AANY BLOG ~ Miami’s Rental Car Nightmare

Since I have somewhat bashed JFK for its lack of signs it’s only fair that Miami gets a shout-out for its ill planning as well. At question here is the new $270 million central Rental Car Center or the RCC.
In practice, the center itself is great. Sixteen rental car firms all under one roof. One stop shopping. However, the getting to and from the center should have someone asking for their money back.
For those unfamiliar with Miami’s airport, it is shaped not unlike a U with the various terminals dotted along that U. The rail system that takes you to the RCC is accessed through a tunnel from the bottom of that U. That means if you come in at one of the U’s ends, you walk and walk, take moving sidewalks and walk some more.
Signage is abysmal. You are supposed to magically know what RCC stands for. Then, because there is seemingly only two access points to the train system, it literally took us 15 minutes to get to it once we figured out which direction we should go. Once at the RCC, the rental was easy, breezy.
Then fast forward to our return.
When it was time to leave Miami, we budgeted extra time for our long walk back from the train and set out early. We drove onto the airport property and followed the signs to “Rental Car Return,” veering to the right off the airport entrance as we were guided. The exit took us on this incredibly circuitous route through construction areas, under and over roads (including the one we came in on). At varying times, the center was on our right, then on our left. On more than one occasion, we thought we were simply missed something, even pulling over to get our bearings. Then, after 10 minutes of driving, we found the entrance.
The RCC, as they call it, it 1.2 miles from the actual airport. We added 5 miles on our car trying to get to it.
To say it was a stressful experience is an understatement since we already were dreading the haul back from the train to our gate. Luckily, after we got off the train, I ducked my head into the adjoining parking garage and figured if we skipped the tunnel to the terminal and just cut through the garage, we could cut 10 minutes off our walk… and we did.
In fairness, I know construction is still underway, so hopefully the problems associated with actually being able to return the car will get sorted out. But someone seriously needs to address access to the rental car rail system.
It’s lovely for those who can walk out of Terminal E or F and right to the train, but anyone else is left to drag luggage up escalators or elevators and on and off moving sidewalks for a ridiculous distance – unless they figure that shortcut through the garage like we did.