Renting a COST EFFECTIVE six passenger vehicle in Italy

Try looking on the AutoEurope site, www.autoeurope.com. Six people with luggage will need a large vehicle, but if you can fit into a station wagon-type car, you might find something cheaper. (When I just searched on vans, though, they were all MUCH more expensive than the rate you quote.)

Hmm, that rate isn't as bad as it sounds,, if you consider train tickets for six people could easily add up..I would snap up the 900 dollar rate!

With only one week,, maybe just stay put in one place,, in most cities a car would not be nessesary,or smart anyways.

We ran into a similar problem in Ireland this summer. A lot of it was around what Europeans call "minivans". They refer to them as "people movers." When we looked at renting a van, we got similar quotes to yours. When we started looking more at how many people went in the vehicles, we got a "people mover", which ended up being a Hyundai Santa Fe with an extra row in the back, for around $400 for a week. The website said it sat 7, but with luggage, 6 was pushing it. Tell everyone to pack light!

Emmy:

We did a trip to Italy in 2007 with two other couples and so we faced the same issue.

First, rental vehicles in Italy are just plain expensive - that is the way it is.

We rented through gemut.com. They were wonderful to work with and the rental process went smoothly both here and in Italy.

We got a European version of a Chrysler Town and Country minivan. That was fine. It was comfortable.

The problem was - with the seating for six adults there is very very little room for luggage. We packed very light as a group but we still had to strap at least half of the luggage to the roof rack Griswold style. Trying to tell the fellow at the service station that we were looking for bungee cords (that isn't in my Italian-American dictionary) was a hilarious pantomime show!

We rented a villa for a week of our trip so it wasn't too bad. We only had to put the stuff on top of the van a couple of times.

We were informed that the only vehicle larger was a mini-tour bus thing that was monstrous and very expensive.

The minivan we had still felt a tad too big and wide on some roads (particularly in the Lake Como area).

The consensus of our group was that our van worked just fine. We appropriately felt that two vehicles would have been too expensive and troublesome.

Hope this information helps. Have fun.

Considering I pay around $400 to $500 for a car for a week in Italy... I don't think you are going to find a great deal. Remember that car rental prices are not really comparable to the great deals we get in the US.

We need to rent two vans for five couples for a trip to Spain. We are arriving in Seville and will then drive to a villa we have rented near Guacin. A full sized van is about twice as expensive as a minivan. We would like to rent two OPEL ZAFIRA CLUB 1.6 or similar minivans. We know it will seat five and we want two vehicles but we are just concerned about where to put our luggage. How much trouble is it to get the luggage loaded on top of the mini vans. Any suggestions?

Bob....the Zafira is more like a giant station wagon. It seats 7 in three rows....2-3-2...but with that back row of seats up, there's literally nothing left in terms of storage space. You can put down the back and/or middle rows to create storage space, but I doubt you'd have any luck putting luggage up top, since there are no racks or reinforcements on the roof. To take a look at the interior, open the pdf file at http://www.opel.com/ids/opel_range_brochure.pdf and go to page 6....and you can maybe judge from that. Obviously, the lighter you all travel, the easier it'll be! ;)
As an aside, you may want to consider renting thru carjet.co.uk, a broker I've used very successfully over the years. It has Opel Zafiras out of Sevilla airport at about $325 U-S for a week in November...and that includes a zero CDW deductible. A nine-seater Mercedes Vito goes for about $470/week, again, all in.

Norm - thanks for the advice. We are picking up in Seville and driving to a house we have rented for a 10 day stay. We are then going to drive to Lisbon and stay at another house we have rented in Sesimbra. We will drop off in Lisbon. The drop of charge is $260 but that is cheaper than all ten of us flying from Seville to Lisbon. After looking at the brochure you referenced I think we can get 10 people in the Opel Minivan with our luggage. We are each taking on ly one bag and we won't be taking our luggage when we are sightseeing. A third vehicle is going to cost us an extra $1200 and I'm not sure we really need it. I am going to check through Carjet.