Car Rental In Hawaii...

[rplindsay]

I'm in the process of trying to reserve car rentals for my upcoming Hawaii cruise - will be stopping in Hilo, Kona, Honolulu, Kauai, and Lahaina. When reserving my cars in these ports, are the car rentals all located at the airports and do they provide shuttle service to the ports? Thanks for the tips...

[cruisesusie]

We recently returned from our Hawaii cruise and rented a car in Hilo, Oahu and Kauai. We used Budget for Hilo and Kauai and National for Oahu. They all provided free shuttle service to their rental offices. National doesn't provide shuttle service to the airport, so we rented in Waikiki. Hilo and Kauai have their offices at the airport. We had one small problem with National - when we picked up the car we asked the time of the last suttle back to the pier and we told 8 p.m. - we returned the car at 6 and were told the last shuttle left at 5. We took a cab back to the ship, no big deal, but it was annoying. I researched the prices on the car rental web sites and then called the offices directly to confirm shuttle pick up - some of them want you to call their office when you dock and others will automatically be there so you have to check that. You can make the actual reservations either with the local office or on the web-site - I did it throuigh the local office. It went very smoothly - driving around the islands is easy and they provide good maps.

 

Susan

[CruisinChris]

I used Hertz everywhere but Kuaui where we did a ship's excursion. In Kona the rental is at the airport and there was a shuttle. Same in Lahaina. Seems to me in Lahaina that the shuttle left from a hotel close to the tender pier. It was all very easy and we loved having the freedom of the car. Driving through Volcanoes National Park from Hilo was especially awesome and memorable!

[GloriaF]

We used Budget and made our reservations direct, but first visited a website called hawaiicarrentals.com, I think was the name. Anyway, you put in all your affiliations and they give you a code to give the operator. It resulted in a little less $ for the rentals. We loved having a car, and would do the same thing if we were going back.

[rplindsay]

Thanks for the tip GloriaF - I think I will give it a shot and book through that website.