1.8 miles
Why rent a car for a 1.8-mile ride?
The honest answer
You mostly shouldn’t. From FLL the port’s own average cab fare is $18–$21 and the ride takes about ten minutes — a car earns its place here when you land in Miami or Palm Beach, or when the cruise is only one piece of the trip.
From those two airports a one-way usually undercuts the ride it replaces — narrowly from Miami, by hundreds from Palm Beach.
A car makes sense when
- Your flight lands at MIA or Palm Beach, not FLL
- You’re driving down from Disney, Universal or Orlando
- The Keys, the Everglades or Naples come after the ship
- Four or more of you, and more than one stop on the map
Leave it when
- You land at FLL and head straight for the terminal
- You’re sleeping on the beach first, where parking runs $59–$67 a night
- The hotel by the airport has a port shuttle of its own
- You’d reach the cruise office after 2 PM on a Sunday
Can’t decide? Four questions settle it.
Pier pickup
A single office meets the ship, and it keeps shop hours
The port says most rental companies sit in the Rental Car Center at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport, and that “some provide shuttle services from cruise terminals to their nearby rental locations.” “Some” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
A
Avis · Budget · Payless
Fort Lauderdale Cruiseport Shuttle
Port shuttleCruise passengers only
HoursMon–Fri 8 AM–6 PM · Sat 8 AM–4 PM · Sun 8 AM–2 PM
ShuttleFree, to and from the pier, cruise passengers only
Budget: “Our Fort Lauderdale cruise shuttle office is about 1.6 miles from Port Everglades Terminal 18. This is a shuttle ride of about 10 minutes.” Avis and Payless: the shuttle “will meet passengers at the pier.”
One office, three brands, all Avis Budget Group, each listed “(Cruiseship Passengers Only)”. Budget’s airport page suggests the exact plan: “choose FLL as your pickup location and this location as your drop-off spot.”
Budget’s page says after-hours returns are “Not allowed at this site. Vehicles may be returned to the Ft Lauderdale Airport (FLL).” Avis’s page for the same address is less clear, so plan on office hours.
F
FLL Rental Car Center
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport Rental Car Center
Open 24 hours (Avis, Budget)No port shuttle
HoursAvis, Budget, Payless and Ace 24 hours · the rest close between midnight and 2 AM
ShuttleNone to the port. Taxi $18–$21 by the port’s average, or a hotel shuttle
The port: FLL is “1.8 miles from the port,” and “the average taxi fare is $18 - $21.”
Twelve companies under one roof: Ace, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Fox, Hertz, National, Payless, Sixt and Thrifty. The phone number above is Avis’s counter here.
The late-night safety net. Budget’s cruise office sends after-hours returns here, and Avis and Budget never close.
Four places that say no, quoted: Enterprise, 2601 S Federal Hwy: “unable to provide pick up or return service to the port everglades cruise ship terminal or to the Fort Lauderdale airport”; Alamo at FLL: “does not offer pickup or return service to and from Port Everglades”; National at FLL: “does not offer pickup or return service to and from Port Everglades”; Easirent, 3234 SE 6th Ave (billed as its Port Everglades branch): “We do not provide a shuttle bus pick up and drop off service from this location”. We couldn’t confirm three more. Dollar and Thrifty turn up in searches at 2400 Miami Road, but both sites blocked every check we ran; Sixt’s Port Everglades page bounces to its home page; and Enterprise in Dania Beach (801 S Federal Hwy) is silent on cruise passengers either way and shuts on Sundays.
A Hertz lead, not a fact. Hertz’s UK site lists a Port Everglades office at 1850 Eller Drive whose shuttle “runs 0800-1600 every 20-25 minutes during cruise ship arrivals,” and says it’ll take cab fare up to $20 off the rental, with a receipt, if the shuttle doesn’t show. Hertz’s US site has no such office, and its old US page for a Port Everglades location returns an error. Phone Hertz before you build a booking on it.
Alamo and National sit right in the airport’s rental building — and both put it in writing that they don’t serve the port, as does the Enterprise branch on South Federal Highway.
The office that does belongs to Avis Budget Group, and it runs on shop hours, not airport hours.
So the choice is simple: book Avis, Budget or Payless for the pier shuttle, or book anyone at FLL for the longer hours — and add a cab for the final 1.8 miles.
Sunday at 2
Closed by 2 PM on Sundays
Set your sail day and the hour you expect to pull in. The checker holds it against every hour the companies publish.
Move the clock to 1:30 on a Sunday, then try the same time on a Saturday.
The weekend is when that office closes earliest — 4 PM on Saturday, 2 PM on Sunday, against 6 on weekdays — so check your sailing day before you set the drop-off, not after.
Two finishes
Miami Road or the airport garage
Hand it back at the cruise office (2520 Miami Rd)
- A free shuttle to the pier, bags and all
- No airport charges, if you also rent from here
- Mon–Fri 8–6, Sat 8–4, Sun 8–2
- Budget says no after-hours returns
- Avis, Budget and Payless cars only
Hand it back at FLL’s Rental Car Center
- Any of the 12 companies there
- Avis and Budget never close; most others open at 4–6 AM and shut at midnight or later
- Then a cab: $18–$21 on the port’s average
- Or your hotel shuttle, if you slept near the airport
- The fallback when Miami Road is shut
Coming one-way from Miami or Palm Beach, finish at the cruise office if it’s open. It saves the cab, and it exists for exactly this trip.
When it isn’t open, FLL is the net — about ten minutes away by taxi.
Each drive in full: from Miami, from Palm Beach and from Orlando.
Across from Terminal 1
12 counters under one roof at FLL
If your trip ends at the airport rather than the pier, this building is where the car goes back.
| Company | Level | Hours (airport’s list) | Worth knowing |
|---|
| Avis | 3 | 24 hours | Its cruise office at 2520 Miami Rd meets you at the pier |
| Budget | 4 | 24 hours | Its own page suggests FLL pickup, drop at the cruise office |
| Payless | 3 | 24 hours | Shares the 2520 Miami Rd cruise office |
| Ace | 3 | 24 hours | — |
| Hertz | 3 | 4 AM–2 AM | Hertz’s own page: 5 AM–11:59 PM and midnight–2 AM |
| Dollar | 4 | 4 AM–1 AM | — |
| Thrifty | 4 | 4 AM–1 AM | — |
| Fox | 3 | 5 AM–1 AM | — |
| Enterprise | 2 | 5 AM–midnight | — |
| Alamo | 2 | 5 AM–midnight | Says no port pickup or return |
| National | 2 | 5 AM–midnight | Says no port pickup or return |
| Sixt | 4 | 6 AM–midnight | Sixt’s own page: 6 AM–1 AM |
Levels and hours come from FLL’s own list, and a company’s page that disagrees is noted beside it. Beyond these twelve, ten more firms — Easirent, Economy, Go Rentals, Gold Coast, Green Motion and others — collect renters by courtesy shuttle at Zone G. Checked Sept 28, 2026
Terminal 1 connects on foot, over the level-2 walkway at Concourse B. From Terminals 2, 3 and 4 you ride a free bus that leaves the lower level by baggage claim — FLL says “every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Under 25? Enterprise, Alamo and National charge $25 a day at FLL for drivers 21 to 24, and Avis and Budget $27 a day — Hertz and Sixt show no figure at all.
Bags and seats
If four adults are bringing cruise luggage
Size the car for the bags first. The seats tend to follow.
| Enterprise’s class | Seats | Bags |
|---|
| Standard SUV | 5 | 5 |
| Minivan, 8-passenger | 8 | 5 |
| Midsize car | 5 | 3 |
| Minivan, 7-passenger | 7 | 5 |
| Full-size SUV | 7 | 3 |
Enterprise’s own US capacity numbers; the full-size SUV’s 3 bags look like they assume the third row is up. Checked Sept 27, 2026
The suitcases pick the car, not the headcount. Enterprise seats five in a midsize but lists three bags for it, so four adults with a week’s luggage need a standard SUV or a minivan.
Florida requires a crash-tested restraint for every child 5 and under — until age 4 that means a separate carrier or an integrated seat, and from 4 to 5 a booster is fine too.
Renting one isn’t cheap: Avis lists “usually” $14 a day with an $84 ceiling per rental, and Budget $14.50 and $87. Avis also bills $50 if the seat isn’t returned where it was rented, which a one-way makes easy to do.
JetBlue, Delta, American and Southwest each check a car seat at no charge, so pack your own.
Lane choice
Keep to the general lanes on I-95
From FLL, Miami or Palm Beach you can reach this port without paying a toll. One lane change can undo that.
| Route (one way, car) | With a transponder | By plate | Source of the figure |
|---|
| FLL → the port | $0 | $0 | U.S. 1 to SE 17th Street, the port’s own routing. No toll road on it. |
| Miami airport → the port, I-95 | $0 | $0 | The general lanes. Next to them, 95 Express prices by traffic, segment by segment, and reads transponders only. |
| Palm Beach (DJT) → the port, I-95 | $0 | $0 | The general lanes again, with the same express-lane rule wherever those lanes run. |
| Palm Beach (DJT) → the port, Turnpike | $2.11–$2.38 | $2.75–$3.29 | Our total of the gantry and plaza rates, on at Southern or Okeechobee Blvd, off at I-595. |
| Orlando (I-4) → I-595, Turnpike | $15.29 | $19.92 | Our total from the Turnpike’s posted rates. Without the I-4 ramp row: $14.71 / $19.06. |
| Fort Lauderdale → Naples, I-75 Alligator Alley | $3.18 | $3.75 | Per plaza, as the Turnpike lists it; whether a one-way crossing pays at one plaza or both, we couldn’t confirm. |
| Card Sound Road, the back door to the Keys | $2.13 | $3.18 | Monroe County’s rate from Oct 1, 2025. U.S. 1 is the free way down. |
Neither FDOT nor the Turnpike publishes a trip total for these routes, so every Turnpike figure is our own sum of the plaza and gantry rates on its current schedules; the plate column is what a rental company passes on, before its program fee. Checked Sept 28, 2026
| Program | Fee | Most per rental | How the tolls are billed |
|---|
| TollPass (Enterprise, Alamo, National) | $4.95 per toll day | $34.65 | Tolls billed at the video, cash or undiscounted rate, whichever is highest. You’re in as soon as you pass a gantry. |
| e-Toll (Avis, Budget) | $6.95 per toll day | $34.95 | Billed at non-discounted rates. Different from e-Toll Unlimited, which charges daily. |
| Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty: PlatePass All-Inclusive | In Florida, $14.99 for each rental day | A weekly cap we couldn’t confirm | Tolls included. Turn it down and any cashless toll you pass costs $9.99 for that day, plus the toll. |
| Your own SunPass, E-PASS, E-ZPass or SunPass PRO | None | — | Add the rental’s plate and dates, remove them after. The only key to 95 Express, which takes no toll-by-plate. |
Each company’s own toll page, as read on Sept 27, 2026. A car from FLL, MIA, Palm Beach or Orlando gets the same statewide program. SunPass on the express lanes. Checked Sept 27, 2026
Nobody charges you on I-95 itself. Its express lanes are another story: they read a transponder and nothing else, with no toll-by-plate — drift into them in a rental and the company’s program switches on for the day, and a day fee lands on the bill — $4.95 at Enterprise, Alamo and National, $6.95 at Avis and Budget.
Keep to the general lanes and a Miami or Palm Beach one-way costs $0 in tolls.
The Turnpike from Orlando is the one drive where a program really bites, so pack your own SunPass or E-ZPass if you have one.
County tax
Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach: three counties, two tax rates
Tax rides on the base rate, the surcharge and any airport charges alike.
| Line on the bill | Amount | Basis | Status |
|---|
| Florida’s rental surcharge | $2.00 per day for up to 30 days | Fla. Stat. 212.0606; sales tax is charged on it as well | Verified |
| Broward County (FLL, the cruise office) | 7% | 1% county on top of the 6% state rate | Verified |
| Miami-Dade County (MIA) | 7% | Same split: 6% state and 1% county | Verified |
| Palm Beach County (DJT) | 6.5% | Now 0.5% county on the 6% state rate. The county’s 1% surtax ended Dec 31, 2025 and a new 0.5% started Jan 1, 2026, so plenty of sites still quote 7% | Verified |
| Orange County (Orlando) | 6.5% | A 0.5% county surtax plus the 6% state rate | Verified |
| Airport facility charge at FLL and MIA | Not published | Both airports charge one; we found the amount on neither airport’s site nor any company page | Not published |
| Palm Beach (DJT) facility charge | $6 a day (reported) | CBS12 reported on May 1, 2026 a new $6-a-day charge at on-airport companies and $5 at off-airport ones. The airport’s own site doesn’t publish it | Reported |
| MCO (Orlando) facility charge | $9 a day, 7-day cap (reported) | A figure reported since Nov 1, 2024; MCO’s own notice no longer loads, so it stays unconfirmed | Reported |
| Concession recovery, vehicle licence and the like | Set by each company | Budget’s FLL page says a concession recovery fee applies and gives no percentage | Not published |
The county that counts is the one where you collect the car, not the one where you drop it. Rates are from Florida DOR’s 2026 surtax table.
Pickup point, not drop-off, sets the tax. Broward and Miami-Dade charge 7%, while Palm Beach fell to 6.5% on Jan 1, 2026 and Orlando sits at 6.5% too. An airport pickup also carries airport charges that none of these airports publishes as a number — the cruise office on Miami Road isn’t an airport location, so those shouldn’t appear there. Discover Cars says its US quotes don’t always include every tax and surcharge, so read “Rate Excludes” before comparing two.
Book it
One search, then two checks it can’t do
A comparison site shows which companies will do your airport-to-Fort-Lauderdale pair and what each charges in total, one-way fee and all.
What it won’t tell you is the drop-off office’s hours on your sail day, or whether it shuttles cruise passengers at all — the office’s own page will.
Book it
Compare FLL rentals on Discover CarsFlying into Miami or Palm Beach? Switch the pickup and leave Fort Lauderdale as the return.- Pickup: FLL, MIA or Palm Beach
- Back to FLL, or to the Miami Road office
- One-way fee built into the total
- Free cancellation to 48 hrs out
Compare FLL rentals →Free cancellation until 48 hours before pickup is in Discover Cars’ terms; refunds come back as booking credit unless you say you want cash. iPartner link. Seabound Journeys is a Discover Cars affiliate: if you book through our link we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It doesn’t change what we tell you, which comes from each company’s own published terms. How Discover Cars works, fees and all.
For deposits, Full Coverage and the fine print, read our Discover Cars review. Dropping at a different cruise port? The one-way guide handles that.
FAQ
Fort Lauderdale cruisers’ rental questions
Can you return a rental car at the Port Everglades cruise terminal?
Not that we found — no company we checked takes returns at the terminals. Cruise passengers can hand the car to the office at 2520 Miami Rd that Avis, Budget and Payless share, about 1.6 miles from Terminal 18 by Budget’s count, and ride its free shuttle to the pier. Otherwise drop at the FLL Rental Car Center, then cab it.
Which rental companies have a shuttle to Port Everglades?
Avis, Budget and Payless, from the cruise office they share at 2520 Miami Rd, for cruise passengers only. On their own pages, Enterprise’s S. Federal Hwy branch and Alamo and National at FLL say they don’t serve the port. A Port Everglades shuttle office on Eller Drive appears on Hertz’s UK site but not its US one, so phone Hertz before counting on it.
What are the cruise rental office’s hours at Port Everglades?
Per Avis, Budget and Payless: 8 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 4 PM Saturday and 8 AM to 2 PM Sunday. Budget says the site takes no after-hours returns and sends you to FLL instead.
Do I need a rental car if I fly into Fort Lauderdale for my cruise?
For the transfer, no: FLL is 1.8 miles from the ship by the port’s count, and its average cab fare is $18 to $21. Landing in Miami or Palm Beach changes that, and so does a plan that includes Orlando, the beach or a road trip.
Are there tolls between Miami airport and Port Everglades?
Not if you stay in I-95’s general lanes, which FDOT describes as non-tolled. The 95 Express lanes alongside change price with traffic and accept only a transponder, so a rental that strays into them also picks up the company’s toll-day fee.
What is the sales tax on a rental car in Fort Lauderdale?
Broward County charges 7% (6% state, 1% county surtax), plus the state’s $2 daily rental surcharge (itself taxed). Miami-Dade is also 7%, and Palm Beach County has been 6.5% since Jan 1, 2026.
