I am trying to arrange a trip for my husband and myself to Puerto Rico in February. We'd like to explore the rainforest and Veiques. I'm contemplating driving from the airport to El Yunque and staying for 3 nights on the edge of the rainforest in Carole's Rainforest Villa and then taking the ferry over to Vieques to stay at Hacienda Tamarindo for 4 nights, then hopping back across the ferry and back to San Juan for a night before we fly out.
We obviously need to rent a car to drive over to El Yunque and we need to rent a car on Veiques to get to the beaches. It seems that I read somewhere that the main island rental companies do not like you to take your car to the other islands. If so, do we leave our car at the ferry dock and rent a different one while on Vieques? It seems kind of stupid to have 2 cars rented for the same 4 days. How did other people solve this dilemma?

It looks like you will have to rent a car 3 times!!
I beleive you can rent one at the airport and leave it in Fajardo when you ferry over.
You cannot bring a car over on the barge. It is very unreliable. you need to make reservations weeks in advance and still you are not guaranteed it will sail, they can bump you for something more inportant.
Make your car reservation early for VQS. Feb. is high season. My husband was there with a couple of guys mid July and they had a hard time renting a car-in low season.
So check with the rental company, if they do not let you leave the car in Fajardo, maybe you can take a hopper flight to VQS!
Have fun

Check with L&M Car Rental and also Thrifty - you should be able to do a drop off in Fajardo if you are spending more than 1 day on Vieques so you won't have to pay for the days you'll be in Vieques. Let them know you'll return the car to San Juan and they should only charge you one drop off fee. If you are only going for one night you can park the car at the ferry for a small fee. The ferry is a long trip you might want to consider flying over for only $50 RT.

Remember, even if you find a rental to bring to the island, the car ferry is unreliable, you need to make reservations a few weeks in advance and still may get "bumped" for something/one more important.
You can fly for pretty cheap if you fly out of Isla Grande. It is about a $20 taxi from International to Isla Grande. But it is a $60-$80 taxi ride to Fajardo, so unless you really want a boat ride...!!!

Publisher, do you mind sharing why you have such specific recommendations for companies? There are many other functional car rental firms on Vieques besides Martineau, just as there are many other useful airlines than the lone one you suggested on another thread. Do the companies you recommend have some financial connection to your website?

Thanks for the opinions. It seems to be a bit of a headache to arrange for rentals either on each island or to take across the ferry. We've decided to just stay on the main island and skip Vieques this trip. I have no doubt we'll find enough to keep us busy for a week without the headache of jumping around. (We're more tramp-around-in-the-jungle types than beach types anyway)

It looks like we ought to be able to visit the biolumescent bay from the mainland (ie from Fajardo or south of there?) but nobody talks about doing this....including the travel books. They only give advice on how to experience it from Vieques. Any advice on the best way to arrange this without going across to Vieques?