In the summer of 2016 our family set off to spend 8 weeks in London. We would explore the city and live like locals, renting a flat in Westminster. This was a far cry from our beach home in Florida and took a little adjusting to. We thrived in our new home away from home and had a jolly good time with many adventures along the way. This post is one installment in my series: Summer Abroad {with Kids}.
Blacklane :: Making Travel with Kids a Breeze
Hands down my least favorite part of traveling with kids is dealing with transportation. When we planned to spend the summer in London I knew we wouldn’t need a car because of their excellent public transportation system (hello, tube & bus). But I also knew that there was no way on earth I was going to take 2 kids right off the red eye and all our luggage on the hour+ train ride from Gatwick airport into the city.
We looked into Uber. Since we’ve used Uber in the States, it would probably be easy. But not knowing London or if Uber even worked the same way we decided to pass. I decided to research car service options and that’s when I discovered Blacklane, or as I like to call them, the company that saved my sanity.
Blacklane operates in 180 different companies and offers 4 different classes of service; Economy, Business, Business Van/SUV and First Class. We chose the Business Van/SUV because with 4 people, 4 large suitcases and all of our carry-on luggage I knew we’d need all the space we could use. I booked my reservation online using the Blacklane website. It was easy to use and in a few minutes I received my confirmation email. They also offer an app, which I later downloaded so all my information would be available on my phone.
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| Can you see our Blacklane driver rolling my suitcase? |
Once I made my reservation I kind of forgot about Blacklaneuntil we arrived in London. When we arrived our driver was waiting for us as soon as we exited the terminal. Not driving around in the pick-up area, he was waiting with a sign with our name on it as soon as we walked out of the international terminal. He immediately introduced himself and helped with our bags. We walked to our ride, a Mercedes Van that was immaculate on the inside. Our driver navigated us through the city with ease and delivered us to our flat in record time.
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| Our van pulling up to pick us up. |
As a parent who has done a lot of traveling with my children I cannot even begin to tell you how much I loved Blacklane’s service. We will be using them in the future anytime we need car service in a city we’re visiting.
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| My 9 year old enjoying the ride, not having to worry about us getting lost. |
Thank you Blacklane for offering me a free service in exchange for review. All opinions are my own.
