bocastephen

They are sold out for Presidents Day weekend - I wonder what the aisles will have. Convertibles were sold out long ago, so I don't expect to see any there. Hopefully our Thursday noon arrival time will give us an edge before the California hoards arrive later that evening or on Friday.

bocastephen

Had an interesting experience at KOA last week. At arrival, found a mix of full size and 4x4 on the aisle/executive. The exec lane had one Taurus which we took....and moments later discovered it only had a 1/4 tank and was not refilled before return or after return. Wow. The agent took us to the gas pump and filled it up before we left...disaster averted.

The Taurus had a quirk - the steering wheel was twisted way left, which made driving it odd. We figured out that we should have taken one of the 4x4 Jeeps since we wanted to climb Mauna Kea. The next day we gassed up the Taurus and were able to work with a very nice agent to swap it out for a Jeep 4x4.

So....after Mauna Kea, we discovered a problem - no cargo cover, so our bags would be exposed as we spent the day shuffling between hotels. Instead of going back to the airport, we worked with the desk at Waikoloa and were swapped into an almost new Fusion, which worked perfectly in terms of size and gas economy...so we had 3 cars during this trip, which was quite interesting.

One thing about KOA - even with the car cleaning station, the cars are NEVER clean. The insides are filthy (our Jeep looked like it had a barf stain on the rear carpet mat) and the outsides are often covered in bug debris. Every car we looked at was the same. I don't know what they're doing at the car cleaning station, but it isn't cleaning the cars.

woodtravel

Thanks for sharing your experience at KOA. When you changed veh, what was the process? Did you receive a new rental agreement? Or Did they just mark on the paper to state that you had returned the previous car?

bocastephen

Same contract and rate - just re-print the contract with updated car info.

kwildnj

I did the drive up to the observatory on Mauna Kea in a 4WD Explorer, and was glad I did. Going up the road, on the unpaved portions, I got stuck behind a PT-Cruiser who kept getting stuck. On the way down, they nearly burned out their breaks, based on the smell @ the Visitors Center. I took it slow in both directions, and noticed little or no strain on the vehicle. Gas consumption wasn't horrible either.



Anyway, back to National. I did the one day with an SUV precisely for that journey. I used Priceline to reserve a Standard SUV, which National grabbed for $58 and change all in. National, however had no 4WD's when I went to pick up the car, however they pool vehicles with both Alamo and Enterprise, they called both locations, and found a 4WD at Enterprise, which they drove over for me.

I'd keep this pooling in mind, should you arrive on the National lot, to find crap. It can't hurt to ask if either Enterprise of Alamo have something you'd prefer.

EEE

Contributing, since these threads make for interesting reading.

Rented at KOA on 11/14 for a return to Hilo on 11/16. Didn't cost me any extra - not sure if that's standard, or part of our contract. They didn't associate my rental with my Emerald account (unlike every other time, when it happened automatically), so I had to wait inside at the counter. No problem, such things happen when people are reserving for you.

Got sent back outside, where they pointed me at the EA (four midsize-looking cars, didn't check the types). When I pointed out that I was Executive (albeit a new one), he said something about it being a one way, then cut off after a few words and asked if I had documentation. Showed him my card, got pointed at the ES aisle, which had three SUVs and a full size. I ended up taking a fairly standard Grand Cherokee with about 1800 miles on it. One of the others was a Dodge Journey, but I was in a rush, so I didn't linger for a full census.

(Based on his cut off response, I wonder if maybe they don't like having me haul a high-end vehicle off to another station?)

Anyway, no complaints aside from the traffic. I got stopped by single-lane zones four times between Kawaihae and Hilo, which had the added bonus of making sure there was at least one driver in front of me going 40 mph for almost the whole way. Missed my flight, missed my meeting in Honolulu.

peteropny

Welcome to Flyertalk and our National forum EEE. I think you are right about the agent / location not wanting to let a "good" car go off on a one-way and wanted to make sure that you were entitled to ES before agreeing to let it go.

MichaelColey

I picked up a minivan here a couple days ago (which I reserved for a decent price, not realizing they had an executive aisle). With five of us and a bunch of bags, we needed the space. The Executive Aisle had a mix of cars and small SUVs, including some Jeeps I believe. I didn't really pay attention to the Emerald Aisle.

azepine00

Had great experience with KOA station a couple times this year. Got Santa Fe's both times and even though there were no SUVs at the aisle the second trip the attendant brought one up when we asked.
Surprisingly the shuttle driver remembered us from the prior trip a month or so earlier. ^

EEE

I rented again from KOA this evening. My admin booked me for a compact last week, and by the time I caught it and went to change to a midsize, KOA was totally sold out for my rental days. However, when I arrived, both aisles were full. I went in and asked about paying to change my reservation to midsize, but after tapping away for a minute or two, the guy working there said I should go ahead and grab off the aisle anyway. Maybe being sold out meant the system wouldn't let him upgrade me either?

Anyway, I saw a range of cars (didn't catch makes), plus two Jeep Wranglers on each of the aisles. I ended up grabbing a red Wrangler with 5700 miles. Nothing particularly special, but it's nice to have something fairly small for a change. My last few rentals have been fairly sizeable SUVs that are a pain to park.

As an aside, the Wrangler has one of the very common problems that really annoys me on new cars. You turn the high beams on by pushing the turn signal back toward the dash, and there's very little resistance to pushing in that direction. This means that I'm periodically flashing people with my high beams whenever I turn or switch lanes. I really wish they would design things so that it wouldn't slide into high beam position so easily...

EEE

I glanced around again today on my way out (though a helpful employee tried to guide me over to the benches where I was supposed to wait for the shuttle). EA had Impalas and a Charger. I didn't have a chance to check out the ES side, but it was all cars - no SUVs or jeeps.

(They back in the cars over on the ES side, so unless you recognize models from the front, then it's hard to take a quick census.)

EEE

Rolled in early this afternoon, and both aisles had a wide selection of Impalas in every color imaginable (3 LTs and one LTZ on each side), plus a random SUV with its engine running that I was told was not available. However, I dithered between the black or white LTZs long enough for them to pull up a Ford Escape fresh from the car wash. I quickly threw my bags in the passenger seat, then checked with the attendant to make sure it was ready for me to take.

Anyway, the Escape had 13k miles and Sirius. The seats looked a little worn, but no other cosmetic issues. Downside - I didn't realize this, but apparently Sirius doesn't work outside Oahu? I still found enough stations on the drive up the coast to keep music going, but I obviously won't bother checking for Sirius in the future. I'm kind of surprised they even send rental cars equipped with it.

MichaelColey

That doesn't sound right to me. It's satellite-based, so it should work anywhere within sight of the satellites. If it works in Oahu, it should work on the other islands.

I think I've only had one National car in the past couple years that had Sirius/XM ACTIVATED. I still always check, but they're mostly either not equiped or are expired.

EEE

I checked Wikipedia, and apparently they use land-based repeaters for coverage outside of the continental US (i.e., Oahu and Puerto Rico).

soap_bubbles

I am an Emerald Executive Elite. At KOA location, can I pick up a 7 or 8 seat minivan from Emerald (or EE) Aisle, even though I made reservation for an Intermediate car?
Does any one knows about this location well?
Or should I contact National Emerald Club by email to upgrade me to an 7/8 seat minivan? Will they do that?