Sports Car Blues

Not so fast. On our arrival at Orlando (where the skeeters are the size of small children and not half as annoying), we made our way to the Avis counter and encountered our first roadblock. They claimed they had no Solstices. I glanced around and pointed out to Mary that there were two Solstices in plain sight in the pickup aisles, no more than 30 feet from where we stood. I despise fibbing, especially when it's done so poorly.

When Mary informed the girl behind the counter that our old and feeble eyes had spied at least two of the particular model we desired, she replied that they were dirty and needed to be cleaned and gassed. It would take twenty minutes. I assumed my patented disgruntled frame of mind. Why would you put cars that are not ready for rental in the pickup aisles? Why since, we reserved just this type of car, didn't they take one of them before we arrived and wash it and gas it. Kind of the reason we reserved a car rather than arriving reservation-free to throw ourselves on the tender mercies of the plastically grinning Avis salesbots.

In any case while spending around fifteen minutes randomly punching keys on her computer the salesperson happened to notice I was standing there with two small suitcases. Two small suitcases because on Avis' on website the entry for the Solstice says and I quote:

Car Capacity:

2 people

Holds 2 small suitcases.

Now I'm a reasonable man. Usually. When I read two small suitcases I take that to mean literally: Two. Small. Suitcases. Not a make up case and a steamer trunk. Not a golf bag and a surfboard travel bag. Well, the girl gets out from behind her plexiglass and takes us over to the nearest Solstice (which hadn't existed a short time before) and opens the door panel that covers the rather inaptly named trunk. There is literally no room in said compartment. Especially if we lower the top, as this same compartment is also used to store it. As Mary said, there was enough room for a sack lunch. As long as you are happy with half a sandwich and no, there was no room left over for a Twinkie.

There's no way a couple could possibly rent a car like this unless they also hired a taxi to take their luggage to the hotel separately. I'm really not kidding. It might be fine for one person who could throw his overnight bag in the passenger seat, but otherwise in the real world that some of us occupy, there was no way this car could be used for anything but a day trip or by people so rich they travel without luggage and purchase their clothes in the destination city.

So we looked at the car (and it still looked really cool, in a completely and disturbingly impractical way), signed,  and asked what else they had. To which the girl replied - a Hummer! For only $250 more a week. Lucky us. We said ummm, no. After a bit of hemming and hawing the salesperson said we could have a VW Beetle convertible. We walked over to check it out first and discovered that there was actually a back seat of sorts as well as a small trunk. We negotiated, or I should say Mary told the salesflack what we were willing to pay, and she went and got her boss to approve it.

Overall, the VW was pretty fun. Granted, it rained two of the seven days we were there and we were inside the parks for a couple more and didn't use the rental car. But during the few hours we did have it out and the weather was fine, we tooled around with the top down and enjoyed it immensely. If I had a college age daughter it's exactly what I'd buy for her. For us, well, I enjoyed it but I wouldn't go out of my way to rent it again nor would I pay a premium for it.

Next week: Hertz and the Nissan 350Z. And we checked and it does have a trunk.