Lovely car. I've had one twice in Florida. Both rented from Dollar. Comfortable cars to drive (no passengers so I don't know what the rear seats are like in terms of comfort) but I do recall not particularly fuel efficient.

The first however was not a very lucky car. I was in Naples, FL when a fire truck was viewed in my rear mirror bearing down on me whilst in the middle lane of a set of Red traffic lights. The inner and outer lanes had more than one car waiting at the red lights. With the fire engine's lights and sirens behind me I thought I did the sensible thing by checking traffic coming the other way on the intersection, indicating that I would pull out and right to the kerb side and manoeuvring. Only to have the silly old sod in the old Cadillac in the right lane decide to move forward immediately after me and go into my right side! The fire truck sped on as I and the Cadillac drive pulled our cars around to the side of the road to exchange details. Next thing was we had three police cars and our own fire rescue truck to attend to us. Guess the passing fire engine had call the incident in. No injuries. The Cadillac was hardly scratched. My Pacifica had damage to both doors on the right and a damaged rear wing. I felt terrible for the damage to what was a fairly new car - but Dollar were great. They sent out another brand new car and after completing an brief accident form I had another nice car and no comeback from them.

Hope your one is luckier!

Traveller, Thanks for the info and sorry to hear about your misfortune. At least no-one was injured. In all the years I've been to Florida, I've always hired from Dollar. My experiences with them has been limited to the collection and return of the vehicle, so it's good to know that they can be relied on as well when things don't go to plan.

I suspected that the fuel economy might be a bit heavy given the weight of the Pacifica and the size/power of the engine. The main reason I was looking to hire the Pacifica was for it's luggage carrying abilities. There'll be me and 3 other adults travelling and while getting from the airport is usually no problem luggage wise, the return trip (with full cases) usually means a case has to go on the back seat. How do rate the luggage space? Were the 2 you had 5 seaters with the bench seat or 4/6 seaters with the fold out rear 2 seats?

From what I recall the boot space was fine. I think we had three mid/large cases which fitted in OK, together with our hand luggage.

I don't recall a fold out seating bench - just front and rear seats.

Another favourite car of mine in Florida is a Dodge Durango. I often ask for one of these if the two children join us. With 2A+2C we have been OK with luggage space, although like you we tend to fill every nook and cranny with luggage on that last run to the airport.

The other option for 4 adults and plenty of luggage space would be a 7 seater Grand Voyager or Dodge Caravan.