One office on Miami Road comes to the ship
Book the cruise office on Miami Road that Avis, Budget and Payless share — of the rental offices near Port Everglades, it’s the one we could confirm whose shuttle comes to the pier, and its doors open at 8 every day. Otherwise it’s FLL, 1.8 miles away, and getting there starts with a taxi or a shared van, not a shuttle.
Take the pier pickup if
- You’re off the ship between 8 AM and early afternoon
- The car you want is an Avis, a Budget or a Payless
- A road trip comes next, not a same-day flight
- You’d rather not pay airport charges on the rental
Head to FLL instead if
- It’s Sunday, you’ll be off after about 1 PM, and the office shuts at 2
- You want Enterprise, Hertz, Sixt or someone else
- The car goes back to FLL anyway and one counter is simpler
- Three or more of you can ride the $11 van, on a day it runs
Cruise office, 2520 Miami Rd
- Its shuttle “will meet passengers at the pier”; if it isn’t there, call Avis at 954-713-1500 or Budget at 954-761-7231
- Opens at 8 AM daily; closes at 6 on weekdays, 4 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday
- It isn’t an airport location, so the rental shouldn’t carry airport charges
- Avis, Budget and Payless, nobody else
- Broward’s 7% tax applies all the same
FLL’s Rental Car Center
- Twelve companies, with Avis and Budget open around the clock
- The ride there: a taxi, $18–$21 on the port’s average, or the port’s Van On Demand at $11 each for groups of three or more (the port says it’s “not available on all sailing days”)
- Airport charges on the rental, amounts not published
- Handy if you fly home from FLL and want one place to hand it back
- Taxis, rideshare and vans load in “designated areas outside the cruise terminal”
How far is Key West from the pier?
Nearest first. Shark Valley makes a half-day out and back, while Key West is about four and a half hours each way before any stops.
| Where | Distance and time | Tolls | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everglades, Shark Valley | about 59 miles, about 1 hour 20 minutes | Depends on the route you take | It’s on the Tamiami Trail, 30 miles west of Miami. $35 a car to get in. |
| Everglades, Homestead entrance | about 70 miles, about 1 hour 35 minutes | Depends on the route you take | The main entrance (Ernest F. Coe) is open 24 hours, and one $35 pass covers every entrance for 7 days. |
| Naples and the Gulf | about 108 miles, about 2 hours 10 minutes | $3.18 with a transponder or $3.75 by plate at each of I-75 Alligator Alley’s East and West plazas, per the Turnpike; we couldn’t confirm whether a one-way crossing pays one plaza or both | Straight across the Everglades on I-75. |
| Orlando | 208–211 miles, about 4 hours | About $15 by transponder on the Turnpike (our sum) | The parks after the ship. Orlando and Port Everglades, both ways. |
| Key West | about 187 miles, about 4½ hours with clear roads | None on U.S. 1 through the Keys. Card Sound Road, the alternative route onto Key Largo, costs $2.13 with a transponder | South of Florida City, U.S. 1 becomes the Overseas Highway: 42 bridges, and mile markers counting down from 127 to 0 at Key West. The official Keys tourism site calls it 159 miles from Miami. |
Distances and times are our own route estimates from the port area (OpenStreetMap routing, no traffic), because nobody publishes official ones for these drives. Tolls come from the Turnpike’s schedules and Monroe County. Checked Sept 28, 2026
The Keys: one way or round trip
Eight companies — Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, Budget, Alamo, National, Dollar and Thrifty — keep counters at Key West airport, and none of them publishes a one-way fee from Fort Lauderdale.
So price both before you choose. A drop charge at Key West can cost more than the extra day it takes to drive back.
A round trip means the same 187 miles home again, and a one-way halves the driving and puts you on a flight out of Key West.
Which wins comes down to the quote — and to whether the Overseas Highway is worth seeing twice.
More than a day down there? The Florida Keys before or after your cruise sets out four plans, Key by Key.
The tolls on the way are cashless: SunPass, another transponder or toll-by-plate. The Turnpike and Card Sound Road carry them, and the Overseas Highway itself carries none.
$35 a car, or $435 for four adult visitors from abroad
Shark Valley is the easy half-day, about an hour and 20 minutes west along the Tamiami Trail.
The Homestead entrance makes the bigger day — farther south, and open around the clock.
A private vehicle pays $35, and that pass is good for 7 days at every entrance.
Anyone visiting from abroad should read this part twice: each person 16 or older who isn’t a US resident also owes a $100 nonresident fee, on top of the car pass.
Four adults from abroad in one car pay $435 at the gate, not $35.
Decline anything billed by the day
| Plan | Cap | How it bills | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise, Alamo, National TollPass | $34.65 a rental | Billed $4.95 only on days you drive a toll road, and it kicks in on its own. Tolls are billed at whichever of the video, cash or undiscounted rates is highest. | National’s page |
| Avis or Budget e-Toll | $34.95 a rental | $6.95 per toll day; tolls are charged at non-discounted rates. Its sibling, e-Toll Unlimited, bills every rental day instead, so check which one the counter offers. | Budget’s page |
| PlatePass All-Inclusive (Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty) | A weekly maximum we couldn’t confirm | $14.99 for each Florida rental day, used or not, with tolls included. Turn it down, drive a cashless toll anyway, and it costs $9.99 for each toll day, tolls extra. | PlatePass |
| Your own transponder | — | An E-PASS, an E-ZPass or any SunPass (the PRO too) will work across Florida’s toll roads. List the rental’s plate and dates on your account, and remove them when the car’s back. The 95 Express lanes take no toll-by-plate, so a transponder is the one way in. | SunPass |
Each company’s toll page, as we read it on Sept 27, 2026. They’re statewide plans — collect the car at FLL, MIA, Palm Beach or Orlando and the terms don’t change. Checked Sept 27, 2026
Over a single day the choice hardly matters. Over a five-day road trip it’s real money, not rounding.
TollPass and e-Toll charge only for the days you touch a toll road, and stop at $34.65 and $34.95 a rental.
PlatePass bills $14.99 for every rental day — up to $74.95 over five days whether you use a toll road or not.
U.S. 1 through the Keys is toll-free. The Turnpike run down to Florida City isn’t, so turn down the per-day plan and a Keys trip bills you a toll day only when you touch it.
If kids are riding along
| Enterprise class | What Enterprise lists |
|---|---|
| Midsize car | 5 people and 3 bags |
| Standard SUV | 5 people and 5 bags |
| Full-size SUV | 7 people and 3 bags |
| 7-passenger minivan | 7 people and 5 bags |
| 8-passenger minivan | 8 people and 5 bags |
Enterprise’s published US capacities. Its full-size SUV lists only 3 bags, probably counting the third row as seats, so for a family with cruise luggage the minivan is the one to price. Checked Sept 27, 2026
Florida requires a crash-tested child restraint for children 5 and under. Through age 3 that means a separate carrier or a seat built into the car; at 4–5, a booster also qualifies — and a rental car is no exception.
Renting the seats adds up. Avis prices them at “usually” $14 a day in the US with an $84 ceiling per rental, and Budget’s figures are $14.50 and $87.
Avis adds $50 on top if a rented seat comes back to a different location than the one it left — easy to trip over on a Key West one-way.
Delta, JetBlue, American and Southwest each list a car seat as a free checked item, which makes packing yours the cheaper plan.
Pier office or FLL, over one, three and five days
| Days | Cruise office (pier pickup) | FLL’s Rental Car Center |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | $50 | $55 + an $18–$21 taxi first |
| 3 days | $151 | $165 + an $18–$21 taxi first |
| 5 days | $251 | $276 + an $18–$21 taxi first |
Our assumed $45 a day plus fees, Florida’s $2-a-day surcharge and Broward’s 7% tax. FLL doesn’t publish its airport charges, so that column carries our assumed 10% — your quote will show the real figure. Fuel, tolls and a one-way drop charge, if there is one, come on top. Illustrative
On paper the gap is small.
On the morning it isn’t: one version begins with a shuttle driver already at the pier, the other with a taxi line.
Search Fort Lauderdale as the pickup and wherever the trip ends as the drop-off. For the pier pickup, choose Avis, Budget or Payless at the Fort Lauderdale cruise-port location, not the airport.
- Pick-up: Fort Lauderdale
- Cancellation free to 48 hrs before pickup
- Drop-off: FLL, the cruise office or Key West
- Any one-way fee is part of the total
What people ask about the pier pickup
Can I pick up a rental car at the Port Everglades cruise terminal?
Not inside the terminal itself. The cruise office at 2520 Miami Rd, shared by Avis, Budget and Payless, says its shuttle collects passengers at the pier; it opens at 8 AM daily and closes at 6 PM on weekdays, 4 PM on Saturdays and 2 PM on Sundays.
How do I get from Port Everglades to the FLL rental car center?
Three ways: a taxi, which the port averages at $18 to $21; a rideshare; or the port’s Van On Demand at $11 each when three or more of you ride, on the days it runs, which aren’t all sailing days.
How long is the drive from Port Everglades to Key West?
About 187 miles, and our route estimate puts it at four and a half hours if the roads are empty. U.S. 1 through the Keys is toll-free; Card Sound Road, the alternative onto Key Largo, costs $2.13 with a transponder.
How much does it cost to enter Everglades National Park?
Per the National Park Service, $35 for a private vehicle, valid 7 days at every entrance. On top of that, a $100 nonresident fee applies to every visitor aged 16 and up who isn’t a US resident.
Can I drop a Fort Lauderdale rental car in Key West?
Possibly. Eight companies keep counters at Key West airport, yet not one of them publishes its one-way fee from Fort Lauderdale, so get a price for both, one-way and round trip, before you book.
More on renting around a Fort Lauderdale cruise
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