Should We Take The Hire Car Or The Bus In Florida?

fifeken

I agree with most of the responses - car hire is definitely the way to go if your in Kissimee. Even in I-Drive I would still get a car although the public transport is better there than Kissimmee. Less queues, go where you want and when you want and the driving is easy. Also if you want a day down in Tampa for Busch Gardens, or over to the Space Centre, a car is the best way to do it.

mike_paterson

Car definitely !

jaffa

Angela

I would also say a car is a must.

I'm sure it is possible to get to the parks without a car but you would miss SO MANY other places.

I find driving in Florida great fun - go for the car and have wonderful holiday.

Murphy_The_Cat

car.

public transport & America is not a big thing !

MTC

Betty_Boop

I've used these many times

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk./

they currently have a big 7 seater for only £149 per week. You can chat live to them online as well.

angela110660

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE ADVICE. Have looked at Airline Network with the upgrade deal which looks very good. Will check out the others too. My next problem will be how do we go about telling the holiday company to forget their car? Especially if we end up going to Dollar anyway? Any tips please?

jaffa

Angela

If you have already booked the flight check the terms & conditions - it may be that if you decline the car after booking you will have to pay a supplement.
If this is the case you will need to work out which is the cheaper option - pay the supplement and book the car seperately or pay the insurance/upgrade on your "free car".

I usually find it cheaper to book car and flight seperately.

Baz-Bee

Agree with majority of what said on here. US and public transport very rarely good combination. I have been to 40+ of the states and would only say that New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco were easily doable with buses/public transport. And that is assuming you stay somewhere central. Florida and Orlando/Kissimee is a no no.


Last year did 6 European cities - all very easy with public transport, also did Las Vegas which has a reasonable bus service but still considered a car essential.

With regards the package deal with car, just do not bother collecting it. I would be very surprised if there were any further charges if you did not collect it. The hire company will not know you from Adam, they just put your reference number in to the system and would not know whether you were on it again with anyone else or not.

You have found out what many do not realise. Package deals are often very expensive compared to booking your own individual elements. After first two years of packages to states decided wanted to see and do more than Tour Companies could offer. So since 1995 have booked flights, hotels, car hire, attraction tickets (not just theme parks BTW) myself. The innternet has made this so easy and you will save a fortune, normally, over what you would pay a Tour Company for for often a lesser holiday.

angela110660

We did look at going for a villa separate to the flights etc initially. However, because we have two teenagers aged 16 and 18 and a child aged 8 the price for scheduled flights was colossal for July-Aug even though the villas we sourced were very reasonable. When we looked at the holiday package deal and the offers they had at the time it was far more reasonable an option for us and also because we had never been to USA before we felt more assured.
If we go again in the future, then we will probably try to do our own arrangements but still not sure if the flights (without going via about 2 or 3 changes en route) would be any better.