Car Rental in Sardinia, has anyone tried this??

[T-2]

We will be in port in Nov. and after considering a guide have decided to rethink this and maybe renting a car would work out better. Not many ships make port here but I'm hoping someone out there has maybe experienced this?? The stick shift is not a problem (and there are 4 of us to help read maps and spot signs), it will definitely be off season, but wondering how anyone else found the roads on this island- quite manageable, incredible views, couldn't wait to take the car back, hard to find parking that you could understand (unfortunately none of us speak Italian although we will carry a cheat sheet and look up common road signs in Italian).

 

Anyone out there at all who might have driven in Sardinia Any feedback at all is much appreciated. Our port is Olbia but we can't find a single mention of anyone having rented a car there for the day. Was anyone else this adventurous???? Please!

[T-2]

I never had any luck with an answer to this but we did do it ourselves on our Nov. Insignai sailing. It worked wonderfully. The roads heading north from Olbia were well marked and in Nov. there was little traffic. And little opportunity to get lost (you do need to watch the route you took out of town but we made it back without any problems).

 

A few tips in case anyone else is intrigued with this option. We had asked the Olbia tourist rep who came on board where we might find a car rental agency and that was one thing she didn't know. But a ride out to the airport just to pick up a rental will set you back 20 euros each way (which seemed a lot since it wasn't very far).

 

There is another option. The town seems to provide shuttles to get you from the port to the town center. I believe the building it let us out at was their City Hall. If you're looking at the face of the building that's the direction you want to head in. We traveled maybe a 10 min walk to where there was a larger square open area- here a couple nice officers pointed us to continue on , we were maybe less than 5 min. further. This led us to PalaRent di Agata Pala, where we were able to rent a 4 person vehicle for 50 euros with unlimited milage- all we had to do was drop off the keys in the mailbox and leave the gas tank full when we were done. I'm looking at the card I picked up so I'd have some info to post and they do have a web site http://www.palarent.it This particular office was on Via Regina Elena 119/a but we found it without even knowing that much.

 

I hope this helps someone else, we traveled northward of Olbia and got some gorgeous pictures. The town itself was nicer than I'd expected and rather than a disappointing day- we really had a nice time. In fact, our whole cruise on Oceania was fantastic. No crowds in Nov., lucked out with great weather and a delightful cruise.

[euro cruiser]

Thanks for reporting back on this, it's interesting to read about ports other than the big three.

 

For anyone interested, the Italian yellow pages list four car rental agencies within a half kilometer of the port: http://www.paginegialle.it/pgol/4-autonoleggio/3-olbia?ind=banchina%20isola%20bianca

[T-2]

now don't I wish we'd known that. We had checked with AAA here in the US and they only knew of the companies from the airport. Which we knew was close but hadn't realized the cab fare would be so high. The rates in town we less than half what it would have cost us from the airport, plus the time saved And skipping the cab cost. Part of what pushed us to explore this option was the local guides here charge so much for tours and all 3 that we contacted wanted a deposit of about 300 euro's paid up front by wire transfer. This is a huge risk if for any reason weather causes your ship to miss a port or deviate it's itinerary. The road signage is excellent and there aren't many chances to get lost, if you look at a map of the island you'll see there aren't a lot of roads between communities- it's pretty straight forward. We're really glad we went with the rental. It gave us a chance to see why this island is such a popular destination.... it's certainly bigger than we expected. The town of Olbia was also a lot nicer than we'd read. Just takes a little research to make for a great port day. I'll keep the yellow pages in mind for next time. I know a lot of people just write this port off but we really had a nice time here- it was just hard finding positive info.

[euro cruiser]

This is one of the great values of boards like this. Many of us have a few pieces of the puzzle, when we put all of our pieces together it's amazing what we collectively know.

[gailnnels]

We just returned from a W. Med cruise and were able to rent a car from Hertz (via phone before we departed) and were able to pick up and drop off in town. The office which is walking distance to the port is open all day and does not close during the afternoon. The car we requested was there when we arrived and we were very pleased with the car and the desk agent.