Mia Airport car rental shuttle to cruise port

[patrickkc]

Hi all ,

 

I have a car rented from Hertz and will be returning the car at Miami airport location right before the cruise. Just wondering if Hertz offers free shuttle service from airport to cruise port anymore? Reading online, some say it was discontinued since covid and not sure if it's back. Emailed Hertz, but haven't gotten a response. Will be flying down on the 12th. 

 

uber/lyft won't work for me as I'm traveling with a toddler and we won't have a car seat with us. 

[loanshark]

If you are renting through Hertz, you need to drop off at the downtown (2nd Street) location.  Even before covid, Hertz did not offer a shuttle from the airport location.

[patrickkc]

2 hours ago, loanshark said:

If you are renting through Hertz, you need to drop off at the downtown (2nd Street) location.  Even before covid, Hertz did not offer a shuttle from the airport location.

 

thanks, I just assumed it was all the car rentals by the airport used the same shuttle. My booking is for return at Miami Airport, I will see if I am able to change the return location tomorrow. If I'm dropping at the 2nd street location, how do I get to the cruise terminal? 

 

-Edit 

Just searched, and the 2nd Street location is closed on Sunday. Weird because most cruises run Sun - Sun.. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by patrickkc

[JohninDC]

There are a few, VERY FEW, Uber and Lyft cars with car seats, but you will pay more and wait longer.  Your best bet is to return to the airport baggage claim area and use the cruise line shuttle bus to the port, which will be expensive and slow.

[patrickkc]

5 hours ago, JohninDC said:

There are a few, VERY FEW, Uber and Lyft cars with car seats, but you will pay more and wait longer.  Your best bet is to return to the airport baggage claim area and use the cruise line shuttle bus to the port, which will be expensive and slow.

 

I've heard that there were Ubers and Lyfts with carseats. Took me a while to figure out how to select them. I've tried on and off during this week setting my location to miami airport to cruise port and have yet to see one. I've looked at the cruise line shuttles and they are quite expensive, but I may go with those if I can't find a way. 

 

I think my plan for now is on cruise day - return car to airport -> take hotel shuttle from airport back to hotel -> take hotel shuttle to cruise port.

 

Plan B is to drop my wife and daughter at the cruise port along with our luggage first. Then I go return the car at airport and take an uber back to the cruise port.  

[loanshark]

You might want to check if Avis or Budget has cars available.  Their have a shared parking lot for their downtown offices (89 2nd St / 99 2nd St) and a van that will shuttle you to the ship.

[Corby114]

To my knowledge the three downtown Miami rental locations used by Avis, Budget and Hertz don't provide free shuttle services to the Port Of Miami. A cab, Uber or Lyft should be relatively inexpensive for the short ten minute ride. Free shuttle service from the Miami International Airport Rental Car  Center to the Port Of Miami  was also discontinued at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic crisis.  

[loanshark]

 

3 hours ago, Corby114 said:

To my knowledge the three downtown Miami rental locations used by Avis, Budget and Hertz don't provide free shuttle services to the Port Of Miami. A cab, Uber or Lyft should be relatively inexpensive for the short ten minute ride. Free shuttle service from the Miami International Airport Rental Car  Center to the Port Of Miami  was also discontinued at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic crisis.  

I have personally used the Budget shuttle from the car drop off to the ship on my last cruise.  In addition, on the street view that is currently on google maps, you can see one of the vans that they use next to the entrance of the return car lot that has Avis and Budget markings on the van. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by loanshark

[loanshark]

The current image on google maps in front of the Budget office is dated July 2022.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by loanshark

[irishgal432]

Are there any Enterprise/alamo/national locations that ill shutlle you from the ship to their location?

[loanshark]

The closest Alamo and National locations are at the airport.  Alamo and National used to shuttle you from their airport location pre-covid, but I have heard the shuttle from there has been discontinued since covid.  Thrifty also used to shuttle to and from their airport location, not sure if they are still continuing or not.

 

Avis, Budget and Hertz are from the downtown locations.  For what it's worth, I recently confirmed a one-way rental with Budget to the "Port of Miami" location on the Budget website for an upcoming cruise in January.  In the drop off field, you can type "P2F" to pull up this location for drop-offs.  Also, on the booking confirmation, you can see that the "Port of Miami" location is the same address they use as their Miami Downtown location on 2nd Street.

Edited December 1, 2022 by loanshark

[KeepCalmBearOn]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:55 PM, patrickkc said:

uber/lyft won't work for me as I'm traveling with a toddler and we won't have a car seat with us. 

 

How old is the toddler? Try looking at the BubbleBum and see if it would work. They are great for traveling.

 

https://www.bubblebum.co/us/

[Seekup]

On 11/14/2022 at 11:36 AM, loanshark said:

 

I have personally used the Budget shuttle from the car drop off to the ship on my last cruise.  In addition, on the street view that is currently on google maps, you can see one of the vans that they use next to the entrance of the return car lot that has Avis and Budget markings on the van. 

We're dropping off at the Budget Port of Miami location and planning to take their shuttle to the port. How was your experience with them? Their ratings on google are abysmal, but it seems to be due to long waits for people returning from a cruise and trying to shuttle to the Budget office and rent a car.

[capriccio]

6 hours ago, scottca075 said:

 

How old is the toddler? Try looking at the BubbleBum and see if it would work. They are great for traveling.

 

https://www.bubblebum.co/us/

We can also recommend the hiccapop inflatable booster https://a.co/d/6UM7o3i  for  kids 4 years old and 40 pounds or older and heavier.  Our almost 8 year old granddaughter has used one when she visits us since she was 4 and loves it.  Parents and grandparents do too.

[loanshark]

 

On 12/2/2022 at 4:54 PM, Seekup said:

We're dropping off at the Budget Port of Miami location and planning to take their shuttle to the port. How was your experience with them? Their ratings on google are abysmal, but it seems to be due to long waits for people returning from a cruise and trying to shuttle to the Budget office and rent a car.

 

We have only used Budget's downtown location to go to Miami / to the ship.  We have always used the airport location on the return as I previously learned from this board that there sometimes is a problem with lack of vehicles being available after a cruise at the downtown location.  For our upcoming January cruise, although the car rental reserved going to Miami was the same price for an airport return, or a downtown return,  the car going from Miami after the cruise was $60 cheaper from the airport location anyway.... Both directions were reserved from Budget.

 

We had no problems on the last cruise we did from Miami this way (drop off before the cruise at Budget downtown/use their shuttle to the ship, used a cab from the ship to the airport on debarkation day, then pick up a one-way car rental return at the airport.  

Edited December 4, 2022 by loanshark

[Seekup]

See below 🙂

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Seekup

[Seekup]

On 12/3/2022 at 7:19 PM, loanshark said:

 

 

We have only used Budget's downtown location to go to Miami / to the ship.  We have always used the airport location on the return as I previously learned from this board that there sometimes is a problem with lack of vehicles being available after a cruise at the downtown location.  For our upcoming January cruise, although the car rental reserved going to Miami was the same price for an airport return, or a downtown return,  the car going from Miami after the cruise was $60 cheaper from the airport location anyway.... Both directions were reserved from Budget.

 

We had no problems on the last cruise we did from Miami this way (drop off before the cruise at Budget downtown/use their shuttle to the ship, used a cab from the ship to the airport on debarkation day, then pick up a one-way car rental return at the airport.  

 

To follow up on our 2nd Street Budget location experience. We ended up dropping the car there which took no time, but getting a ride on their shuttle was going to take hours. It was a zoo and not the way we wanted to start a vacay! So we walked a couple of blocks away and got an uber. There were several Lyft and Uber drivers nearby, I think they are on to the need. 

 

loanshark: Maybe the increase in cruising post covid has overloaded the downtown location? And I would do it again, knowing that I may have to pay for an Uber/Lyft to the port.

[cinnam0n]

After reading all the mostly horrible reviews, we decided to take a chance on returning our car to the 2nd Street location and shuttling to the port.  We flew into PBI the day before, picked up the car there, and drove to the Ft. Lauderdale area to spend the night. Everything went flawlessly.  The location/lot itself is very small, and I believe the key is getting the car returned before the influx of returning passengers coming to pick cars up.  We dropped our car, and the shuttle pulled up in less than 5 minutes.  We were early to the port, but we gave the porters our luggage,  parked ourselves on a bench across from the terminal and waited until the line began forming for our check in time.  

[Djford75]

On 4/22/2023 at 1:07 PM, cinnam0n said:

After reading all the mostly horrible reviews, we decided to take a chance on returning our car to the 2nd Street location and shuttling to the port.  We flew into PBI the day before, picked up the car there, and drove to the Ft. Lauderdale area to spend the night. Everything went flawlessly.  The location/lot itself is very small, and I believe the key is getting the car returned before the influx of returning passengers coming to pick cars up.  We dropped our car, and the shuttle pulled up in less than 5 minutes.  We were early to the port, but we gave the porters our luggage,  parked ourselves on a bench across from the terminal and waited until the line began forming for our check in time.  

What time did you return the car? We are doing the same in august, always have priority boarding so we get to terminal early....

[cinnam0n]

7 hours ago, Djford75 said:

What time did you return the car? We are doing the same in august, always have priority boarding so we get to terminal early....

Had to go back and look in my email at my receipt. 😊We flew into West Palm, where we picked the car up the night before, stayed overnight in the Ft. Lauderdale area, and drove to Miami, where we dropped the car off around 8:30 AM.  We didn't even have to go into the location - the lot attendants took our paperwork and called the shuttle for us. By the time we got on the shuttle, drove to the port, and checked our bags with the porters, we didn't have too long a wait at all.