Honolulu Cruise Port Rental Car Guide (Pier 2 and Pier 11)

Hawaii DOT Harbors says Honolulu Harbor has two cruise terminals: Pier 2 is the primary, at the west end of Channel Street off Ala Moana Boulevard, and Pier 11, off the north extension of Aloha Tower Drive, is the alternate. Your line’s documents name which one.

HDOT lists Aloha Tower itself as closed indefinitely. Norwegian says Pride of America calls Hawaii home year-round and starts in Honolulu — its page doesn’t name the pier, so check the documents before you pick a return desk.

Royal Caribbean warns that Google Maps lists another “Pier 2” about 4 miles from the real terminal; search “Pier 2 Cruise Ship Terminal”. Type the wrong one into the car’s navigation and you’ll reach a pier, not your ship.

We found no rental desk at Pier 2 or Pier 11, and no brand page we read mentions a cruise or pier pick-up. So the plan has two halves on Oahu — where you collect the car, and where you hand it back before boarding.

Three Enterprise desks sit outside the Waikiki hotel strip, and they keep office hours, not cruise hours. Ala Moana opens weekdays from 7:30 to 5, while Discovery Bay, at the Waikiki end of Ala Moana Boulevard, adds weekend mornings from 8 to noon.

North Nimitz is the only Honolulu Enterprise page we read that shows pick-up service as available — a branch service, not a cruise shuttle, so call before you count on it.

Waikiki flips the pattern. Every Waikiki hotel desk we read closes by 4 PM at the latest, Sixt at 2 and three Enterprise desks at noon, and most take keys after hours through a valet or a garage drop box.

That suits a morning drop and punishes an afternoon pick-up — the Waikiki night-before page works through what it does to a hotel stay.

Avis also has a Waterfront desk at 455 Kalewa St (weekdays 8 to 4) and a Twin Fin desk at 2570 Kalakaua (daily 7:30 to 3:30, keys to the valet); Hertz has a Kahala Hotel desk, weekdays only. Alamo’s UK site names a “Honolulu Waikiki Hotel Pier Shuttle” location but gives no address, hours or detail, so we don’t count it.

Try a Saturday at 1 PM: Ala Moana never opened, Discovery Bay shut at noon, and the Waikiki desks still trading have one to three hours left.

After 4 PM on a weekend, or 5 on a weekday, the airport is the only answer on our list — its counters open from 5 or 6 in the morning, and Avis runs until 1 AM with 24-hour drop-off. Plan around that, not the rate.

If you’re collecting the morning you dock, the after-cruise page lines these hours up against disembarkation — the hour you walk off matters more than the day.

Oahu’s rental bill starts with the general excise tax, which the company passes on at up to 4.712%. Then comes the state’s rental surcharge, $7.50 a day in 2026, a flat charge, not a percentage. On Discover Cars’ “from $41” day it adds about 18% before tax, our arithmetic — the cheaper the car, the bigger its share.

It rises to $8 on Jan 1, 2027, under the statute; the after-cruise page deals with trips that cross the new year.

Collect at HNL and two more lines appear, a $4.50 daily facility charge and a concession fee no primary page states — the airport page prices both.

Companies also add a vehicle license recovery fee; a travel guide puts it near $5 a day, which we couldn’t confirm on a primary page. Look for it among your quote’s fee lines.

We found no toll roads on Oahu, from secondary sources; a proposed toll on Maui’s Hana Highway isn’t in effect. That comes from secondary sources, not a state toll authority — we found none to check against.

So there’s no transponder to rent and no plate-billing fee to watch, as far as we can tell. If a counter offers a toll package anyway, ask which road it would ever charge for.

What costs you on Oahu is H-1 traffic, not tolls, and our drive times are free-flow estimates that the rush hour can stretch a long way.

Fuel is the running cost that does show up, and the after-cruise page prices it at AAA’s Honolulu average.

HDOT’s visitor page lists buses, bike share, car share, the trolley, rideshare and taxis, and gives no cruise parking. That’s the harbor agency’s own page, not a forum post, and we found no cruise lot at either pier.

Aloha Tower Marketplace’s garage, run by SP+, says overnight parking is not allowed there, so it doesn’t work for a cruise. Don’t plan on it.

Harbor Court at 55 Merchant Street is open 24 hours, with a $21 weekday maximum and $3 evenings and weekends, cash only, per a parking-listing site; we found no published multi-day rate. A daytime maximum doesn’t tell you what a week costs, and we won’t guess one.

Keep a $41-a-day HNL car through a 7-night cruise and the rental alone is about $419 on our numbers — before any parking, which we couldn’t price. Hand it back and rent again afterward.

Bringing your own car to the ship is a different question, and our Hawaii parking page tracks what we can confirm on it.

Count suitcases before seats — Enterprise lists a midsize car at five people and three bags, which fits a couple’s cruise luggage, not a family’s. Size up when the bags are in doubt.

Hawaii law: under 2 rear-facing; 2 to 4 in a rear- or forward-facing seat; 4 to 10 in a car seat or booster, though 7- to 10-year-olds taller than 4 feet 9 inches may use the belt. Rental seats are priced at the counter: Avis’s US page says “usually” $14 a day with an $84 ceiling, and we found no Hawaii-specific figure.

A week at that ceiling buys a lot of checked-bag fee, so bringing your own seat often wins.

Pick the desk by its hours first — a lower rate at a counter that closed at noon only buys you a cab to the airport. Then compare totals with the excise tax and the daily surcharge in, never the headline rate.