Black Cab Tours of London With Kids: What Works and What to Ask For
The short answer
It works, and the reason is the fare: one price covers up to five or six of you, so a family pays once. There is no walking between landmarks, the loo stop happens when you ask for it, and a folded pushchair travels easily. The one thing to know before you book is that a London taxi carries no booster seats.
Why the format suits a family
Three reasons, and none of them is what the marketing says.
You pay once. A fare of $430 for three hours is $86 each across five people, and children are not charged separately because nobody is charged separately. That is the arithmetic that makes a private guide affordable for a family and expensive for a couple.
Nobody walks between stops. The distance from Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London is not a distance a seven-year-old wants to cover on foot or underground. In a cab it is twenty minutes with something to look at.
The day bends. Ask for a loo stop and you get one. Ask to skip a landmark because attention has run out and it is skipped. Several reviews describe exactly that, and one describes a driver letting a ten-year-old sit in the driver's seat.
The one thing to check first
Which routes hold children's attention
| Route | Ages it suits | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Film locations | 7 and up | Nine stops, short each, and several drivers carry film clips on a tablet to show before you arrive |
| Two-hour highlights | Any | Short enough to finish before anybody flags, and the landmarks they have seen on television |
| Christmas lights | Any | After dark, indoors, and lit the whole way |
| Six-hour sightseeing | 10 and up | A full day, with a lunch stop, and better for children who ask questions |
The film-location route is the one families book most, and the reviews explain why: drivers show the scene before you see the place. One traveller took a six-year-old and a nine-year-old round ten sites in nearly four hours. The two routes are on the film-location page.
How long to book with children
Two to three hours for under-eights. Three to four once they are old enough to want the story rather than the sights. Six hours works for teenagers and needs a lunch stop, which most six-hour drivers build in anyway.
Do not book nine hours with small children. The Cotswolds day is two hours of driving at each end, and it is a wonderful day for adults and a long one for anybody else.
Pushchairs, bags and what to bring
- A pushchair is fine. Most of these tours are listed as stroller accessible, and the shape of a London taxi means a folded buggy goes in easily.
- Bring what you would carry in a car. Water is included on about half of them and snacks on one; on one tour nothing may be eaten in the cab without asking first.
- Bring a camera the children can use. Photo stops are the whole point, and several drivers photograph the family at each one and send the pictures afterwards.
What a driver can do that a bus cannot
Stop where you ask. Wait while a five-year-old finishes looking at a horse. Change the order when the weather turns. Get you back to the hotel for a nap and out again. A hop-on hop-off bus does none of that, and the comparison is worked through in cab against bus.
A day that works, hour by hour
The shape most families settle on is a short cab tour first and everything else afterwards. Take three hours in the morning, cover the landmarks, and note which two the children actually reacted to. Then go back into those in the afternoon, on foot, with tickets you bought yourself.
That works because the hard part of London with children is not the sights, it is the distance between them. A cab removes the distance and leaves you the sights, and it means nobody spends the afternoon on the Underground with a pushchair. A longer version of the same idea is in one day in London by black cab.
What to ask the driver for
Say the ages when they confirm the plan. Every one of these operators makes contact before the day, and a driver who knows there is a six-year-old aboard will pitch the commentary differently and pick different stops. Several reviews describe exactly that.
Ask for the photographs, too. Drivers on these routes take them at every stop and send them afterwards, and one review counts more than a hundred by the end of the day. Ask for a loo stop the moment anybody thinks of it rather than at the next landmark. And say if anybody gets carsick, because the route can be flattened out.
What it costs a family, in figures
Take the three-hour sightseeing run at $430. For two adults and three children that is $86 a head, and the children are not charged separately because nobody is. A guided walking tour of the same landmarks, priced per person, would cost a family of five considerably more and would involve four miles on foot.
The two-hour tour at From $304 is cheaper still and is the one to take if the children are small. At the other end, the six-hour run works for teenagers who ask questions and includes a lunch stop. The arithmetic for every block, at every party size, is in what a black cab tour costs.
The honest limits
You do not go inside anything. If the Tower of London with children is the plan, buy that ticket yourself and have the cab drop you at the gate. And the clock is fixed: a three-hour booking is three hours, however the morning goes.
What travellers with children actually said is on the reviews page, where the family reviews cluster around the film-location and two-hour routes.
Tours that work with children in the back
Harry Potter Black Taxi Private Tour of London with Hotel Pickup
Nine film locations in three hours, with clips shown before each one and hotel pickup at both ends.
From $479 per group, up to 5
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London Private Black Cab Tour: 2 hour highlights/hotel pick-up
Short enough for young children, and the cheapest fare here, covering everybody in the cab.
From $304 per group, up to 6
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London: Christmas Lights Tour in a Black Cab
Two and a half hours after dark in December, early enough to be back before bedtime.
From $486 per group, up to 6
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