We had a horrible experience with renting a car over the Christmas break this year, our reservation was with Avis. We had arranged for them to drop of our car at our resort, Coconut Bay, which is 5 minutes down the road. They assured us that it would be no problem and they would have it there by 10 am. Well, wouldn't you know that 10 am rolls around and NO car, fine...... it is island time. After about 15 minutes, the concierge tells us to cab it over to the airport and pick it up there.
Upon arriving at the airport, not only is there no car, there is no one working the rental car desks, not a single booth. There is just 2 police officers and 2 airport security guards. My wife is on the phone for about 20 minutes with confirmation number, rep name, date and time when we talked to them about the car. Low and behold, they have NO cars available today or tomorrow and the only thing they can do is tell us they won't charge us.
The police get a hold of a cab driver to take us back to the hotel. The cabbie was confused to why we ended up at the airport and agreed to take us on a tour of the island, which costs us $80 for about 6 hours, which was less then our rate for the car. The funny thing he told us, is that car rentals are always being screwed up because when the native St. Lucians come home, they rent a car and will keep it for their entire time they are home and all they do is call their friend who is working the car agency and all of a sudden there a re no more rentals available.
We have rented our fair shares of cars on numerous islands and I know this can happen anywhere, but it would make me think again about renting a car in St. Lucia again.
