Subsonic Radio

Holy Cow!! I'm in the process of reserving airline tickets, rental car, etc. for our trip to WDW in late September. The prices for an 8 day compact rental at Orlando airport are unbelieveable!! Most on site agencies are quoting prices in excess of $350 !! I expect price increases from the airlines but what's with a rental car? It's not like the gas is included. I'm going to do some homework to see if I can get the price down, but the price last year for the same time frame and length was under $125. Anybody assuming a convenient length of stay rental car better check the rates before they find out the hard way the rates don't seem to be like they have been in the past. There are some off site rental car companies that are cheaper but I've heard some horror stories about out of state renters getting blindsided weeks later for additional charges from some of the lesser known agencies.

I feel you. We booked our car for our upcoming trip in March. As a family of 4 with three suitcases, we went for the full size. It will cost us in the mid $200's. The best thing I can tell you is try every single discount (AAA, Costco, BJ's, etc.). Also, look for coupons at Costco and BJ's in addition to the discount. I also say call all the companies a few times since we found rates varying by call. My recommendations are Avis for on-site and Hertz if you want to take the bus.

Is ther a way You can use Magical express? It does save a lot of money.

Magical Express is great for what it is, but it really limits your ability to conveniently resort hop. We always rent a car for maxium flexibilty and always onsite at the airport.

Are you a member of Emerald Club with National Car Rental? Click this link to join for free:

http://www.nationalcar.com/index.do?act ... eCode=9998

Once you've enrolled go to rates and reservations and use the following CONTRACT CODE: 8572967 and the following COUPON CODE: NWEBCPN027 and see if that gets your rate down. I just rented a mininvan for 8 days in December with these codes and the total price was $197.61. I can't guarantee these codes will work for your dates, nor how long the codes will be effective, but worth a shot.

Good luck.

Car Hire $40 for 14 days with Dollar.

Insurance for the hire car $397 for 14 days

As for DME saving you money. Time is money even when you are on vacation. I know people say they have shown up and walked on to the DME bus checked in gone to the parks and come back and there luggage was in their room. This has NEVER happened to me.

In general expect to spend ~1 hour waiting on a bus to your resort and expect to use 1-2 hours leaving the resort for MCO. In total I would say it costs about 2.5 hours of time (over renting a car) to use DME and that is just the time between MCO and WDW. Now if you add in resort hopping and using your car to get to the parks (which is generally faster.) You can really end up spending a lot of time waiting. If you also add in being able to easily leave to hit Target (soda) and Publix (yogurt and snacks) it just becomes a better deal.

Although $50/day is a bit steep for a car. I normally can find a discount and get it for more like $20-30.

johno

As an update, I've added getting a rental car to my other part time "hobby" getting ready for a Disney World trip - (ADRs). I've gotten the length of stay reservation total down to $215 through Alamo RAC. (Orlando airport in terminal p/u point) I'll keep trying around every so often, but at least it's not $350+. Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

Just a quick tip. You might want to try www.orbitz.com, and maybe change your pickup location, from MCO to Kissimmee. This will require a transfer but it may save you some money.

Rich

rdeacon wrote:Just a quick tip. You might want to try http://www.orbitz.com, and maybe change your pickup location, from MCO to Kissimmee. This will require a transfer but it may save you some money.



Rich

JimB wrote:As an update, I've added getting a rental car to my other part time "hobby" getting ready for a Disney World trip - (ADRs). I've gotten the length of stay reservation total down to $215 through Alamo RAC. (Orlando airport in terminal p/u point) I'll keep trying Peer to Peer Car Rental NZ every so often, but at least it's not $350+. Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

how to save while hiring a car?

You may have done this already, but check with your place of work as well. Many people do not realize that companies have agreements where employees can get a corporate rate even for personal travel. My company does that and I get good prices at Hertz.

After 8 years and many trips since last posting on this topic... I will say that Costco travel is the best. We have been able to get cars constantly for a decent price and we have to rent some sort of SUV due to health reasons.