Avoiding long car rental queues at Orlando

[Matt Harper]

Sheepshanks said:

yellowbentines said:

I've been visiting Orlando for the past 15 years and at both MCO and SFB (SFB is worse) the queues have always been horrendous at customs. They know in advance that the flights are coming in so it's shouldn't be a surprise to them, in any other business you organise your staff around busier periods. I have to say that I've also always found them slow and on the whole pretty unfriendly - it's always the most horrible part of the holiday when you're tired and you have to stand in a huge line then get treated like a criminal!

We're not going this year for the first time in many, many years and while Immigration isn't the sole reason, it's certainly a factor.

Bearing in mind how much money the average family on a Disney holiday is going to spend in Orlando someone really needs to sort those guys out.

I don't think they are taken by surprise - it happens pretty much every day. MCO is my home airport and I'm in and out of there at least once a week and I do sympathize with the holiday crowd, but most seem to take it in their stride. I don't think it's willful or malicious - more a lack of resource.
Also - remember that US CBP officers have a pretty thankless and soul destroying job, that pays poorly and requires little in the way of interpersonal charm.
We do appreciate your tourist dollars - it means no state income tax for us, so thanks and keep coming!

[Odhran]

In Orlando at the minute. Booked with SIXT because of their favourable rates and their young driver surcharge was best ($49.99 one off compared to $35 per day extra with most other hire companies - although you are restricted in what car classes you can reserve. Small SUV or Full Size car being the largest vehicles iirc.) Arrived at MCO yesterday and thought I'd share my experience in case anyone is debating who to book with. As it's off site you must wait on the complimentary shuttle bus. It arrived within 10 mins and we were taken to their location. Huge car park filled with cars and quite a prestigious selection of cars.

I opted for a Full Sized Car and hoped to get a Chrysler 300c (someone from another forum I frequent was there the week previous, booked the same car class and was given a new 5.7 hemi 300c so had my fingers crossed!) Upon arrival I was talking with one of the workers within 2 mins. She have the hard sell for upgraded insurance, roadside assist, toll passes etc. I politely declined. I requested a 300c if possible but was given a Toyota Camry. Although I asked what the chances of getting a 300c were they said they had none (I saw a total of 5 drive past the office during my time there..) anyway the Camry came out and had obviously been involved in a crash at some stage. The front bumper was very badly dented, wing and headlight were badly scratched. So I asked for a different vehicle, I didn't mind if it was another Camry(!)

The manager came out and said she could give me a Jetta or a Corolla (I'm sure she could alright!) I refused. She said they can give me another Camry but it'll be 30 mins or they can do a condition report on the other smashed up one and there'd be no problem when leaving it back and I could be on my merry way. I told her I was happy to wait and almost immediately she came back out and said she was upgrading me to a Cadillac. Sadly the boot was too narrow for our cases so she ended up giving me a Volvo XC60 t5 with sat nav and literally every option known to man, so well pleased with it!

So all in all a decent result. Love the baby Volvo SUV, paid £300 in total for 14 days hire (including $49.99 young driver fee.) Staff were pretty useless and was almost like talking to robots and were clearly telling me lies in several instances to fob me off that I haven't gone into in detail in this post. Real roller coaster of experiences but end result was good!

[cashmax]

Just to close this off, the flight was 15 minutes early, we walked into an empty immigration hall (literally, there was no one else there at all), bags were ready. The Alamo fast track worked perfectly. As a result, from walking off the plane to sitting at the exit of the airport in the rental car was - 36 minutes. The quickest ever long haul experience I have had, by a LONG way.