Hey guys! I go out there on June 21st and I'm planning to get a car asap. Does anybody know of any garages that have good, cheap cars that are say approx. 20 miles around Disney? My parents will be there a week after me buying a villa and they said they'll go looking for me so fingers crossed, I should find one really quickly! People have said about cars for sale in the commons etc, which I'll look into but just was wondering about garages, etc. Cheers, thanks for your help!! Dan
http://www.cars.com/go/search/advan...ding|Q-descending|Z-32830&aff=osent&aff=osent Check out this site, you can enter 32830 as the zip code, it's the epcot zip, don't know what it is in orlando....
Car shopping is a drag, I just realize it right now. Insurance is over the top. I wanna go home, take my lovely Volkswagen baby and get it down here! No motivation to look for cars anymore lol Julia
Ok just bought my car last Friday. I bought it at an auction for $1400. I went with a mechanic and that's the best thing yo can do if you don't have a clue about cars ( like me ). I got a 1995 Mazda Protege and love it! It was around 400 to register the car ( with getting all the stuff like tag and license plate etc. ) but I got a good deal on insurance. I only pay 90 bucks a month, which is really good compared to everyone else. I am with State Farm if anyone is interested to know. Good luck with the car shopping! Julia
Hey Dont know how relevant this is but if you buy a car, I think you need to take your Florida license too. You can use your UK one is you hire though. Go to www.myflorida.com and book your test. I just got my license now for here, and theres a 3 week waiting list at the moment. So book in advance. Hope that helps! Dan
Or just show up in the morning and you will get a appointment same day but expect a few hours wait then ( I waited 6 hours at the most)
I did that as well and I don't recommend it. Just make an appointment and find a friend to drive you there. The test is very easy, germans only have to take the written test and you can grab a brochure with all the basic information that is gonna come up in the test before you go there. Canadians and French people only need to go there and they will get their Florida license without having to take the tests. Every other countrey needs to take the driving and written test I think. Julia
It'll be interesting to see how often they will break down during that year. I knew only one whose car didn't break down at all, and it was one of the more rundown ones, but it didn't have anything fancy - and even had a manual transmission. Everybody else broke down at least 3-4 times, usually spending about 100$ - 200$. Where did you go to get your driver's licence? We first went to the northern branch in Kissimmee, which basically looked like a cheap trailer park and only white trash was hanging out there. We were told we'd have to wait for several hours. Then we decided to try out luck and went to the Tax Collector's office in southern Kissimmee/town centre. It was a nice and shining new office building, we were greeted by two very nice receptionists/information people, they told us all about the Rodeo in town and then we went on a bit to ask about our driver's licences. We had to queue for about 2 minutes, the lady was very friendly, although we had a couple of complicated international questions. She gave us some forms to fill out, even let us bypass the queue for our return trip to her desk and off we went to take our tests at the computer terminals. They then took our digital photos and signatures and we had to pay. All in all, it was a breeze. The nicest experience I ever had in any country with things like that. It took an hour until all four of us had been through the procedure and we could even enjoy the rest of the day in Tampa. I still don't know why everybody reports it to be that annoying and difficult. We didn't have an appointment, nothing. I *think* I have heard that you pay a bit more at that Tax Collector's office, which is probably why the other office was so crowded. Has anyone else tried somewhere different? And were we just lucky at that other office - didn't feel like it, though. And about the test itself - it is pretty straight-forward (especially the signs), but there are some quirks that had me make 3 errors and some others failed. Thing like "how many feet..." etc. If you're not used to those questions, read about it a bit first. I also found an internet page with some example questions, and luckily one of those questions was actually asked - I wouldn't have known that one. So I think you DO need a bit of preparation. I didn't prepare, but then again I was a bit lucky.
I did my test in Ocoee. 40 minutes away. Get an appointment using this site .http://oasis.hsmv.state.fl.us/ believe me, it's better than waiting for 5-6 hours. And the test takes like 10 minutes, and you can take the written and practical test back to back. Dan
are they as easy as ppl say? is it expensive to hire a car? and also does it make it cheaper if u have a florida driving licence? ???
yeah, have heard it's pretty easy all over america.... a bit expensive to hire, but don't think you'll get cheaper if you have florida license....
It's not that bad if you have a couple of people to split. It's like a $50 cab ride to the mall roundtripl...or like 2 hours on the bus. I like my time, so I'd rather pay the extra $30 to rent a car and be able to do lots of stuff all day. Shan
Yes, renting a car definetly was an option, and we did it loads of times. It's also much more fun in a proper car (and American rental cars are REALLY "proper"), as compared to the wrecks on wheels, otherwise known as "Common cars", for which the first thing to usually break is the air conditioning, which will consequently never gets fixed. Those cars are okay for trips to the Florida Mall or to work, but I've seen lots of cars that appeared to be pretty decent that didn't make their way back from Miami - and that can REALLY spoil your fun. Rental cars are cheap and easy to get, and with a Disney Discount at for example Alamo's, it's really not so bad when you're sharing. Just make sure you find someone over 25 who's able to rent, as <25 is quite a bit more expensive, and <21 gets really desperate.
You really won't need a car while doing the 1 year program! You will have free transportation to most stuff ( like the Disney parks and Disney areas, grocery stores, Pleasure Island etc. ) You can rent a car very cheap when you want to go on a trip. Usually you are at least 2 people going, so it'll be a great deal even if you go for a couple of days. I was just fine without a car. Sometimes I went to the beach with friends that had a car, but the mall next to the Commons and the Disney parks and Commons parties didn't leave much time for other stuff! Now that I moved back it's different, I really needed a car. I could take the bus to and from work, but now when I go out I have to drive and also the beach is so close, so you want to be able to go there on a day off. I just had to invest 250 bucks to get a tune up for my car and I'm not too sure it's 100% working now. It's something you have to accept when buying a car here I guess. My friend just bought a car and she had the same problem. As for the whole drivers license thing, when I was in Orlando my friend took the test in Kissimmee and it took all day. I went to a place in Ft Lauderdale and it was the same. If I would have known it is like that I would have waited and made an appointment. I spent a total of 5 hours waiting I think but then again it was only 20 bucks. LOL Have fun everybody Julia
