Is that my rental car or is THAT my rental car?

[luvflorida]

Just wondering if this has happened to anyone else, and if you felt as foolish as I did. We flew to Orlando a few months ago and rented a car. The car was a white SUV type of car, a Rodeo I think. Now, we're used to having our own car in Florida because we usually drive down instead of fly.

Anyway, my husband spent one day at a convention, so my daughter and I headed off to Sea World. We arrived early and there were very few cars in the lot. I parked the car and we went and spent a wonderful day at Sea World. We walked out to the parking lot and I started looking for our car. I automatically started looking for a black Jeep Cherokee, our own car, but quickly remembered we had a rental. No problem, I thought. My daughter and I walked to the row we had parked in, and walked to a white SUV, but upon closer inspection, it wasn't ours. Fine. So we walked a little further down the row and came to another white SUV. Not ours either. We looked around us and realized that there were a lot of white SUV's parked in the immediate vicinity. Now I was starting to get a little panicky. What the heck kind of SUV did we rent?!? All the white SUV's looked exactly alike! Ahh! There it is! The car we approached had to be ours. As I searched in my purse for the key and my tired daughter leaned against the front of the car, a young couple approached and proceeded to open the back of the car and place bags inside. OOPS! I mumbled something about thinking it was our rental, and quickly moved on. Well, we did finally locate the correct rental, and I've since learned that from now on when we rent a car, I'll take the time to know exactly what kind of car it is!

 

[RobinLyn]

Now you know why people tie things on thier antennas like ribbons or those cute Disney foam balls or anything that works to help FIND THEIR CARS, lol!! I enjoyed reading your post. It seems like when you rent a car at WDW, everyone else rents the same kind of car and in the same darn color!

 

[sgtdisney]

Funny story! A lot of times they list the make and model of the car as well as the licence plate number on the little key chain that they give you with the rental car keys. I am usually very good remembering what kind of car I rented, but sometimes there are identical make/model and color all very close together.

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

There's an old story someone once told me... Many many many many years ago, the parking cast members at Epcot wanted to have a little fun. So instead of parking cars as they came into the park, they decided to park them by color. White in this row, red in that row, blue in another row. You can imagine the chaos that entailed later when folks tried to come out and find thier rental car. Of course this was in the days before beeping alarms... and we all know all white rentals look a like... a white Taurus is the same as the next 50 white Tauruses

Anyhoo... needless to say, those folks weren't parking cars the next day.

 

[RobinLyn]

Wondering if Tyler could have been one of those parking lot CM's.... lol, j/k. Great story Tyler "Thanks". I would of love to have seen that!!

 

[Gillian]

I only wish rentals gave you the beepy thing!

But it is nice of them to write your license plate number on the key chain.

 

[GoldenOldie]

I always leave something in view to readily identify my rental by sight. Anything will do. A towel, a t-shirt, a newspaper...anything. I just leave it on either the dashboard or on the rear window deck depending on whether I'm parked as the front car or the back car in the theme park parking space. Then all I need to remember is the row I parked in.

When I come out to leave, I just go to that row and walk down until I see my item sitting in the window of the car. There could be 50 white Taurus' next to each other but I'll find my white Taurus on the first try every time.

 

[ducklite]

Tyler--that's hilarious.

We had the most hideous colored rental one time, I refered to it as "ugly car" the entire time we had it. But it was great, because it was easily identified when parked.

Anne

 

[luvflorida]

I love the story about the cars all being parked by color. At least I wouldn't have been the only lost soul in the parking lot! I don't recall any identifying info attached to the rental car key, but you can bet next time I'll be sure to check!

 

[peg2001]

Don't feel silly. Half the time, I end up wandering the local Walmart parking lot looking for my own minivan. They all look alike, too.

Peggy

 

[SheriB]

This is a funny thread, especially since this must have happened to any of us who rent a car at one time or another. I keep a small notepad and pen with me and write down the license # of the rental car, along with the name of the area we parked in (i.e. Dopey row 11). LOL!

Sheri

 

[DMRick]

A few years ago we dutifully put the pink architect tape on our car. We had no antenna, so we tied it around the side mirror. Some joker, took it off our car, ripped it in a few pieces, and tied to the same color cars around us..on their mirrors. Boy, were we confused!

 

[dvc guy]

Been there done that.........BTW Hertz has added the alarm remotes the the keys the last 2 times we rented, once in MCO and once in FLL, makes it a little easier.

 

[perdidobay]

Hows this ...we take a digital photo of our rental, and one of the row number and section.... then look up our photos on the way out of the park entrance

 

[pathubia]

This has happened to us. Do you know how many white taurus's I tried.....DH was laughing his head off, he memorized the licence plate #. I never thought of that....Parking the cars by color though, LOL, that is too funny...The digital photo thing seems like too much work for me, though.

 

[kylara]

See that is why I leave my car dirty...so it doesn't look like every white rental car in the lot