Montréal to Québec City One-Way Rental Car for a Cruise

Find your row before anything else.

The YUL row is the longest drive on the page — about 11 miles more than starting downtown.

Fly in, rent at the airport and drive straight to a Québec City ship, and you’ve stacked a flight, a counter queue and a drive of nearly four hours into one day — leave a night in between if you can.

The ship’s own end matters too — our Québec City rental page covers the desks and the pier at that end.

No brand page we read prints a Montréal–Québec City drop-fee amount, in either direction; the booking screen is the only place it shows.

So we won’t print a number — every amount you’ll see in a forum post is someone else’s date, desk and car class.

Enterprise’s wording has two traps.

The charge is paid at pickup, not at return, and the one-way daily rate can sit above the round-trip rate — so compare totals, never the headline.

National and Alamo say “may,” and Avis says “certain rates” — read that as a fee that depends on the booking, so search the exact dates and desks you’ll use.

Before any drop charge, the one-way comes to about C$105 for the day on our assumptions, with about C$42 of that in fuel.

Collect at YUL instead and drive the longer leg, and it’s about C$108.

The airport adds miles here, not fees we could find — at least none it publishes.

Whatever the drop charge turns out to be lands on top of those figures — type it into the box and the comparison redraws.

Two people with light bags may find the train simpler, whatever the drop charge. A family with car seats and five suitcases may find the car worth a fair-sized drop charge.

VIA Rail averages 3 h 26 min Montréal to Québec City (34 departures a week) and 3 h 19 min the other way (35 a week, 270 km); the route pages rendered no fare for us. Its Québec City station is the Gare du Palais, 450 rue de la Gare du Palais, where Hertz is nearby but has no counter.

That’s about 69 departures a week across both directions — roughly five a day each way, our arithmetic.

In Montréal, VIA and Amtrak share Central Station, 895 rue De La Gauchetière Ouest, which has a Budget counter. Central Station sits downtown, a cab ride from the Grand Quay; the hub measures it.

The train skips the drop charge and the driving, not the luggage.

Two big suitcases each and a connection to a cab at both ends is the real cost.

The route page didn’t show us a fare, so we can’t print one.

Book early for a cruise day — a sold-out train leaves you with the coach or the car.

Orléans Express runs 15 buses a day, downtown to downtown, the first at 6 AM and the last at 10 PM, in about 3 h 15 min (fastest 3 h); seniors and students get 15% off, and it prints no fare on the route page.

Fifteen departures a day is about three times VIA’s daily count, our arithmetic. A late ship or a long breakfast doesn’t strand you.

The route page says only centre-ville, so check your ticket for the Montréal stop. If it’s the bus station at 1717 rue Berri, Enterprise’s “Montreal Bus Station” desk shares the address, in case you change your mind about the car.

There’s no fare on the route page.

Price it in the booking engine and type it into the calculator above — then compare per person, not per car.

In Montréal, the one-way usually starts at a downtown desk or YUL. Avis and Budget at Central Station put the car beside the train, and Enterprise’s desk sits at the Berri bus station.

Both close early at weekends, and Enterprise on Berri doesn’t open Sundays — the hub’s hours checker shows which desk is open the hour you’d arrive.

VIA lists SAAQ indoor parking at the Québec City station at C$16 a day. That’s the one parking figure we found at the Québec City end.

Note what isn’t there.

VIA says Hertz is nearby but has no counter in the Québec City station, so a car returned there goes to a desk elsewhere in town.

The Québec City desks, their hours and the walk to the pier are on the Québec City cruise port rental page, which links back here for this drive.