Drivalia Portugal - Automoveis de Aluguer Sem Condutor, S.A. in Faro

First of all, you have to go by shuttle bus to the pick up office. We waited a very long time for the shuttle and we ended up not getting a seat on Drivalias shuttle bus. I tried to call their office five times - no answer. Luckily a shuttle bus from another company took mercy and drove us to the office. At the office another wait for 2 hours!! In all, it took 3 hours to collect the car. And it wasn't even the car I've ordered (I ordered a VW) but a very small Peugeot 208 instead. On top of that it was very difficult to understand the terms and conditions for insurance. I had a question to the drop off and again - no answer on the phone despite of several calls. No answer on email either although Drivalia Faro had five days to answer a simple question. I had to call the Drivalia main office in Portugal to finally get through to the office in Faro. What a disaster. Rent your car somewhere else.

The people at the rental place were very slow during pickup. All information was given beforehand but it took 30 minutes to get one car. When we brought the car back it seemed like they were looking for the tinyest scratch, luckily we made none. It also took 30 minutes to bring it back due to a registration error and sending the confirmation to another persons email. The staff was not very friendly. No complaints about the car.

Got in and out pretty quickly without any surprises. Everyone was friendly. The shuttle to the airport was great as well.

Great. I understood there are many sketchy referral websites and many rental sketchy companies. From reading the reviews of Drivalia Faro, I got the impression they might be just fine. And they are! I found a great deal (on orbit cars) for a BMW 2 Grand coupe with full insurance for several days. It was perfect! The transfer from the airport to the pickup place was quick (few minutes) without any waiting time. The administrative work took a little longer, but the staff was friendly and patient. I got a Mercedes instead of the BMW, but for me that was even better. The car was like new and drove well. I forgot the PIN-code for my credit card (needed for the deposit) but I called in advance and they told me there was a (more expensive) alternative without deposit. That was nice. However my fellow traveler could register as co-driver for a few euro's a day extra and this way we used his credit card for deposit. For payment of the toll/peage an extra deposit of EUR100 is needed. Returning the car was even easier and fast and I was quickly dropped off at the airport.

Horrible experience with this car rental service. We had booked our car with full coverage insurance but upon arrival we were told that what we booked online did not count and we needed to pay an extra 189EUR to have full coverage with Drivalia. Despite having full coverage then, we were not able to just drop off the car at the end of our trip but had to pay a 40EUR surcharge for dropping the car 45 minutes before the regular opening hours (because they needed to check the car...). In addition, everything took forever (1.5 hours to collect, 40 minutes to return the car). We ended up paying more than three times what we had booked originally and had a terrible experience. I would absolutely NOT recommend this company!

Poor experience. Scammers. Drivalia/ Drive4Move / Sur Price (these are 3 names for same company) will be added to my shortlist of Faro car hire never to be used again. Alarm bells rang when the agent did over the top walk around the car at start of rental.As a school teacher, I thought she was being very conscientious. Every tiniest little imperfection on the car was being noted, things I've never experienced before with car hire. My 6th sense smelt a trap. Bamboozle the customer with a litany of small flaws so their so called damage gets 'lost in the noise' on return. Lo and behold on return, they've charged me 320EUR for most insignificant scratch, about 3 mm across. Which of course could have been there amongst myriad of 20 imperfections on low quality car. I'm insured of course, but it's the principle of gouging customers. It's short term business practise. Search Sur Price Faro on Trip Advisor...there are a dozen identical experiences to mine noted there this year 2024! On Sur Price reviews, see Thomas Burrows' review below, 3 days prior to my review. Andy Cotterill, a week ago. SNAP! See the pattern! All identical complaints to mine. Their strategy of noting dozens of tiny imperfections on old car and then charging for an additional. Adding insult to injury, they are clearly not repairing the previous damage. They must be making PS1000s on old cars.

Pedro was very nice & friendly, he even gave great recommendations for things to do. They were very accommodating with my reservation as well. I would recommend anyone to rent here.

Very rude and unfriendly staff! We had a delay and called. The woman told us that we need to be there before 8pm - if not, we have to pay extra 35EUR. When we managed to arrive before 8pm and kindly provided all request details and information, we were told that we had to pay extra 2EUR/day and an extra deposit of 100EUR for a toll box in the car. (The deposit of 850EUR is already very high.) Finally, we were not able to get the car at all because our credit card was not excepted. Providing details from other credit cards via phone did not help because the card needs to be there physically. So, read the card information very carefully beforehand (our money was gone and we did not have a rental car...). While we were trying our best to make it happen and to stay calm, the woman yelled at us and tried to "sell" us a rental car for 300% of the original price. It feels like they are just trying to make more money! Also: Their office is not located at the airport! From our experience: Please avoid this lady and DRIVALIA car rental!