Wellington car rental for a Summer Christmas Road Trip
Late December in Wellington means sunglasses at 9pm, a northerly ruffling the flags along the waterfront, and the interislander ferries booked solid with holidaymakers. Touch down at Wellington International Airport and you land in the middle of it: the pickup lanes buzzing, cicadas going hard in the scrub around Rongotai, and the promise of empty Coromandel-style coastlines if you pick your beaches well. Sorting your Wellington International Airport car rental before you fly in is the difference between rolling out towards the Wairarapa by lunchtime and joining the queue at the counter.
Alamo is the only game in town for these dates, with 14 cars on offer ranging from $1,476 for the Mystery Car to $3,850 for a Tesla Model Y, and a median around $1,613. The smart money sits in Economy and Compact, where you are looking at roughly $1,490 to $1,630 for the week, while stepping up to Intermediate adds about $300 and a Fullsize Pajero Sport pushes past $2,100. Book the cheap end early: at Christmas the small cars vanish first, and with one supplier holding all the keys there is no rival counter to walk to.
The whole fleet seats five, and with 9 of 15 cars running standard petrol, a hybrid, or that lone electric Model Y, fuel is a genuine choice rather than a compromise. Summer roads are dry and the Rimutaka Hill road into Martinborough wine country is at its friendliest, so front-wheel drive is plenty unless you are loading up the boot with luggage, in which case the Pajero Sport earns its keep. Ask for an early-morning pickup if you can swing it: the forecourt at Wellington Airport crawls between 10am and 2pm in the holiday week, and beating that rush gets you over the hill before the afternoon northerly picks up.