Florida car rental in January

[rx7boi]

I'm heading to Florida in January. Best price I found was on Expedia for an Economy (Yaris) vehicle for $350 for 9 days with unlimited mileage.

Seems like a pretty decent deal unless anyone has other suggestions?

[Strider]

Try Costco

[craigcd]

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Try Costco

I always book with Costco as a backup as you dont need to provide a CC.

[Gainsbarre]

There is free cancellation for car rental bookings made on Expedia. Go ahead and book now, and keep checking back every few days or so. I often see rental prices fall about 4 to 2 weeks out. For instance, this past September I rented a car from DTW for $25/day -- when I first booked the car rental in December 2016 it cost about $60/day, but I kept checking back and cancelled/rebooked the car rental until the price dropped down to $25/day just under a week before the rental period began. Booking early on Expedia just locks in the price, and as soon as you see something cheaper you can cancel the original booking and rebook at the lower price.

I've checked countless times but I've never seen lower rental prices on the car rental agency website, plus Expedia has free cancellation, so I don't even bother with booking directly with the rental agency if booking rental cars for non-work use.

[rx7boi]

Thanks for the tip! I'll keep checking back!

[CompletelyNumb]

Don't forget the ebates cash back on Expedia as well.

[nismodrifter]

Thanks for the advice re: Expedia. I have been hunting for a rental car for our trip to Honolulu and prices have been stupid. I've been waiting it out as suggested by Gainsbarre. Got a great deal today! Will keep rechecking as our departure date nears.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I've been to Florida 3 times now and each time for about 8 days. I've always been able to do good flights (one stop), car (economy - Nissan Versa Note, Kia Soul) and decent hotel for $800-$1000 CAD (usually varies only with the hotel we pick) all-in per person through Expedia. I am not sure what the car rental portion of that was but I would guess less than $350. Florida is insanely cheap to travel to, I have always enjoyed it there. Disney always (roughly) accepts the Canadian dollar near par when buying tickets too, so it's perfect if you are into that.

[rx7boi]

Oh is that right? That's good to know, thanks Mark. We are indeed going to Florida for the whole Disney and Universal shebang.

I actually just bought Disney tickets on their website because they have a 20% promo when buying a 4 day+ pass. Ends up being the same price as a 3 day.

Flights I booked separately through Westjet so I could use my WJ dollars that I had accrued with the Mastercard.

All in all, direct flights for two people only ran me about $800, $550 of which were paid for using WJ dollars.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Oh is that right? That's good to know, thanks Mark. We are indeed going to Florida for the whole Disney and Universal shebang.

I actually just bought Disney tickets on their website because they have a 20% promo when buying a 4 day+ pass. Ends up being the same price as a 3 day.

Flights I booked separately through Westjet so I could use my WJ dollars that I had accrued with the Mastercard.

All in all, direct flights for two people only ran me about $800, $550 of which were paid for using WJ dollars.

Yeah I would highly recommend booking everything though Expedia, their bundle discounts are great. Stay just off Disney property and you can save a lot. Sounds like you're covered for the flights though. Right now Disney tickets are 20% off (sounds like you got that done as well) so it's only about 6-7% more expensive with CAD. They ran the same promo last year at 30% off when the dollar was a bit worse.

We stayed here:

https://www.expedia.ca/Orlando-Hotel...Booked.HOTname

It was outstanding. Everything was immaculate, it was a very well run property and quite cheap. We got a huge 2bdrm 2bath condo with full kitchen and dining area for the price of an average hotel room. WalMart around the corner, free parking and WiFi, and 10 minutes to all the parks.

If it's your first time going to Disney/Universal in Florida, I have been 2 times in the past 2 years, if you have any questions at all feel free to let me know.

[rx7boi]

Sweet! I had prebooked with Red Lion Hotel. It came out to roughly $550USD/$700CAD after taxes for 9 nights. Unfortunately Polynesian Isles looks to be fully booked for mid-January.

Our car is prebooked as well so I just need to purchase our Universal tickets and we're pretty much set.

I'm contemplating buying the 2 day hopper pass for $244, but I'm not sure if I should get the frontline addon since January seems to be low season. Any thoughts on that?

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Sweet! I had prebooked with Red Lion Hotel. It came out to roughly $550USD/$700CAD after taxes for 9 nights. Unfortunately Polynesian Isles looks to be fully booked for mid-January.

Our car is prebooked as well so I just need to purchase our Universal tickets and we're pretty much set.

I'm contemplating buying the 2 day hopper pass for $244, but I'm not sure if I should get the frontline addon since January seems to be low season. Any thoughts on that?

The last time we went was in January as well. In general the crowds weren't bad at all, and we spent a lot of time walking through the roped off line areas seeing how busy it COULD be in the summer or whatever, and it would be an absolute nightmare. A handful of the most popular rides were usually 30-60 min wait tops, and a lot of the time shorter than that. In the case of the Harry Potter rides, half that time is spent just walking through the amazing building towards the ride in a fairly fast moving lineup. You can see wait times on the Universal App and just shoot over to the rides with lower times throughout the day.

The first time we went to Universal (June), we thought we didn't need the Xpress Pass. We then waited in one lineup in 35 degree heat and immediately went and bought them haha. They really did improve the day a lot, but I think it was around $70 USD per person per park. From what I understand, the price also fluctuates with how busy the park is. You can always wait until you get there and decide after the fact, that way you are fully covered. I can see how this would get expensive for a whole family though, so you might want to just play it by ear when you get to the park. You can buy the Xpress Passes just past the front ticket gates and also when I was there, there was 1-2 other places to buy them within the parks.

There are two levels of Xpress Pass - unlimited, and once-per-ride. If you are only going to do every ride 1-2 times (probably all you have time for if you do one day per Universal park), the "once per ride" pass is the way to go. You can use the Xpress Pass when it's busy, and hit the ride again when you notice a smaller lineup. You also might find that people in your family want to do different rides (i.e. maybe one doesn't like roller coasters), so you can swap Xpress Passes around to give people multiple rides on rides that others don't care about and vise versa.

What we did the second time we went to Universal (last January) is buy the park hopper, and the Xpress Pass (one time per ride). We went between the two parks on the day we had the Xpress Pass and hit all the best rides (they don't work on the most popular Harry Potter rides at all - if they did, we would have bought them both days probably). On the second day, we watched and went on the rides that had smaller lineups, but we would have bought the pass again for the second day if it was necessary due to huge crowds. In January it shouldn't be too bad. Also note you need the park hopper to ride the Hogwarts Express. The Harry Potter Forbidden Journey ride (Universal Islands of Adventure) and the Escape from Gringotts (Universal Studios) are phenomenal. Lineups can be long but they move constantly since the rides never stop, they are on conveyors, and the waiting areas are so well done you probably won't get bored. The Hogwarts Express was cool once, but I wouldn't wait in line for it more than that - if there is any significant lineup, it will be faster just to walk to the other park.

For Disney, they have Fast Pass free for everyone and you can book far in advance. We didn't have any trouble booking times onto most of the rides within a reasonable time frame same-day. The only one we had to wait over an hour in line for was the Seven Dwarfs at Magic Kingdom and it was not worth it at all. The ride is like 20 seconds long and pretty standard. Animal Kingdom is in my opinion by far the least impressive Disney park if you decide to skip one, but depending on your family that could be different.

[RX_EVOLV]

Maybe it's worth checking out Turo too (www.turo.com). Airbnb for car rentals.

[rx7boi]

Great information, thanks alot for the breakdown! We went to LA couple years ago and it was a month before California got their Harry Potter world haha.

I'll play it by ear as the XpressPass could be worth it depending on how our day goes. We were in line for The Mummy for about 90 minutes; I nearly puked. I was contemplating getting a 1 day pass but we're sparing 9 days for the Florida trip so we wouldn't have to rush ourselves.

The other thing is that I've heard the Avatar ride is amazing but the wait times are long. If we're just going for a day, I don't want to burn 2 hours waiting for it. The app would be a good way to keep up to speed on the wait times; we utilized the Fast Pass system alot at Disneyland.

Overall, I thought the base pass would be enough since Hogwarts Express isn't exciting enough for us to pay for a park-hopper but the flexibility could be nice.

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Maybe it's worth checking out Turo too (www.turo.com). Airbnb for car rentals.

Ah, I had forgotten about this site. Thanks!

first option that showed up is a Porsche Cayenne for $50/day. Already a bit more tempting than driving around a Yaris haha.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Overall, I thought the base pass would be enough since Hogwarts Express isn't exciting enough for us to pay for a park-hopper but the flexibility could be nice.

If you don't care about the Hogwarts Express, and have two days set aside for Universal (one day per park), you don't need the Park Hopper. Both parks have a Harry Potter world and both parks have their own hallmark Harry Potter ride. They are literally right beside each other and you can walk between them if you wish.

If you are trying to stretch one single Xpress Pass over two days though, that's where the Park Hopper makes sense because you can use the Xpress Pass between parks and hit all the rides you really care about on the first day between the two parks, then take it easier the second day and wait in some lineups based on the app.

Avatar is new, but I've heard it's awesome. I imagine it will be very busy.

The other thing you will notice based on how (not) full the parking lots are, is that it could be 2-3 times busier everywhere, and be thankful you aren't going in July/August or over Easter/Spring Break.

[rx7boi]

Aw yeah, Fox Rental's prices for their Yaris went from $350 to $300 today so I cancelled my previous booking and got a new one.

FIDDY DOLLAS Y'ALL!