SixT Car Rental at MCO - Our Experience, will stick with Alamo next time!

[daaaveee]

Hi all, after some deliberating over car hire between Alamo and SixT, I took a punt and rented with SixT. I originally was going to go for the FFAR class (Tahoe or similar) with Alamo but treated myself and went for the class above with SixT, XFAR (Mercedes Benz M Class or similar).

Cost for 14 days, 6th to 20th of September 2015, was £465.99 with 8% cashback through quidco so £428.71 total.

Upon arrival at MCO we had to wait about 20mins for the shuttle to arrive. You have to wait at pick bays A11-13 or B11-13, depends which side of the airport you exit. 'A' side is closer to the SixT off site location so we went there. Here are some photos of the location, its on the same level as all the car hire desks, just go down the escalators then turn left, keep walking until you're past the last desk (Dollar I believe), then see the spaces outside to your right. There are also courtesy phones inside this area to call SixT for free if you've been waiting a while for the shuttle, I went in to call them just as the shuttle arrived!

This is the SixT shuttle (photo taken at their off site depot)

It was 10mins until we arrived at the off site location. Long queue there had to wait about 30mins to be seen despite all 4 desks open.

We were originally assigned a Mercedes ML350 however I asked if they had any other choices as I had originally wanted a Cadillac Escalade as I had read they do have them at this location (found out at return they do have 1 at this location at the moment but 1 only, so not very likely to get).

The choice other than the ML350 was a BMW X5 which we chose instead. Upon return they also had a Mercedes Benz GL in the lot, but it looks like order of most to least common in the XFAR class at the moment is ML>X5>GL>Escalade.

Took about 5mins to process, no hard sell as there are no other classes to upgrade to! Was asked if I wanted to 'complete my insurances' which basically meant did I want the key and windscreen cover which I am happy without, all other insurances required and zero excess was already included in my prepaid rate. Was also asked if I needed the toll pass but happy to pay in cash for the small amount we used toll roads, SixT's toll pass is pretty expensive.

Another 10min wait for the car to be bought over from the lot, a quick check around, loaded up and familiarise myself with controls, set up mirrors etc and we were off, total time from out of terminal to out of car park was just over 1 hour. Compared to 10mins max when we used Alamo and skip the counter last time, not that great!

When we got to have a proper look around it was obvious the inside wasn't that clean and was quite grubby with 15k miles on the clock. You can see some marks in the photos below. We gave things a wipe around for our own sake but it was quite disappointing to have to do that. I tried to ring the Orlando office to explain the situation with a view to possibly return the car (for an Escalade if it was there!) when we passed the depot on the way to Kennedy Space Center, but after being on hold for 10 mins and then 30mins after calling again, I gave up not wanting to waste any more holiday time.

The car itself was great, loads of room for us 2, would be spacious for 4 and take 5 no problem. 4 large cases plus hand luggage would be no problem, maybe 5 cases and hand luggage on laps is doable. It has a split folding powered lift tailgate as shown, and push button to close, very handy. Loads of power from the 300hp 3.0 twin turbo engine, great handling for a big SUV, not like the Tahoe etc, boats! Fuel economy was good for the size, I averaged 25mpg US. I filled it twice from 1/4 tank for $35 a time and returned it full. Did around 750 miles total.

Spec wise it had plenty of toys including fully working navigation with real time traffic updates, parking sensors front and rear, electric everything, moon roof, iDrive connected drive with internet and apps for weather etc, very nice.

Upon return it was smooth sailing, just park in the marked bays to the right of the building at the offsite location. A few other cars being returned at the same time but by the time we had unloaded the cases the guy came over and checked everything over and was done in a minute or two. Straight on to the waiting shuttle and dropped off outside the check in desks in around 10mins.

Overall I would not use SixT again. The rate was good for the XFAR class we booked but the wait upon arrival and grubby interior along with unresponsive phone calls let them down. I will stick with Alamo in the future and save a bit of cash with the Tahoe or similar. Skip the counter is great having used it in the past, and getting out of the airport quickly well worth it.

[Guest]

I used Sixt this year and had a "similar" experience and thought they were great!

- Waited about 10 mins for the shuttle (we did call from the stand - 3 at home! )
- no hard sell (a bit like you), and whilst no choice of car the queue was no more than 10 mins
- drop off on the way back, on the shuttle bus within 2 mins and airport within 7

I would do it again. It was a great rate, and I imagine the queues at other desks would have been longer. The 5 mins out "in the heat" waiting for the shuttle bus was quite fun (so hot and humid late at night, gives you that "holiday feeling"). And the shuttle had lots of cold water on board.

[daaaveee]

Originally Posted by misterh

I used Sixt this year and had a "similar" experience and thought they were great!

- Waited about 10 mins for the shuttle (we did call from the stand - 3 at home! )
- no hard sell (a bit like you), and whilst no choice of car the queue was no more than 10 mins
- drop off on the way back, on the shuttle bus within 2 mins and airport within 7

I would do it again. It was a great rate, and I imagine the queues at other desks would have been longer. The 5 mins out "in the heat" waiting for the shuttle bus was quite fun (so hot and humid late at night, gives you that "holiday feeling"). And the shuttle had lots of cold water on board.

See more...

Glad you had a good experience, I hope I am in the minority, if it weren't for the grubby car, on holds for ages on phone and longer wait for shuttle/desk I would probably use again too as I like that they have a different fleet of cars to the usual US stuff. As it stands though for me Alamo's skip the counter is the way to go

[Guest]

With the greatest respect it does sound like you are nit picking a bit, there are far worse rental experiences you could've had *ahem* Dollar

You booked an ML and the X5 is a similar sized car? Surely a GL would've been an upgrade? 15k isn't a lot for a rental car, our Avis had 32k and was a bit grubby inside plus they tried to downgrade us...

If the price was right I wouldn't be put off Sixt, though the convenience of just having Alamo over the road and Alamo Savetime is good I admit.

[daaaveee]

I guess I can see why you would think that, for example an hour overall in and out isnt that long, but when paying around £100 more than for a Tahoe with Alamo, that was my main point of comparison.

15k miles is absolutely fine, my point was with that little mileage it was quite worn. To be expected in a rental car but I do also expect it to be cleaned.

It wasn't a bad experience overall, just average. For the price I think there is better but I appreciate not everyone has the same opinion and I respect that

[daaaveee]

Originally Posted by disneyoli

You booked an ML and the X5 is a similar sized car? Surely a GL would've been an upgrade

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ML and X5 are indeed both similar sized, 5 seaters. GL and Escalade ESV are the others in the same XFAR class and are available at MCO, both 7 seaters.

[Yorkshire Lad]

daavee

good review and good detail with the pictures, always enjoy getting this info, only used Alamo up to now, but again would think about using Sixt if the price was right.

[DonnaD]

Originally Posted by misterh

I used Sixt this year and had a "similar" experience and thought they were great!

- Waited about 10 mins for the shuttle (we did call from the stand - 3 at home! )
- no hard sell (a bit like you), and whilst no choice of car the queue was no more than 10 mins
- drop off on the way back, on the shuttle bus within 2 mins and airport within 7

I would do it again. It was a great rate, and I imagine the queues at other desks would have been longer. The 5 mins out "in the heat" waiting for the shuttle bus was quite fun (so hot and humid late at night, gives you that "holiday feeling"). And the shuttle had lots of cold water on board.

See more...

Our experience in August was similar to your's. The shuttle was waiting both ends, we had no queue at all and only had to wait as DH wanted an Arcadia instead of the one she first offered. He was very pleased as Hertz classify the Arcadia as a full size SUV instead of a standard like Sixt. We had no complaints about the car or service at all. We were also very pleased with the price.

[Cannavar]

We used Sixt in Tennessee/Georgia but didnt use them in MCO simply due to the location.

When dropping our Sixt car back in Atlanta it was offsite but had a monorail to the terminal so no transport or waiting issues.

Would use them again but the offsite location at MCO is the big no no for me.

[Tea]

Edited. Not sure what happened +