How to hire a car – from the UK

As I previously discussed, a lot of people who travel to WDW from the UK will go for at least 2 weeks, if not longer. This means that they will often hire a car for all or at least part of their holiday, whether they are staying on-site at Disney or somewhere else.

So how do we Brits tend to hire a car for the US from the UK?

There are 4 ways in which we could do this –

1. Have a car included as part of the holiday package (a lot of companies do this)
2. Hire a car yourself directly through the company whether by phone or internet
3. Hire a car yourself via a broker or comparrison website
4. Hire the car directly from the airport

You can also combine a couple of these optionis. For example, if you have a car included in your package deal, it is often only for one week, so if you feel you require a car for longer, you may well then hire one directly for the rest of your stay.

I have found that the vast majority of Travel Agents and holiday companies such as Virgin will include a basic economy car as part of your holiday. It has been our personal experience that by the time you upgrade this model to something bigger than a toy car, and pay for the extra insurance, it often works out cheaper to forgoe your ‘free’ car and hire one yourself separately.

This is what we do. I do not claim that it is the easiest, fastest or the cheapest way, but it is the one that we favour.

So whether we have booked our stay through a TA or whether we have done it all ourselves, we will always sort out the car and insurance privately. We will deal with the companies directly, and get estimates from two or three reputable businesses such as Hertz, Alamo and Dollar and book with whichever seems to be the best deal for us.

We always get a slightly bigger car than we think we need (for all that shopping!) and ALWAYS get the top insurance cover. It is worth all those extra dollars to us for the peace of mind incase we were to need it.

One thing which I have found useful also is to look at a British Disney forum which has photos of the cars that other people have used in the US. I may have not heard of a certain type of car that I am being offered, so how do I know if it will be big enough for my 6 cases, 2 rucksacks, a Trunki, a carseat, a stroller and a partridge in a pear tree? By using this function of the forum I can see basic information that the users have posted about the car, plus pictures of the inside etc. and an honest review. They will also liken it to a car that we use use the UK.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how you’ve booked your rental car. You will still be asked if you want to upgrade at the airport and try to be sold every gadget possible by the sales person. Does anyone fall for this? We bring our own Sat Nav and have already sorted anything else we require. I guess they’re just doing their jobs though right?