Difficulties with a 10/12 seater minivan

[daaaave]

Hi

Thinking of hollidaying in Orlando eary next year, and considering getting a Villa. Obviously if we were to do this renting a car would be a great idea. Now there are going to be 8-10 of us going.. which brings about the question. Would it be better to get two 5 seater 'normal sized' cars or one big minivan.

I think to have everyone in one car would be best and would mean only one person was required to drive. However, I can imagine driving a 12 seater minivan is quite different from driving a small hatchback over in the Uk. Can someone tell me if it is more difficult manovering a minivan in the states and whether things like normal parking spaces etc would accomodate a van like that.

btw i am 24 years old, and will be going with people of the same age, some may be 25 by the time we go. so would this exclude me getting a minivan?? oh and does a normal UK licence allow for the carrying of so many passangers in the states. Also, can we put for example 5 or 6 of us down as drivers on the gold option? This will allows us to swap the driving responsibilities around. Sorry for so many questions!

Thanks
Dave

[Lynne S]

2 cars would be much better, we have done the one big 15 seater and your right it is quite hard to drive. With 2 cars you can split up when some members of your party want to do one thing and the rest want to do another.
You will have much more flexibility.

[roger]

You can drive a 12 seater on a standard UK license. Roads are wider and parking spaces bigger here, so no real difficulty driving a 12 seater.

If you can, avoid drivers age 21-24 as there are surcharges for younger drivers.

Dollar allow unlimited drivers on Gold, Alamo up to 4 drivers in total.

Personally I'd suggest 2 cars allowing more flexibility when you are there for 2 groups to go and do different things.

[Sniff]

I agree with the other comments here, regarding going for two smaller cars rather than one larger. I went with a party of 14 in April this year (9 adults, 4 kids and 1 infant) and trying to get everyone's agreement on where to go is a nightmare. Two cars gives you some measure of flexibility.

Also I would consider getting at least two drivers per vehicle, otherwise some poor person is going to be a taxi-driver for the whole holiday, and that's no fun for them if you're all going out for dinner, drinking etc and they can't. With multiple drivers you can at least spread the joy :D