick up actually at any of the piers. The closest thing to that is the Thrifty and Dollar locations at the King Kamehameha Hotel across the street from the tender pier in Kona.

 

Anyway, that's why there are two listings. There's only one rental location, but the choice is based on whether you're flying or cruising.

 

You could certainly rent from the airport location and then hope the shuttle drivers don't have lists that day. If they do, then you might (only might, not will) have to get to the airport on your own. OTOH, if you rent for a slightly later time when the shuttles aren't packed to the gills, then you might have no problem even if the drivers do have lists.

 

If you do an advanced search for "car rent" or similar and go back only 1 to 3 months, you'll get many detailed threads about renting cars on all the islands, including reviews, shuttle info, and pretty much everything you might need to know. As you can imagine, this subject comes up very frequently, so you will probably find what you need to make your choices.

 

Hope that helps.

 

beachchick

[birdsfly]

Thank you, Beachchick, that was extremely helpful!!!