Norfolk Cruise Port Rental Car Guide (Half Moone Terminal)

Visit Norfolk is blunt about it — there are no agencies on site, and it points you to the airport and “nearby Enterprise locations”.

That plural flatters downtown more than the map does. Only one Enterprise sits in the middle of Norfolk, and the others on our list are out on Military Highway or across the river in Portsmouth.

Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center, 1 Waterside Drive, Norfolk, VA 23510, run by Nauticus.

Carnival Sunshine is the one ship you can board here through 2026, all year, and Carnival Freedom takes over in late May 2027. Visit Norfolk’s news post gives May 23 for Freedom’s arrival while its own schedule still shows Sunshine that day, with Freedom from May 29.

If you sail that week, confirm the ship with Carnival, not with us.

Every other ship on Visit Norfolk’s 2026 list is a port call, not a departure.

So plan two stops for the car — a counter to collect it from, and one still open when you give it back.

Try Sunday at 11. Two city desks answer — Avis and Budget at Bromley until 1 PM, and Enterprise Azalea Garden until 2.

The desk nearest the ship isn’t one of them, because Enterprise Downtown never opens on a Sunday.

Saturday at 11:30 is the trap. Downtown is open then — with half an hour to go before its noon close, and Portsmouth shuts at the same minute.

Weekdays are easy: all five open by 8 AM and stay open to at least 5:30 PM, when Little Creek closes first.

The airport row sits apart. ORF’s brand counters open between 6 and 7 AM and close at 11:59 PM or 12:30 AM — the checker shows them without counting them as a city desk.

Holidays aren’t in the data, so phone the desk on one. The after-cruise page sets these hours against the morning you dock.

Enterprise lists 18 neighborhood branches across Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton and Virginia Beach; Downtown Norfolk is the only one downtown. Avis and Budget show only the airport and Bromley on Norview Avenue. Hertz’s Norfolk page mentions “a handful of pick-up locations” but its map wouldn’t load for us, and Sixt’s city page returned an error, so we can’t list a city desk for either.

“Pick-Up Service Available” on an Enterprise page is a branch service, not a cruise shuttle. None of these pages mentions the terminal, so ask on the phone before you count on a ride.

Portsmouth looks close on a map. It’s across the Elizabeth River — 7 road miles by our routing, with downtown’s exact hours.

Little Creek is a weekday desk only — leave it out of any weekend plan.

Weekends narrow it to two. Avis and Budget at Bromley, 1700 Norview Avenue, and Enterprise Azalea Garden on Military Highway are the only city counters on our list open both days — each into the early afternoon.

Virginia taxes a short-term rental at 10%, made of a 4% rental tax, a 4% local tax and a 2% rental fee. ORF, the Norfolk desks, Richmond, Dulles and Reagan National are all in Virginia, so every pick-up on these pages pays it.

That makes the tax a constant — not a reason to pick one counter over another.

The airport’s own charges are the open question, and we couldn’t close it. We found no facility charge and no concession percentage for ORF, on the airport’s page, the brands’ pages or a consultant’s survey — so our calculators start both at zero instead of a guess.

If your ORF quote shows a line we couldn’t find, it’s real — type it into the airport page’s sums.

Richmond’s $8.25-a-day survey figure lives on the drive-in page.

Virginia Tax’s page doesn’t say whether general sales tax lands on top. We read 10% as the whole of it, and a counter that adds more owes you the name of the line.

The city’s cruise lot, Cedar Grove at 1000 Monticello Avenue, charges $15 a day for cars and vans up to 15 passengers, paid on entry (cash or most major cards); there are no reservations.

A free shuttle runs to the terminal, which the city puts 1.5 miles away. Your bags are checked at the lot, and taxi or Uber riders may use the shuttle from Cedar Grove too.

Opening times conflict. Visit Norfolk says the lot opens at 9:30 AM, with shuttles from about 9:45 and the last at 2:30 PM. The city says 10 AM, with shuttles from about 10:30. Aim for the later time — you won’t idle at a shut gate.

A rental kept while you sail pays twice — the daily rate and the space. At Discover Cars’ “from $55” ORF price (Oct 2, 2026), that’s about $60.50 a day with Virginia’s tax, plus $15 for the lot, roughly $75.50 for each day the car sits, our arithmetic.

Hand it back before you board, not after.

If you can drive to Norfolk, your own car is the cheaper case by a distance. Seven days at Cedar Grove come to $105, our arithmetic, and our Norfolk parking page covers the lot in full.

Enterprise Downtown, at 751 Monticello, is on the same avenue as the lot at 1000. Drive in, park, and rent there for a day trip if one tempts you.

The Downtown and Midtown tunnels to Portsmouth are tolled; Wikipedia lists the Downtown Tunnel at $1.94 to $2.50 with E-ZPass and $5.81 to $6.37 by plate, but the operator’s site wouldn’t show us its rates, so treat those as unconfirmed.

None of the routes we priced from ORF or downtown needs them. They lead to Portsmouth, not to the ship.

Collecting at Enterprise Portsmouth is the one desk choice that may put a tunnel between you and Waterside Drive — we didn’t check which crossing our routing took.

Wikipedia describes the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on I-64 as toll-free, with its expansion due to finish in February 2027; we couldn’t read VDOT’s pages on the express lanes. That’s the crossing on the usual I-64 approach from Richmond and Williamsburg — though again, we didn’t confirm our routing uses it.

The plan only matters on the Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where the 24-hour return discount needs E-ZPass. The Cape Charles day works through it.

If you own an E-ZPass, pack it — Enterprise says your own transponder keeps its TollPass charges off the bill.

A rate a few dollars lower at a desk that shuts at noon on Saturday buys you a cab to ORF, not a saving. Settle the hours first — then compare totals with Virginia’s 10% in.