Renting a Car

For the long weekend we decided to look into hiring a car, as Anissa and Emma were leaving on the Thursday so there would only be five of us – the right number for a car. We did a quick Google search for car hire companies in Cádiz and found the locations of the offices for several companies. Claire, Kath and I headed down to the new town to the office of Hertz, who offer discounts to people flying with Ryanair. We caught the bus down through the new town, getting off near the football stadium, it was good to finally find out where it was! However unfortunately for us once we arrived we were told that the company policy is only to hire to people over the age of 23. That was unexpected, we knew that it was usual for companies to only hire to people over the age of 21, so Kath would have to be the driver, but 23 was a bit much. We didn’t know where the next nearest car hire office was so instead we rewarded our efforts with a cocktail on the beach, which was great until it rained!

At the next opportunity we went to search for some smaller companies who may allow us to hire a car with a 22 year old driver. Hannah had seen a couple of small offices near to the Town Hall so we decided to visit them on the way to the Europcar offices, which according to Google were quite nearby. We headed down to the offices of the two local companies, but because it was between the hours of 2pm and 5pm the offices were of course closed. We decided to return at 5pm to enquire about prices, 5pm came and went and one office was still closed with a padlock and at the other desk there was no sign of any member of staff. There was a man on the desk next to it and several people loitering around who seemed to find it quite entertaining that we were waiting for someone to show up. After about an hour we gave up, we scrawled a note with our number and what we would need if we were to hire a car and asked the man next to the vacant desk to pass the note on if and when the car hire man should return.

A few hours later we received a call from the car hire company with a few quotes, it was a little off putting that they asked nothing about the driver and their experience, instead they simply reassured us that a car was reserved for us. It was going to cost around €140 for three days, but unfortunately we wanted to return the car on a Saturday, and we would incur a €20 fee for returning the car out of office hours, with the office closing at 1.30pm on a Saturday there was no way to avoid that fee if we wanted to make the most of our free days. In the end we decided not to take the car, however it was good to know how easy it would be if we should ever need to. My only advice would be to avoid the larger companies which are more expensive and have more rules, but to make sure you have lots of time and patience if you go in search of an office, they only open when they feel inclined.