Port Tampa Bay Rental Car Guide

In Miami and at Port Canaveral, Avis and Budget run cruise-shuttle desks with their own booking codes — in Tampa, no rental brand we checked has anything like it.

What Tampa gives you is distance. Terminal 3 is about 0.6 miles from the Embassy Suites and the Marriott Water Street by our route estimate — about $5 by our estimate at the airport’s posted meter rate, or a rideshare, or a free ride on the TECO streetcar, which has a Port Tampa Bay station.

The hours are the hard part, not the miles.

Try Sunday at 12:30, then Saturday at 1 — on a weekend all three downtown desks have closed by early afternoon, and Hertz and Enterprise don’t open on Sunday at all.

Avis puts it bluntly: “Rental vehicle must be returned during office hours.” Enterprise’s page says “After-Hours Returns Unavailable.”

When the checker comes back empty, TPA is the answer — Avis and Budget there never close.

When you do rent, finish at a downtown desk while it’s open, or at TPA when it isn’t.

Using our assumed $45 daily rate, the car comes to about $63 for a trip the airport’s flat-fare taxi covers for $35 to $40 — and you still have to return it downtown, during office hours, before you can get to the ship.

For the transfer alone, take the cab. Rent for a job the cab can’t do, not for the one it does better.

SkyConnect trains link the Main Terminal to the Rental Car Center around the clock, “roughly every two minutes,” in “less than five minutes.” At the center, Avis and Budget never close (Avis has an after-hours key drop), Hertz shuts from 1 to 6 AM and Payless from 1 to 5, and Enterprise and Sixt list after-hours returns.

On a weekday one-way from Orlando, Sarasota or PIE, finish downtown — on a weekend afternoon, plan on TPA. The drives in full: from Orlando, from PIE and SRQ.

Four adults and a week of cruise bags outgrow a midsize fast — Enterprise lists five seats but three bags for it.

Florida’s car-seat rule covers every child 5 and under, rental or not. Up to age 3 it has to be a crash-tested carrier or a built-in seat, and boosters become an option at 4 and 5.

Renting a seat costs real money. Avis charges “usually” $14 a day in the US, maxing out at $84 per rental, Budget’s is $14.50 and $87, and Avis bills $50 if the seat doesn’t come back to its home branch — which a one-way invites.

Delta, JetBlue, Southwest and American each check a car seat for free, so we’d bring yours.

From TPA there’s nothing to pay on I-275 and I-4 to the 21st Street exit, the way Celebrity’s directions go. The Selmon Expressway is the tolled option, 75¢ to $1.44 a plaza with a transponder and 36¢ more by plate at July 1, 2026 rates.

Two more you might meet: coming from Sarasota, the Sunshine Skyway charges $1.16 by transponder and $1.62 by plate each way, cashless since April. From Pinellas, the Howard Frankland’s new express lanes take SunPass only.

In a rental, one toll is all it takes to switch on the company’s program for the day — $4.95 with Enterprise, Alamo or National, $6.95 with Avis or Budget, and the toll billed at the plate rate on top. A $1.16 Skyway crossing can end up around $6.50 to $8.50.

Pack your own SunPass or E-ZPass and put the rental’s plate on it. From Orlando the one toll is the Beachline West plaza leaving MCO ($2.24 by transponder), and from Disney or Universal there are none.

A comparison site shows who’ll handle your pickup-to-Tampa pair and the total each one quotes.

It won’t show whether the drop-off desk is open at the hour you’ll arrive — in Tampa, the question that matters. Check it before you pay.