Car rental in Croatia
 

We’ll be in Croatia in Sept, so I started to look for a car rental. We will need it for about 10 days. Based on a lot of recommendations here, I tried Auto Europe, where I was quoted $1084 and some change for an automatic for 10 days. That is a lot of money… Budget car rental is sold out for our days….Orbitz has only manual transmission cars...Hertz’s quote is about $800..


Can you please comment on these prices? Are they in the ‘normal’ range for an automatic for 10 days for Croatia? Can you please recommend a reputable local car rental agency? Thanks

That sounds really high!

Have you tried Kemwell? I think that is who we rented from a couple of years ago. We picked up the car in Zagreb and dropped it off at the Split airport. We didn't pick up the car until we were leaving Zagreb and we dropped it off as soon as we reached Split so we only had it for a week.

Thanks, eurotraveller - never heard of them before, but their quote is $663 - a lot better than Herz's.

I just finished a booking for a car rental from Dubrovnik for 4 days. We are renting a small 4 door manual transmission car for 36 dollars a day. This price includes No Excess Insurance.

We are renting from Economycarrentals.com

They were recommended to me on a thread from Slowtrav.com

I ran into much the same problem until I happened to check with AAA. They arranged a rental from Hertz (compact with manual) for 10 days for less than $300 US. I will pick it up in Pula and drop it in Split without a drop charge. You might find a better rate anywhere with manual rather than automatic but if you are a AAA member it would sure be a good idea to see what price they can give you.

I too have been looking at Economy Car Rentals for 4 days out of Zagreb and returning it in Pula. For their smallest manual 2 door it is $31 a day vs. AutoEurope for $51 a day. Quite a difference. AE has always met others in the past, but this is a lot. I also like that there is no excess/deductible. Has anyone had any first hand experience with them?

Laurie, I'm having trouble finding the thread on Slowtrav. com.

Laurie, I just found the thread on Slowtrav. Economy Rental Car's deal sounds good. I'm curious if anyone has used them.

Be sure to take into account the charge that Economy imposes for drops/pickups in Pula and other places. For mid-September it is about $60.

Thanks Jeff. Good call. With the drop fee, AutoEurope is about the same, but with some deductible. I'll check with other companies, but feel comfortable with AE.

We rented an automatic through Travel Time N.Y. for $60 a day plus $50 booking fee. Because we're picking it up in Ljubljana, Slovenia & dropping it off in Dubrovnik, Croatia, we have to pay an inter-country dropoff fee of $90.Our problem was the difficulty finding a car rental agency that let us bring a car into Croatia & leave it there.

By the way, Travel Time's charge includes necessary insurance.

Laurie,

Thanks for the tip on economycarrentals.com! I usually use Auto Europe, but with Economy Car Rentals we would save almost $80 on our car rental in Croatia.

Tracy

You are welcome, Tracey! We usually use Autoeurope too, but this was a less expensive option for Croatia.

Have a great time!

Laurie

we have rented from kemwel (www.kemwel.com) many times and have been very happy. i fret like crazy about getting the best price and they always come through. this summer, we will pick up in zagreb and drop off in dubrovnik for 5 days at $151 us, flat. weirdly, they usually use eurocar...but eurocar can never directly match their rates. we have always had good experiences with kemwel.
kimberly - sebastopol, ca.

For us, this is the first time renting from Kemwel, and I’m relieved to hear that people were happy with them before.
Kawh, thanks for posting about prior experiences

On Economy Car Rentals, we were able to rent a 5 door Fiat Panda w/ AC for $148 for 4 days. ($37 USD per day)

This includes 0 deductible insurance. It looked to me like Kemwell had $400 deductible insurance.

I prefer paying slightly more per day for the extra insurance coverage.

Have a great time! Laurie

Laurie,
I tried the economy car rentals site, it seems that you cannot specifically request an automatic car – or can you?

Hello, xyz
I do not see a way to request an automatic transmission car on the website. There is an 800 number that you can call for information. There is also a live support line but it is off line right now.

We don't mind driving a standard transmission, so we did not need to check out this option.

a response to the insurance question... kemwel's contract for this summer shows zero deductible for theft and collision. again... the actual rental will be from europcar, as it has been on past occastions.
-kimberly

We always use holidayautos.co.uk who offer good deals

note to xyz99 - We are just back from hungary & croatia, so a note about our rental from Kemwell. they were (kemwell/europecar) again wonderful... but the dropoff point in Dubrovnik was even better than usual. Because the drive from near Split to Dubrovnik is nightmarishly long (it took us almost 6 hours... many tourist towns with crosswalks, many road repairs... yikes) AND i made another miscalculation, we got the car in at 7pm when it should have been in at 11am. Not only did the guy not charge us for the day... but when we remembered that we hadn't gotten gas (we were stressed), he simply offered to drive with us to the gas station so we could fill up, then drop us at our sobe, which was at the other end of town. He was just wonderful!!!

I always use economy car rentals, they have good service and I think a middle sized car is about 377$ for ten days, but you should check out the web page www.economycarrentals.com for more info. Good luck to you!

Kawh,
Thanks for all this info, good to know you had such a god experience with Kemwell. I only found out about them (and decided to use them) based on the posts on this forum.

Besides the drive from Split to Dubrovnik being nightmarish, did you enjoy the scenery? Is t worth such a long drive? We’ll be doing it on Sept 12, so hopefully with fewer crowds.

Our other option for the day (we’ll need to get from Hvar to Dubrovnik) is take the ferry to Orebic and drive through the Peljesac peninsula. Any thoughts, should we do that instead of taking the ferry back to Split and drive from Slit to Dubrovnik?
Thanks

i live in california about 30 minutes from the coast, so perhaps i have a different attitude than others might about the coast... but i would call the coastal drive pretty unremarkable for the first 2/3 of the drive (even without the traffic headaches) and quite stunning the last 1/3. perhaps you should pose this question as its own heading and see what others have to say. for me, i would say take the ferry... but most might not agree.

make SURE to check the ferry schedules very closely. we made the mistake of scheduling everything before checking the hvar schedule (assuming the ferry was daily) and found that, even in the summer, the ferry to/from dubrovnik is only 3 times a week. that threw everything off.

also, as i am usually a really careful (obsessive?) planner, i had stressed a little about getting reservations for the ferry. we had reservations for the sleeper into italy from hvar, but not from split to hvar, as we were told we wouldn't need them. of course we got to split after a long bus ride back up the coast from dubrovnik and ferry tickets were sold out hours ago! yikes... this is what makes travel an adventure, right? we found another ferry line up the road and ere able to get out that evening... you won't have those problems, i'm sure, since you will not travel during the summer rush.

i can't speak to those other islands, as we only went to hvar. i hear great things about all of them, though.

don't miss out on renting a scooter on hvar... it's the only way to get around and just so much fun! (and we're in our mid-50's...)
great swimming, too.
-k.

Kawh,
Thanks. We live on the East coast, so for us, any coast driving is great :)
But in the end, I think we will skip the Split – Dubrovnik drive, and take the ferry to Korcula, then to Orebic, then drive from there to Dubrovnik through the Peljesac peninsula. This of course, assuming the car ferry runs on Sept 12 from Hvar (Stari Grad) to Dubrovnik.

Hello xyz99 !!

I see our plans are again "almost overlapping". Last year, it was Portugal (I think) and this year its Croatia. We'll be in Slovenia and northern Croatia at the beginning of October.

Hi sssteve,
It wasn’t Portugal (that is coming sometime in the future, not sure when, the list is too long) but the Utah and the Southwest trip. Anyway, I have your web site bookmarked, and every time we go somewhere I check it – you traveled a lot more than we did, but it seems we like the same things and places. Where in northern Croatia are you going?

We're flying into and out of Ljubljana. We'll visit Bled and then head south, stop in Trieste, then into Istria, and from there down the coast to Zadar. On the way we'll visit Plitvica and probably Krka falls.