Chauffeur or Self-Drive: Which Should You Book?
Two quite different bookings that happen to involve the same cars.
Every car in this fleet can be booked either way, and people often pick the wrong one — usually by defaulting to self-drive because it is the obvious option, and then spending the evening looking for parking on Ocean Drive. Here is how to decide.
Book self-drive when the driving is the point
The Rickenbacker Causeway out to Key Biscayne. A1A up the coast on a clear morning. The Overseas Highway, if you have the day for it. If what you want is the car — the noise, the response, the experience of actually driving something you do not own — then self-drive is the whole reason to do this and nothing else substitutes for it.
Book a chauffeur when the arrival is the point
A wedding. A restaurant with valet and a two-hour wait. A night where somebody is drinking. A client you are collecting from the airport. An event where you want to be dropped at the door rather than circling for twenty minutes. In all of those the driving is friction, not pleasure, and paying somebody else to absorb it is money well spent.
The practical differences
Self-drive requires your licence, your insurance and a deposit, and the allowance is 100 miles a day. A chauffeur booking requires none of those from you — no licence check, no insurance requirement, no deposit — because you are not the one driving. It is quoted by the hour rather than by the day, so a four-hour evening costs a great deal less than a full day’s rental.
You can do both in one booking
This is the part people do not realise is available. Take the car yourself for the daytime and have a chauffeur for the evening. Or the reverse. Tell us what the day actually looks like and we will build it around that rather than making you pick one and live with it.
Which cars suit which
The supercars are self-drive cars — that is the point of them, and there is nowhere comfortable to sit in the back. The Rolls-Royce, the Bentley and the larger Mercedes are as good chauffeured as they are driven, and better if there are three or four of you. If you are unsure, tell us how many people and what the evening is and we will point you at the right one.
What a chauffeur booking actually gets you
A professional driver who knows the city, arrives early, waits where waiting is allowed, and does not need directions. Discretion is part of it — nothing about who we drove or where goes anywhere. And practically, you get the whole evening back, because nobody is thinking about the car.
Common questions
- Is a chauffeur much more expensive?
- For a full day, yes. For an evening, often not — a chauffeur is priced by the hour, so four hours out to dinner and back can cost less than a full day’s self-drive rental plus valet.
- Can I switch part-way through a booking?
- Yes, and people do. Drive it yourself over the weekend and have a chauffeur on the night you want a drink. Tell us when you book and we will schedule it.
- Do I still need insurance for a chauffeur booking?
- No. You are a passenger, so the licence, insurance and deposit requirements do not apply to you at all. That is often the deciding factor for visitors.