Thread: Renting Cars In Hawaii

We Rented through National, Alamo's sister company and the experience was different at each port.

I had made reservations through thier Emeral Club, which my husbands company has for all employees and though National. Its just a kind of frequent renter program and an express check out kind of thing.

Nawiliwil (kauai) was a breeze. I had the number of the local office and called them on my cell phone when we arrived in port. They met us almost immediately at the dock and took us to thier office about 2 miles away. We wer pretty much the only ones at the office and our Red Wrangler was waiting for us. No problems.

Oahu/Honolulu was a bit more difficult. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the shuttle and shared it with others so check in at thier offices took longer. The Aloamoana (spelling) office on Waikiki beach closes at 6:00, so even though we didn't depart till 9:00 we had to rush a little to get the car back in time to catch the last shuttle at 5:30.

Hilo was the worst one. We had to wait for the shuttle, When it arrive there was not enough room for everyone, so only drivers were to go. Then when DH got to the office it was packed. So it took over an hour for my husband to return to the dock to pick us up. There were vendors set up in the terminal so we did do some souvenir shopping while we waited. From what I understood from talking to others, it really didn't matter which rental car company it was like this for all of them.

Even with all these inconveniences, we felt it was well worth the wait to have the rental car as opposed to being on a tour bus. With two adults and two children it is less expensive than takeing guided tours, and also you have the flexibility to alter your plans if the kids need a change of pace or a batheroom break or something like that.

So if you like flexibility and and cna put up with a little hassel in getting your car, I think it might be well worth it to reserve your car.

If you have a cell phone with free long distance in the US, then you can even look up the local offices of each agency, call and find out where they are located, how they handle the cruise ship passengers ect. It might give you a feel of which agency in each port is best equiped to handle cruise passenger car rentals.

We have rented a car while in Honolulu from Thrifty. After reading this thread I hope we didn't make a mistake. But, I was born what was then Aiea Plantation and wanted to go see where that is. So, we decided to rent the car. I'm hopeful that Thrify meets you at the port and takes you to the car but I have not idea how that works.

Lucy

While we were on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island we used Alamo on all 3. It was easy. But be prepared that the fare may differ from Island to Island.

I just did an extensive search on about 7 companies and ALAMO was by far the best with Entertainment book coupons!!! Only $273 for a convertible for a week on Maui!!! It's cheapest by $100+ compared to the other companies! I'm booking with them today! Just have to find out about shuttles to make sure we're not paying out the nose for cabs. We even have them for our 2 days in Oahu and 1 day from port in Kahului. Budget was pretty good too for rates and a AAA discount!!