Charlottetown Rental Car

[kingoftheicedragons]

Has anyone rented a car recently for Charlottetown? We'll be there next month, and our first plan is to rent a car, and if we don't do that, we'll likely just hang out in Charlottetown on our own. I saw posts talking about Enterprise being 8 blocks away from the port and that it's walkable (intersection of Euston and Queen). I was going to reserve from there, but it doesn't like it on the Enterprise site. National is apparently only at the airport, and Budget, which was supposedly a block closer to port doesn't show up either. Both Budget and Enterprise show up as having addresses in the 200-300 block of University, and when I search for those places on the map, it shows up as being more than twice the distance from the port that I was lead to believe. Have these places moved, thus making it not as good choices for renting from coming in on a cruise ship?

[maryann ns]

I used the search feature to find these previous posts:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1651619

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2065352 post#12

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2047005

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1804371

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1693605

[DipBrat]

I would highly recommend renting a car and getting out of Charlottetown. It is a nice enough town, but the rest of the island is filled with great scenery and excellent small towns.

[Urban trekker]

I rented from Enterprise in Charlottetown last fall - made the reservations on-line and indicated I wanted the pick up service - on arrival day - just outside the port entrance was a driver and a shuttle vehicle which took me to their office on University - was under way within 30 m inutes of arrival - the shuttle was running continuously in the morning and they will also shuttle you back but I chose to walk back taking in some of the historic buildings in the downtown core. If I remember correctly it takes awhile to get out of the port area and that adds some distance to the walk.

 

As for not being able to book online - are you there on a Sunday - I believe the downtown office is closed on Sundays.

 

Hope this helps

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

[GradUT]

We rented a car with Budget last month in Charlottetown. The address is 215 University Avenue and it took us 15 minutes to walk there from the ship. We were able to get their smallest car (which was perfectly fine for 2 people for a day's driving) for CAD 52.

 

I would definitely take the time and effort to arrange a rental car. We went to Dalvey-by-the-Sea, PEI National Park, North Rustico, the Dunes Gallery and Cafe in Brackley Beach, the PEI Preserve Company and the Cow's Creamery factory. It was a great day of amazing scenery.

[Urban trekker]

Just a follow up to my post - the downtown Enterprise office on University is not opened on Sundays so that is why you were likley not able to make a booking.

 

GradUT - that is mostly the route I took on my visit last fall - really enjoyed the beaches and the red sand - nice also to be there in the off-season with little or no traffic and also to have the sunshine for most of the day.

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

Edited August 19, 2014 by Urban trekker

[kingoftheicedragons]

Thanks everyone. Like I said, the plan really is to get out of town with a rental car, I'm sure my wife would love to see the red sand at PEI National Park, as well as getting to see some light houses (we've got other things going on at the other obvious places to see light houses).

 

We'll be in Charlottetown on a Tuesday, so the car rental places should be open so that's not a concern.

 

Maryann, thanks for the links, but those are mostly the ones that I saw when I mentioned I had seen other posts on the subject. Unfortunately, some of them are older so could be out of date, and most if not all of them contradicted what I found when I tried to go online as the rental car addresses in the posts did not show up when I actually tried to rent a car, which is why I asked if people had done so more recently, as the addresses appear to be about 10 blocks further away from port when I look at google maps from what people were saying in some of the posts.

[maryann ns]

http://canada411.yellowpages.ca/search/si/1/car+rental/Charlottetown%2C+PE

 

If the above link does not work, go to Canada411 to the yellow pages and look up "car rental" in Charlottetown. That will likely be as up to date as you can get.

 

And do help all of us by reporting on your trip and how you rented a car.

[zelker]

We will be there next month also and have rented a car from Enterprise on University Avenue - they will pick us up and drop us off at the port.

[Urban trekker]

If you can be picked up at the port why should it matter how correct the number of blocks is from the port?

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

[kingoftheicedragons]

Good question, urban trekker. I was planning on walking based on a post I had read here--might have been an older one, I'm not sure any more, that someone said that they knew they could be picked up but still decided to walk to the rental agency and were actually driving out with their car by the time the shuttle came with people from the port.

 

Anyway, I did call the local Enterprise office, and they tell me that they are about a 10-15 minute walk from the port and 5 minutes by car. The instructions for this branch office is to call if you need to be picked up, and when I was speaking with them, they said that it's easy to get in touch with them from Sander's Hall at the port--it sounded like there were some people there that could actually make the call.

[Urban trekker]

Enjoy your visit to PEI - it was my first time there and I really enjoyed the drive out to the beaches - don't know how you are planning to spend the day but the island has three loops - I took the central one and once I found the right route out of the city - not referring to a detailed map and not listening to instructions carefully from the car rental agent wasted about 30 minutes - it was easy driving and being off season very pleasant driving - while I did drive into Green Gables I didn't stay long - returned the car about 3 PM and spent the next hour or so taking in the history of the City including going into the PEI legislature and seeing the room where Canada was born as a nation.

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

[Jolie_Cruiser]

For those subscribed to this thread but not the Canada Forum, here is a free, no publicity, brand-new driving tour guide for Charlottetown. It is written by a fellow cruiser.

 

http://www.tomsportguides.com/CharlottetownDrivingTour-08-30-2014.pdf

:)