The rental experience was ehhhh. Fair. There were two agents at the desk at BRU Airport. One dealing with a pair of travelers who obviously had some sort of issue, and another who appeared to be doing some sort of sorting. When I approached the available agent, he told me that he was unavailable, and I would need to wait for the other guy. I waited 15 minutes, and a line formed behind me. As the line started to get restless, sorter-guy decided that perhaps he ought to do something productive. He helped me, and evidently some folks behind me, since the first guy was still with the problem children. Could have done that from the outset and created some good-will. Wrote down the wrong stall number with absolutely ZERO employees in the rental area to assist. Sigh. I walked up and down each row until my fob clicked on one of the cars, two rows away.
The Skoda itself was fine (although I had reserved a manual, and ended up with an automatic SUV ... bleah ... we have tons of SUVs here in the States).
Return was better: after locating a fuel station near Brussels MIDI Train Station where I would not be in fear of my life, and getting the car back though the gates on Viktor Horta, and figuring out that Europcar is the only agency on Level -5, the man who checked me in was actually pretty helpful.
On the whole, I would avoid Brussels all together moving forward, and get my rental in Amsterdam instead ... and probably use Enterprise in the process. read more