Car rental in Rhodes island, Greece

At first I didn’t plan to rent a car in Rhodes. But since I saw two rental offices from the hotel balcony, I thought it would be nice to visit the other side of the island especially since they offered cute Fiat 500 cars for rent. We saw at least one rental company on every street of the town. But we still went to the office that we saw from our hotel window as the team became a familiar to us – it was interesting to see how they work while we were sitting on the hotel balcony. They used to wash their cars on the street just outside their office. 

We asked if the “red Ferrari” (pointing at the red Fiat 500 outside the house) could be rented tomorrow or the day after. It turned out that the red one was already rented but they had a white version available. As a matter of fact, our main desire was to rent Fiat 500 and being able to open the roof. Being cautious after the experience in Italy, I asked about the size of the insurance excess and other conditions. Surprisingly, I discovered that the rental conditions were very reasonable. I was prepared for an experience similar in Italy. I was told that the insurance excess is 200 euros (or maybe 300 euros) and although I can’t remember the exact price, the rental cost was also reasonable. And so we booked the car for the next day. 

When I went to collect the car it turned out that the card machine doesn’t work and I also didn’t have enough cash on me. But this didn’t stop us from being able to rent the car. We agreed to pay when returning the car. The customer servants also gave us advice which places to visit on the island and were overall very friendly. When I was investigating the car I got a funny look from the sales assistant but as soon as they realised I was looking for the damages they told me I didn’t have to worry about scratches or dents. I was promised I wouldn’t be charged for parking damages. People on this island have different views on parking than in Estonia. That’s what they think car bumpers are for. The only element I could complain about was the fuel policy. The tanks were filled just as much as they happened to have, and the cars had to be returned in the same state or with a fuller tank. This type of measuring the tank doesn’t suit me that well and I also can’t be bothered to tank a few times, which meant that the car had probably more fuel after returning it. But since everything else seemed alright I wasn’t going to complain about that. So we opened the car roof proudly and took a direction to the first petrol station since our car had almost empty fuel tank. 

On the second half of the first day we were still forced to close the roof since our heads were getting sunburnt – being the convertible beginners, we didn’t realise that we should wear a hat. We bought some hats in the evening and were able to enjoy the car fully on the next day. 

When we returned the car, nobody even bothered to overlook the car. It was enough that the car was able to move on its own and not on the tow truck. I paid for the rental money but we weren’t even asked for the deposit fee anymore. This is strange because there were quite a lot of parking fines issued in the own (luckily I didn’t get any myself) and I could also spot some speed cameras on the roads. Later on I read from the rental contract that the excess is actually 100 euros more but I was told that because nothing happened to the car, it didn’t matter anymore. Overall, I got a very positive impression about car rental on the island of Rhodes.  
Andres Tuuksam