Hello from Côte d'Azur, France.
We are French and will land in Denver at the end of Sept 07. We have a question please.
Having read somewhere else on this forum that car renting in Denver airport is overpriced
(it was our first idea to sleep in an airport area hotel and rent the car in airport premises) i was wondering to take a shuttle in airport to downtown and rent the car the following morning downtown.
In your opinion, is there a huge price difference between hotels and car renting downtown and at the airport ?
Thanks vm and apologizes for my english.

Eze--the one problem with taking a shuttle is that the Denver airport is SO far from Denver.

Eze your English is great. Are you staying in Denver the entire time? If not I'd make a reservation at the Courtyard By Marriott Denver Stapleton, located right next door is an enterprise car rental 4080 QUEBEC ST.
DENVER, CO 80216-6619
Tel.: (303) 320-1121
Yes the rates will be much lower than at the airport. The hotel should have a free shuttle that takes you to and from the airport.

The other option is the Doubletree Hotel Denver on Quebec Street, it is a bit nicer than the Courtyard and has either an Avis or Hertz car rental counter. I am sure the Doubletree has a free airport shuttle. I use it all the time. Both of these hotels are located off 1-70 and make for an easy stop.

links
http://www.doubletree.com/en/dt/hote...tyhocn=RLDV-DT

http://www.enterprise.com

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/trave...ver-stapleton/

tks vm to both of you for your prompt answers. Coskier, thanks to your input we are tempted to go and stay in doubletree hotel. One more question please, which branch of Entreprise car rental is geographically the closiest to the hotel.
Thanks again.
Should you need any information regarding french riviera please feel free to ring the bell !

Bonjour Eze,
I happen to have read your post because my husband and I will be flying into Denver this summer (from Maryland), for one of our two vacations this year-- to Boulder/Rocky Mountain National Park. The other vacation will be a Med cruise, which we booked in large part because the ship disembarks in Nice. We were eager to stay some days in Nice because it's close to 2 of the places in France we've always most wanted to see-- St Paul de Vence and-- EZE! Do you really live there? WOW!

Poss, we are actually living in Eze Bord de mer (Seaside)in a nice villa overlooking the bay of Eze.
Hope you will get sufficient time to visit the Eze village and take advantage of the nice views from, to the east, Bordighera (Italy) and to the west, the Maures "mountains". It happens that when west winds are blowing that we can see Corsica island from home (180 kms away).
St Paul de Vence is quite nice but even more touristic than Eze, depending on the period of the year. Enjoy, and if you have any question i can answer, ill do it with pleasure.

My daughter and I visited Nice last May, for three nights. We really enjoyed it. We also went to Antibes one day. Didn't make it to Eze, but we would have if we'd had more time. It's so pretty in that part of the world.

I think you're right that renting a car at the airport is more expensive. Staying at a hotel on Quebec, near the old Stapleton airport, is a great idea if they offer a free shuttle to and from the airport. You could contact the hotels to ask them which car rental agency is closest. Besides the Doubletree and the Courtyard, there's also a Renaissance hotel and a couple of lesser brand names, also.

Here's the link to TripAdvisor for the Doubletree. It's not the best hotel in the world, but certainly not the worst. It's website does offer a free airport shuttle. I know a lot of the airline personnel stay there. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev..._Colorado.html
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Eze I think it is this one 4080 QUEBEC ST.
DENVER, CO 80216 for Enterprise. It is in the parking lot for the Courtyard by Marriott. You should ask the hotel to be certain.

The Renaissance does have car rental counter and a free shuttle to and from the airport. There is nothing wrong with the Doubletree it is pretty nice in fact though I have only been there for conferences, never stayed in a room.

If your going to be getting in early and want to go to dinner the Renaissance or Doubletree are probably your best bet. The Coral room is close http://www.coralroom.com/stapleton.htm

Coral Room is on 29th, off of Quebec. There are other little restaurants there, too. We liked Udi's small plates. There's also a Chipotle, I think (Mexican 'fast food' chain), for realtively cheap eating.
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Thks vm for all your posts, i ll be back later on for the Colorado part of our trip on our way to Utah !

for Bladezone

Before you decide that the off-airport site is less expensive, you need to price both ways. Looks like to me the on-airport location is much less expensive at the present time.

Yes, it seems that passing thru a broker on the web for an on-airpor location we should get much better prices, all insurance coverages included, than booking directly with the renting company (on their site) and than booking off airport location.
When we concretize the location, i ll post a mail in order to inform this forum readers.
Thanks to all anyway.

We rent in Denver often although not from Europe, of course. DIA does have surcharges but as someone else suggested be sure to price it both ways. I am not clear whether you would be renting AT the hotel and whether that will be any cheaper than renting at DIA.
YOu can look on a site like Hotwire and get an idea of the taxes/surcharge at the airport vs. at an offsite location. The ins and outs of a foreign national renting in the US may defeat your being able to walk up and rent at a good rate. I just don't know, but hope it works well for you.

Hello Gretchen,
Thanks for your post.
I have read all those interesting comments and check information received.We were interested in Coskier suggestion to sleep in Stapleton Courtyard or Doubletree hotels but
it appears that Entreprise car rental 4080 Quebec street is charging an impressive airport surcharge for our 19 days car renting. Budget is doing the same. Other Entreprise sites don't.
Up to this moment our "strategy" would be to rent thru Auto escape brokers (based in France ?) and sleep one night in hotel Timbers that looks attractive and seems to have very few negative comments. The following morning, a saturday morning (?) we shall begin our four states round trip first to Aspen or that direction.
Thanks for help. Again, if you plan and need information re french riviera, pse ring the bell

I have been in the Enterprise location in Newark one time when they treated a British rentor rather poorly. I know this anecdotal, but.... I think renting from a foreign country gives a lot of possibilities of abuse--plain and simple. If you can get a rate you can live with from a broker, I would take it. We in the US would NEVER go to a hotel to rent a car!! They always charge a premium, unless this site is trying to advertise as underselling DIA. The Stapelton motels are a bit down at heels but I suspect "liveable".
We always rent at the airport because we can get a rate we can live with. Others talk about going to sites in Broomfield (it isn't far) but what a hassle to arrange. Our kids live in Denver so this is why we do it. If we were there--we'd come get you and deliver you to a location for the price.
Have a great great time. My parents lived all over the world, including France, and my dad said--there is nothing in the world like the American West. I think I agree with him.
I hope you are going to the Grand Tetons.

Not sure how things work from Europe, but last month I booked a car from Denver airport for mid-July. (Since I'll be staying in Boulder, I figured the cost of getting to an off-site rental agency would be more than the difference in costs) I booked on travelocity.com because you can cancel without any fee if I find a lower price. My rate for an intermediate car, taxes and fees included, is $192. I check often to see if the price goes down, but the lowest price I've found on hotwire is about $100 more for a smaller car.

From Europe, one thing is sure is that you can have a clear view regarding insurance costs as car renting are all insurances included. Yes, when reading car renting c ompanies sites, prices are really attractive BUT insurance costs are not shown at first glance. When adding those costs, you mostly double the bill !
Last, when arriving in Denver after a long flight (Nice-London-Denver)being not really fluent at english, it must be rather complicated to precisely understand what the rent a car company clerk is explaining you regarding your safety during your renting.So you can be tempted to sign anything he shows you and incredibily increase the bill.. In France, we do not have the same system as you have in US where you can if i have well understood, extend your own car insurance coverage to the rented car.
Thanks to Travellingmom and Gretchen for their imput.
Merci !

TM, if your dates are pretty sure, bid on Priceline. I regularly save 50% in Denver doing that. Otherwise, also look on Enterprise, Expedia and Orbitz for their rates. Your date is getting pretty close now so PL may be good, as might be Hotwire.
EZE, good luck. Enterprise is really very nice at DIA--we have gotten them often.