Renting a Car After Your San Diego Cruise

Whichever desk you pick, book it before you sail.

Call Enterprise from the ship, or take a short ride to another desk. Either way you’re on the road without a trip to the airport.

Choose the airport if you’d rather pick from more cars. It also suits a drop in another city.

Downtown is cheaper at every length — and it’s the shorter ride to the counter as well.

The airport pays off if the trip ends there — or if you’re set on a particular car.

A taxi meter is capped by MTS at a $3.80 flag drop, $4.10 a mile and a $3.56 airport surcharge. App-booked cabs sit outside that cap.

Run the Port’s 2.4 miles through that schedule and a metered cab tops out near $17 before tip. It’s our arithmetic, a ceiling for a metered cab, not a quote.

Route 992 costs $2.50 and gets to the Santa Fe Depot in about 15 minutes. Buses run about every 15 minutes between roughly 4:30 AM and 1 AM.

Uber’s San Diego page gives a $26 average for the 4 miles from the airport to downtown “Core”. No fare to the terminal itself is published, so open the app. Type its quote in, not a guess of ours.

La Jolla is the short hop — Legoland and the Safari Park are both about 32 miles out.

Temecula and the desert take a day each, not an afternoon, and Los Angeles is a drive or a train.

Tijuana is the day trip people ask about, and the rental desks mostly say no.

Five brands rule it out — Enterprise, National, Alamo, Sixt and Hertz.

Hertz’s wording is on its LAX rental-terms page, and it warns that “different restrictions” may apply by state.

Avis and Budget carve out corporate accounts held by US residents, who buy Mexican insurance at the counter. Avis adds “select locations” only. For a leisure renter, plan on no.

Thrifty and Dollar’s pages describe Mexican insurance as required and sold in California.

We found no residency or corporate rule for them, and couldn’t tell whether their San Diego branches allow it.

Take the trolley, not the rental.

The MTS Blue Line is $2.50 one way to the San Ysidro Transit Center on the border, with a train every 15 minutes. From the Santa Fe Depot it runs 28 to 30 minutes, by our reading of the timetable.

We read no official border page, so hours, wait times and return papers are for CBP and the State Department to answer. Passports are the norm.

You can search a one-way to LAX or Anaheim — but no brand publishes a San Diego drop fee.

Enterprise says the fee “varies depending on location and time of year” and shows up when you reserve. Avis reports that most locations charge nothing, and National says airport-to-airport drops typically carry none.

So compare the total on your Discover Cars quote, not a drop fee nobody publishes, with the train. LAX is about 125 miles away — Disneyland, about 94.

The train is the Pacific Surfliner: 13 daily round trips to Los Angeles, about 2.5 to 3 hours per the Amtrak summary. We found no fare we could confirm, and the page listed a bluff-repair advisory near Del Mar.

No drive from the port needs a toll road. Wander onto SR 125 in the South Bay and everyone pays; the I-15 Express Lanes are free only with a carpool.

Avis sells e-Toll Unlimited for $10.99 to $25.99 a day flat, depending on where you pick up. On the standard plan you pay $6.95 only for the days you hit a toll.

Avis’s California guide puts SR 125 at 50 cents to $8.

A news report in April 2026 said 50 cents to $3.50. We couldn’t read the official rate table — so we don’t print either as the fare.

Enterprise and National’s toll program leaves out express lanes on 15, 10, 110, 91, 580 and 680. The page never says whether the “15” is San Diego’s.

Hertz’s PlatePass page lists three roads, I-10, I-110 and SR 91; neither I-15 nor SR 125 appears.

Vehicle Code 27360 and 27363 set the rules.

A child under 2 rides rear-facing unless they’re 40 pounds or 40 inches. One under 8 needs a seat or booster in the back unless they’re 4 feet 9 inches or taller.

American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue each say a car seat checks free, so carry yours rather than rent one at the counter.

On size, Enterprise’s US page (checked Sept 27, 2026) lists a midsize car at 5 people and 3 bags and a standard SUV at 5 and 5 — a full-size SUV takes 7 and 3, and a 7-passenger minivan 7 and 5. Confirm against the class on your quote.

For the morning after the ship, try “San Diego Port” at 901 Bayfront Court or the 6th Avenue entry. The airport is listed too — and if you’re flying home from it, make that the drop-off.