Car Hire - Orlando(4 adults+3 kids)

coxy123

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice. We are a party of 7 people travelling to Florida next month hopefully. We were wondering does anyone have experience of car rental for this amount of people along with suitcases-there will be 5 of these also! I would prefer to drive an 8 seater but with the suitcases would it be better to go up to a 12 seater (there does not appear to be 10 seaters available!).

Any experiences/advise would be welcome.

Tks.

rockonollie

Those 12 seaters are huge.....unless you're a very comfortable driver, it can be very nerve-wrecking......have you considered having 2 drivers and renting a 7 seater and a sedan.....it would allow the adults to do their own thing at times (I'm assuming with 4 adults and 3 kids that this is 2 families on a joint trip)

coxy123

Thanks for the reply. My preference is 1 vehicle. Luggage capacity is what I'm concerned about really - with 7 seats used on an 8 seater will there be enough left to store the 5 full size cases!

Any recommendations for carhire sites welcome...

rockonollie

It would be tight......but probably do-able......looking at budget car hire, they use the ford expedition as their 8 seater, seats are 2-3-3 setup but you can drop one of the rear side seats to give yourself extra cargo space. It may be a squeeze to and from the airport, but it would probably work.

coylemj

Bear in mind that there may be driver licence issues with the larger vehicles you're considering. In Ireland for example you needs a class 'D' (bus driver's) licence if there's more than 8 passenger seats i.e. greater capacity than driver+8. It doesn't actually matter how many people are in the vehicle when you're driving it, it's the capacity of the vehicle that dictates what class of licence you need.

With a normal class B or C Irish licence you would not be licensed to driver a 10 or 12 seater in the US because your home licence can't authorise you to do something in a foreign country that you can't do at home.

Merl1n

http://www.autoeurope.ie/ is a great site for renting we used these a few times and they allow you book with full insurance so once you get there you give the car rental company your voucher and prepay for gas if you want and drive away

Twice we also found it was cheaper to book on there .co.uk site for the same car so that might be worth a look

coylemj

Merl1n wrote: »

http://www.autoeurope.ie/ is a great site for renting we used these a few times and they allow you book with full insurance so once you get there you give the car rental company your voucher and prepay for gas if you want and drive away

Twice we also found it was cheaper to book on there .co.uk site for the same car so that might be worth a look

There's no response from autoeurope.ie and the autoeurope.co.uk site is selling car parts Deliberately not posting the full URL of either as I'm not assisting shilling if that's what's going on here.

How does this help the OP with his capacity requirements?

Marcusm

Just back from NY/Mass and driving a Dodge Grand Caravan which is a fairly standard MPV there (with stow & go seating making it easy to take extra luggage). They have 7 seats so could take all your people but if the bags are typical suitcase sizes, I think you'll struggle. Remember that you'll have hand luggage as well; any pushchairs etc? With all the seats up, I think the car would struggle with much more than 3 decent size cases. We also had a Chevy Suburban to take us to the airport but I don't think that has any more usable space (despite being larger).

YMMV but I would seriously look either at 2 cars or, if you'll only have the luggage to/from the airport, hire 1 MPV and have some of the passengers travel by cab or bus for that sector. Fine for 7 passengers without much luggage.

coxy123

Hi Marcusm,

Thanks for all the replies. We ended up booking 2 mid range SUV's - The model is a Ford Escape - the price for both works out slightly cheaper than the 8 seat Ford Expedition.

rockonollie

coxy123 wrote: »

Hi Marcusm,

Thanks for all the replies. We ended up booking 2 mid range SUV's - The model is a Ford Escape - the price for both works out slightly cheaper than the 8 seat Ford Expedition.

Glad it worked out for you.....I think with the 2 SUVs you'll have a much more comfortable trip

ENJOY!!

InTheTrees

I thought about this and I dont see how you can avoid two vehicles...

Usually car rental reservations are very loose in the US. You can change or upgradde at the last minute.

So maybe you could just try out the different options once you get there? Those mini-buses they have in the US are very utilitarian and uncomfy.

I'd be inclined towards a minivan and a car. Thats probably most cost effective. Two SUV's would get Expensive I think? (The Ford Escape is no larger than a car really, I dont think the car rental versions are 4x4 either).

coylemj

InTheTrees wrote: »

I thought about this and I dont see how you can avoid two vehicles...

Good call, read post #9 above.