Kiel Cruise Port Rental Cars: Station Desks, Two Terminals and Port Parking

Ostseekai, berths 27 and 28, sits in the city centre beside the Kiellinie promenade; TUI Cruises (Mein Schiff) and AIDA sail from it.

Ostuferhafen berth 1, at Ostuferhafen 15 on the east bank (24149 Kiel), is where MSC and Costa dock. MSC puts Ostuferhafen “around eight kilometres to the east of central Kiel” — a figure that matches our drive from the station, not the short line across the fjord.

The port’s 2026 call list shows MSC Euribia at Ostuferhafen from mid-May to early October and Costa Diadema there to mid-September; Mein Schiff and AIDA ships use Ostseekai.

Norwegenkai is Color Line’s Oslo ferry berth, not an ocean-cruise terminal — ignore it if your sat-nav suggests it.

We found no rental brand that brings a car to either quay or collects one there — you fetch it from town.

From the station desks, Ostseekai is about 1.3 road miles (2.0 km), a five-minute drive on our routing.

Check the terminal on your cruise documents first, then pick the desk.

Sixt and Enterprise both sit by the station — Sixt’s key box in the CAP car park opposite the DB travel centre, Enterprise on Kaistraße next door. You verify with Sixt online before you arrive and collect the key with a PIN or QR code Sixt emails you; nobody is there to help. Avis on the Wall is the closest of all to Ostseekai, about 0.7 road miles by our routing.

Sixt’s Tonberg branch is the outlier — about 2.5 road miles from Ostseekai, but staffed on Sunday mornings.

Europcar’s own Kiel page loaded without branch details; Discover Cars lists Europcar and Keddy at Stormarnstraße 41, which we couldn’t confirm with Europcar. Hertz also lists Kiel; we couldn’t confirm its hours.

Avis’s Kiel number is its central office in Oberursel, so book online. Extra drivers cost €12–15 a day, per Avis.

If you land at Hamburg instead, the desks there are on the airport page, with their own hours.

The checker opens on a Saturday at noon, on purpose.

At that moment Enterprise is shut for the day and Avis closed at 11. Sixt’s Tonberg branch has two hours left. Sixt at the station runs on a key box, so there’s a car process but no staff.

Avis prints no Sunday hours, so the checker calls Sunday unknown, not closed.

Move the clock to 4:30 on a weekday and Avis has gone home too — its 4 PM close is the earliest in town.

Enterprise Kiel lists Saturday as closed and Sunday as 9 AM to noon. That’s an unusual pattern — we read the page twice, on Oct 3 and Oct 4, to be sure.

A schedule that odd deserves a phone call — ring the branch on +49 431 667430 before you count on a Sunday pickup.

Avis on the Wall opens 7:30 to 11 on Saturday and lists nothing at all for Sunday.

Sixt’s Tonberg branch runs 7 AM to 2 PM on Saturday and 8 to noon on Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon no staffed counter on our list is open. Sixt at the Hauptbahnhof prints 24 hours, every day, but it’s a self-service key box with nobody to help.

For a Saturday sailing, collect before 11 or use the station key box once you’ve verified online. For a Sunday, Sixt Tonberg is staffed 8 to noon, and Enterprise’s short morning, if the branch confirms it.

Returns are a separate question, and an easier one — the after-cruise page sorts the key boxes from the staffed desks.

Port Parking sells its Ostseekai car park to TUI Cruises passengers at €174 for 7 to 8 days, about US$195. Its Ostuferhafen car park, for MSC and Costa passengers, charges €149 for 7 to 8 days and €175 for 14 to 15, about US$165 and US$195.

AIDA passengers book Ostseekai spaces through AIDA, which prices them, or take the shuttle car park at Kiel Airport in Holtenau, from €110 for 2 to 4 nights and €129 for 7 to 8 days, with a free shuttle. Port Parking calls that car park 9 km from Ostseekai — our routing makes it 6.4 road miles (10.3 km).

Port Parking takes bookings online only, no cash, and its bays are 5 m long, so a car with a bike rack over 5 metres doesn’t fit. We re-read Port Parking’s price ladder on Oct 4, 2026: the €174 Ostseekai band runs from 4–5 to 7–8 days, so check the band for your dates when you book.

Parken & Meer, a private operator serving all the cruise quays, advertises outdoor shuttle parking “from 39 €” and valet from €89, without saying for how many days. MSC’s US site names Parken & Meer as its parking partner and quotes €129 for 8 to 9 days of shuttle parking.

Now the sum that matters — the car itself. At an assumed €45 (about US$50) a day, a rental that waits out a seven-night cruise costs about €315 in rent alone. Add Ostseekai’s €174 and it’s roughly €489; at Ostuferhafen, about €464, our arithmetic.

That’s money for a car that never moves. Hand it back before you board and rent again afterwards — unless you’re touring for days on both sides.

Ostseekai has short-stay spaces for dropping off passengers and bags; you register with staff at the entrance — so a driver can unload the bags and the passengers before returning the car.

Driving your own car in? Our Kiel parking guide covers it.

The dollar figures on this page come from the European Central Bank’s Oct 2, 2026 reference rate, about $1.12 to the euro — your card will settle at its own.

ADAC: there’s no general car toll on Germany’s Autobahns — so a rental from Hamburg Airport to either Kiel terminal pays nothing on the way.

Lübeck’s Herrentunnel charges a car €2.30 one way (since March 2025), but it sits on the Travemünde side of town, off the run from Kiel to the old town. You’d meet it heading for Travemünde, not the Holstentor.

Rostock’s Warnowtunnel charges €4.40 in winter and €5.40 in summer, and that’s Rostock, a different cruise port.

ADAC is a motoring club, not a government page — we treat these figures as reliable but secondary.

Day-trip drive times and tickets sit on the Lübeck, Haithabu and Laboe page. Leave the toll budget at zero.

Germany’s standard VAT is 19%. We assume an EU rental quote already includes it, so our calculator adds none; if yours says “zzgl. MwSt.” (plus VAT), add 19%.

Neither Sixt’s Hamburg Airport page nor its Kiel station page printed an airport or station surcharge, so that box starts at 0%. Type one in if your quote shows it.

The deposits, the damage excess and the under-25 charge get their full treatment on the Hamburg Airport page, beside the airport desks.

Pick a counter that’s staffed at your hour first, or accept the key box. Then compare prices.

Search your dates: Kiel pick-ups vary by day, and the one-way fee shows in the total.

Read the pick-up line on each result. A listing at “Cruise-Center Ostseekai” is the one to question before you pay. Our Discover Cars review covers its deposits and coverage add-on.