Rental Car or No?

Nittany

Disney is my happy place.
Joined
Mar 10, 2015
We will be visiting UO from 11/28-11/5 staying at RP. We purchased annual passes for the three of us visiting. We are also spending one day at Discovery Cove and one day at Sea World. We also were thinking about visiting Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition since my son is obsessed with all things Titanic. We also want to stop at Target/Walmart on our way from the airport to the hotel so grab some snacks and drinks for our hotel room (I believe we will have a mini fridge). And, perhaps a visit to the outlets if UO continues to be closing super early each day. Should we rent a car? I did consider Uber, but not sure I want to rely on that for everything and it may just be easier to have our own transportation. We are newbies to UO and that area so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!
 
We wouldn`t be without a car on our trips as we do like to roam around a lot.

But, even for those short journey`s you`re talking about I`d still have a car for the convenience. Many folks do use Uber and are perfectly happy to do so. Parking is charged per night.

But, don`t plan on driving to the theme parks. It`s so easy to walk or take the boat and you would be charged to park in the garage for the parks...no point in paying twice. It takes us around 7 - 8 minutes to walk to IOA from the RP.

And yes, you absolutely have a fridge in your room. There is a picture of it in the first pages of the RP thread, give you an idea of the size.
 
We had a car last time.. next time I'm going carless. The first thing that got me was on top of the 300 car rental I had over 100 in parking at the hotel and at seaworld.
I took uber from the airport it was $30
Took the itrolly toalmost everything on idrive
Had walmart deliver food.
 
We have a car since we drive down from Atlanta, but we rarely take it out once we arrive. If we were flying in, I would hire a driver like Tony Hinds for the transfers between the airport and hotel. He allows for a grocery stop on the way in, and is highly recommended on the forum.

I believe there is a Sea World shuttle from the hotels, so you would only need Uber for a couple possible side-trips.
 


I am like Schumi and prefer to have my own wheels, but it isn't really needed for a couple side trips-in normal times. However only you can assess your risk level in these abnormal times-ie sharing a care with a different stranger each side trip. And it sounds like you may be doing more than just once or twice off property...having a car would allow off property meals a couple times too (to save a bit of money to offset rental/parking fees)

So many past answers are now a complete toss up during Covid!

I build in the parking charge into hotel rate so I know my budget.
 
We uber/lyfted on our trip,went all over. Hit the springs,gator land and most of the idrive attractions inc the malls.the total was cheaper than renting and parking fees.
 
We would always rent a car, that is until our last trip. As someone noted the cost of the rental car plus the cost of parking for the whole trip can be pretty high.

I created a spreadsheet where I calculated the Uber/Lyft cost for all of the trips we wanted to take (to and from the airport, for shopping and other short hops etc). It worked out to less than 1/2 of the cost of renting a car and parking at the resort for our trip.

In the end it comes down to a cost vs convenience choice.
 


In the end it comes down to a cost vs convenience choice.

I wouldn't even factor convenience. For me, its more convenient to not have to worry about driving anywhere. That way if i want to have a few beers at the pool before heading out, or out at dinner, or where ever, who cares. We have taken Ubers probably 100 times in the Orlando area over the past two years and have never had to wait more than 10 minutes, and usually its much less.

And as some previous posters have pointed out, Uber everywhere will be much cheaper than paying for rental car, parking and gas.

In my opinion, the only reasonable argument to get your own rental car is the COVID situation, which everyone will have to consider themselves. To me, its a no brainer to skip the rental unless its a vacation where you plan to drive somewhere that is outside the general Orlando bubble.
 
I wouldn't even factor convenience. For me, its more convenient to not have to worry about driving anywhere. That way if i want to have a few beers at the pool before heading out, or out at dinner, or where ever, who cares. We have taken Ubers probably 100 times in the Orlando area over the past two years and have never had to wait more than 10 minutes, and usually its much less.

And as some previous posters have pointed out, Uber everywhere will be much cheaper than paying for rental car, parking and gas.

In my opinion, the only reasonable argument to get your own rental car is the COVID situation, which everyone will have to consider themselves. To me, its a no brainer to skip the rental unless its a vacation where you plan to drive somewhere that is outside the general Orlando bubble.

While I would tend to agree to most of your reasoning, for big shopping excursions it's a pain IMO to be carrying around large and/or heavy bags from store to store (like if you're doing a binge shop at the outlet mall). It's nice to be able to drop off some bags into the trunk and continue shopping.

BUT I would also concede it's more convenient to get an Uber/Lyft within 10 minutes of picking up my bags at the airport vs the 30+ minutes I've always had to wait in line to pick up my rental car whenever I've got one.
 
In the times we have been to Orlando, we always rented a car. Then we could decide to go wherever we wanted, shop/eat/look around, etc. without the hassle of any of those online taxis. In the age of covid, I think it would be a HUGE advantage to have your own vehicle and then you have more control over how clean things are and you know exactly who else has been in the vehicle while using it.
 
One other thing to consider is that there is a rental car place (Avis) at the hotels so if you plan on grouping the "off-site" days together, renting a car for just those days is an option, rather than paying for a car AND hotel parking while it just sits there.

On my last trip to UO, doing this actually worked out to be cheaper. I was doing two of the Disney races so needed a car for the stupid early mornings (I didn't trust being able to get an Uber at 3:30 a.m.), but we were spending most of the rest of our vacation at UO and at $17 per day plus the rental car fee, it was going to add up. It worked out to be cheaper to get Tony Hinds to/from the airport and two additional Ubers to/from Disney After Hours and have a rental car only for the two days that we actually were going to use it. I stacked a TON of discounts on both the car rental and Ubers so that helped a bit. But even without that, it would have come out about even and not having to pick up or return a rental at the airport was a huge plus in my book. The only issue was that we had a billing problem with Lowes over the parking fee as they tried to charge me for all of the nights of our stay, but I sent them a copy of my rental contract with the pick up and drop off times and that got refunded.
 
We don't care for renting a car on vacation for a few reasons. For one, we obviously have no idea where we are going which keeps DH and I both on edge, especially driving at night and especially in the crazy traffic in the Orlando area. We live in upstate NY and don't have to contend with traffic and construction like we see in Orlando. Also, we like to have a few drinks and don't want to have to worry about that because we have to drive.

One option is to hire Tony Hinds for your airport transportation, at least on the way there. He costs a little more than an Uber would, but him (or one of his drivers) will meet you at baggage claim and assist with luggage. They then take you out a door very close to baggage claim where they are parked and you're on your way. He allows a 30 minute grocery stop included in his cost and waits while you shop. You'd then only have to Uber for Seaworld and Titanic, and the outlets if you do it. If you know the days you're going, you could also hire Tony for these days as well. My SIL needed car seats for a day trip to Seaworld and opted to hire him to and from her Disney hotel so they didn't have to hassle with a car rental or Uber.
 
One option is to hire Tony Hinds for your airport transportation, at least on the way there. He costs a little more than an Uber would, but him (or one of his drivers) will meet you at baggage claim and assist with luggage. They then take you out a door very close to baggage claim where they are parked and you're on your way.

Not sure what is happening currently, but as of the last week of August, drivers were not allowed inside the airport at all. They were still able to park very close, but you had to get your luggage out to the vehicle by yourself. Further just an opinion here, but i can see this measure lasting a long time. My thinking is that airports will want to limit the people inside to whatever extent they possibly can.
 
We actually decided to rent a car from the airport - got a great deal at Alamo yesterday for a standard size SUV. We plan on exploring a ton this trip by going to Discovery Cove, Sea World, Aquatica, the outlets, Titanic museum, Disney Springs and wherever else we feel like it, so having our own transportation with COVID was important to us. Thanks for all your help!
 
We actually decided to rent a car from the airport - got a great deal at Alamo yesterday for a standard size SUV. We plan on exploring a ton this trip by going to Discovery Cove, Sea World, Aquatica, the outlets, Titanic museum, Disney Springs and wherever else we feel like it, so having our own transportation with COVID was important to us. Thanks for all your help!

Glad to hear it`s working for you.

We find the convenience of always having our own vehicle is absolutely priceless, we do a mix of journey`s from local to further afield. We do use the hotel cars if we want to both have a drink and are heading to Dr Phillips area or Point Orlando usually, it`s very easy.

Have a wonderful trip and come back to tell us how much you enjoyed it all....:wave2:
 
Not sure what is happening currently, but as of the last week of August, drivers were not allowed inside the airport at all. They were still able to park very close, but you had to get your luggage out to the vehicle by yourself. Further just an opinion here, but i can see this measure lasting a long time. My thinking is that airports will want to limit the people inside to whatever extent they possibly can.
Thanks for the info, good to know. While Tony/his drivers not being able to meet you to assist with luggage does negate one of the benefits of his service, not having to walk far or locate your Uber is still nice. Plus the included grocery stop.
 
We plan on exploring a ton this trip by going to Discovery Cove, Sea World, Aquatica...
If you didn't already, upgrade one of the DC tickets to the +3 parks option - the $25 upgrade includes free parking at SW & Aquatica. The free parking will save you more than the cost to upgrade if you park at SW or Aquatica more than once.
 
I am a big fan of Uber and not a fan of renting a car, so I would use that. If you want to rent, though, try to combine all the days that you need it into a few days and you can just have the car for those days. No need for a car to get to UO when staying at RPR.
 

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