Who opens on a Sunday
Avis and Budget share one downtown Long Beach office and Sixt runs another, and both open Sundays from 9 to 2. Book one ahead, take an Uber or cab from the ship, and keep LAX as the fallback, not the plan.
San Pedro looks like the obvious place to start, with Enterprise and Hertz sharing West 6th Street, 0.9 miles away from the cruise center.
Both are closed Sundays — and so is Enterprise’s downtown Long Beach office.
Need a specific company, or a drop-off in another city? Rent at LAX or Long Beach Airport instead.
A Long Beach desk is your answer if
- You’re heading for Orange County, the desert or the coast
- You can reach the counter before its 2 PM Sunday close
- The car goes back in Long Beach or at an airport
- You’d rather skip the LAX facility charge and fee
Skip it for an airport if
- You need one specific company or car class
- The car is staying in San Diego or Las Vegas
- You won’t make the counter before it shuts at 2
- You’re flying home that same day
Long Beach, San Pedro or an airport?
Downtown Long Beach
- About 1.6 to 1.8 miles from the Carnival terminal, by our estimates
- Avis, Budget and Sixt open Sundays 9–2; Enterprise is closed
- No published ride from the ship
- California’s 3.5% assessment, with no airport charges
- Nobody publishes a fleet count, so book ahead
LAX or Long Beach Airport
- All twelve brands at LAX’s new rental center, and Avis, Budget and Hertz open 24 hours
- Long Beach Airport’s counters open daily, roughly 7 AM to 10 PM
- LAX bills a daily facility charge plus a concession fee
- On Uber’s route pages LAX averages $53 to the World Cruise Terminal, and Long Beach Airport $33 to the Long Beach terminal
- You can return the car where you fly home
The Port of Los Angeles says both San Pedro desks give free rides to the terminal. Enterprise’s own page says the opposite, and Hertz’s never mentions the port — so call before you count on either.
Some Long Beach desks list pick-up for starting a rental, but none publishes a ride from the ship — so ask about that too.
The same $50 car, downtown and at LAX
| Rental length | Downtown Long Beach | LAX |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | $52 + the ride from the ship | $67 + the ride to LAX |
| 3 days | $155 + the ride from the ship | $200 + the ride to LAX |
| 5 days | $259 + the ride from the ship | $334 + the ride to LAX |
The base rate is our assumed $50 a day, with California’s 3.5% assessment on top. LAX adds the $9-a-day facility charge (five days at most) and an 11% concession fee we assumed, since none is published for 2026. You’d add fuel yourself. Illustrative
Downtown costs less at every length — and the gap widens the longer you keep the car, because the 11% fee grows with the rental.
At the same base rate the difference is the charges, not the price of the car.
LAX earns those charges if the trip ends there, or if only one kind of car will do. Price both for your dates before you decide.
Three drives at about two hours each
Long Beach opens three directions: north to Los Angeles, east to the desert, south to Orange County and San Diego.
Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and San Diego sit at almost the same distance (115, 117 and 113 miles) and have little else in common. Each is better as a night than a day trip — the round trip alone is roughly four and a half hours before traffic gets a vote.
| Destination | From the Long Beach terminal | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Palm Springs | 115 miles, about 2 hr 19 min | East on the 91 and 60, into the desert. Plan a night. |
| Santa Barbara | 117 miles, about 2 hr 21 min | Up the coast on the 101. Give it two nights. |
| San Diego | 113 miles, about 2 hr 15 min | Down the 405 and I-5. A one-way is its own quote. |
| Big Bear Lake | 110 miles, about 2 hr 31 min | Mountain roads, so check conditions in winter. |
| Joshua Tree National Park | 152 miles, about 3 hr 09 min | $30 a vehicle for 7 days, per the park. |
| Las Vegas | 280 miles, about 5 hr 14 min | Five hours across the Mojave. A one-way is its own quote. |
Drive times come from OpenStreetMap routing with no traffic, so real Southern California drives run longer. The park fee is from the park’s own page. Checked Sept 28, 2026
The closer trips fit inside a day, provided you leave the drive back some room.
| Closer | From the Long Beach terminal | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Disneyland, Anaheim | 27 miles, about 37 min | Measured from the Long Beach terminal. The Disneyland day. |
| Universal Studios Hollywood | 35 miles, about 47 min | North through downtown. Parking is $40 before 5 PM, per third-party sites. |
| Getty Center and Griffith Observatory | 33 and 33 miles | Both free. The Getty wants a timed reservation, and Griffith is closed Mondays. |
| Santa Monica | 32 miles, about 42 min | The pier and the beach, up the coast. |
Hours and fees are as each site’s page gave them, except Universal’s parking, which is third-party and unconfirmed. Checked Sept 28, 2026
Leaving the car in San Diego
If San Diego is where the trip ends, the rental can end there too — and that’s when the drop fee starts to matter.
Nobody we found publishes a one-way charge for dropping at San Pedro or Long Beach from LAX, LGB or Santa Ana, and we didn’t research Long Beach to San Diego.
Enterprise describes its fee as “disclosed at the time of reservation”; Discover Cars folds it into the total it shows.
So get a quote for your drop-off and set the total against the train.
Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner covers the same corridor. We found no published fare, so price it on Amtrak’s own site.
The next port down the coast has its own desks, laid out in the San Diego rental guide.
The ports are toll-free; the freeways have lanes that aren’t
Getting into either port costs nothing in tolls — the catch comes once you’re driving on. The 10 and the 110 in LA County have express lanes, and so do SR-91 and I-15 inland, all fenced off by double white lines.
The TollPass Enterprise sells, and that National and Alamo use too, doesn’t reach the Southern California express lanes. Hertz and Avis have programs with their own rules, so stay in the general lanes.
If a rental does pick up a toll, the pass-through, per the Golden Gate Bridge district, is: Hertz PlatePass, $5.95 a day and uncapped; Avis and Budget, $6.95 with a $34.95 cap; Enterprise, National and Alamo, $4.95 a toll day capped at $34.65.
The LAX run without a car, priced
Every fare we found is quoted airport to ship — so read it as a guide for the ride back, not a quote.
Carnival’s LAX run costs $34.99 a person and up, and the trip in takes about an hour. Its post-cruise transfer sets a minimum flight time that depends on when the ship docks — check it before you book the flight home.
Uber’s route pages give averages, not quotes. Rides from LAX average $53 to the World Cruise Terminal and $48 to the Long Beach terminal; from Long Beach Airport they run $33 to that terminal and $46 to San Pedro.
Long Beach Yellow Cab’s flat fare to the San Pedro ships from Long Beach Airport is $50, and $75 goes to LAX. Los Angeles itself sets no published flat fare from LAX to Long Beach or San Pedro.
Kids in the back seat, luggage in the trunk
American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue each say a car seat can be checked free, so there’s little reason to rent one at the counter.
California wants a child under 2 rear-facing, unless the child has reached 40 pounds or 40 inches.
A child under 8 who’s shorter than 4 feet 9 inches goes in the back, in either a car seat or a booster (Vehicle Code 27360 and 27363).
| Enterprise’s class | People | Bags |
|---|---|---|
| Midsize car | 5 | 3 |
| Standard SUV | 5 | 5 |
| Full-size SUV | 7 | 3 |
| 7-passenger minivan | 7 | 5 |
These are the US capacities Enterprise publishes, and the car on your quote decides whether they apply. Checked Sept 27, 2026
Reserve the branch, then set the drop-off
Discover Cars lists a downtown Long Beach branch at 100 Pacific Avenue, plus the airport. Search the branch, and if you’re flying out that day, change the return to your airport.
- Pick-up: a downtown Long Beach branch
- Drop-off: Long Beach, LAX, or another city
- Every tax and fee listed before you pay
- Cancellation is free until 48 hrs out
Weighing a drop-off in a different city? Our one-way guide explains how the fees work.
Renting after an LA cruise: your questions
Can I pick up a rental car at the Los Angeles cruise port after my cruise?
We found no counter at either terminal, so you’ll ride to one. The nearest are Enterprise and Hertz in San Pedro, both closed Sundays, and Avis, Budget, Sixt and Enterprise downtown in Long Beach, roughly 1.6 to 1.8 miles from the Carnival terminal. An Uber or cab covers the gap.
Which Long Beach rental office is open on Sunday?
Two are: Avis and Budget at 249 E Ocean Blvd and Sixt at 100 Pacific Ave, each open 9 to 2 on Sundays per its own page. Enterprise downtown is closed that day, and Long Beach Airport’s counters stay open daily from roughly 7 AM to 10 PM.
How far is Palm Springs from the Long Beach cruise terminal?
Roughly 115 miles and 2 hours 19 minutes with no traffic, by our route estimate. San Diego is about 113 miles and Las Vegas about 280.
Is it cheaper to rent downtown or at the airport?
Downtown is cheaper at the same base rate. LAX adds a $9-a-day facility charge, capped at five days, plus a concession fee, which comes to about $15 more in charges and tax on a one-day rental at our assumptions.
More on renting around a Los Angeles cruise
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