Family Airport Transfers in Italy: why Welcome Pickups is our go-to car service for stress free travel

Family Airport Transfers in Italy: Welcome Pickups Review. Discover why Welcome Pickups is our go-to car service for family airport transfers in Italy: safe, comfortable, and stress-free travel with kids

One of the biggest headaches for families traveling to Italy with young kids is figuring out transport to and from the airport to their accommodation, especially after a long flight.

Transport options in Italy abound.

Most airports are served by some sort of connection service, usually bus or train and in many cases they are great: I have often used public transport and, until the kids arrived, to be honest, I never really thought of looking at any other solution.

However, two kids later, my views on this changed radically!

While buses and trains can be excellent for visitors on a budget or if you are well rested and agile in movements, once you add multiple kids to the mix, luggage for all and a mix of jet lag and exhaustion after potentially many hours of travel, the appeal of these solutions drop fast!

Taxis are of course the logical alternative but they come with a problem too: taxis in Italy do not have and do not require cars seats and even private companies are hit and miss with their availability (meaning: most do not provide them, not even if asked).

So basically, no matter how you look at it, families with young kids face a dilemma: go without a car seat or give up on the idea of a taxi altogether and take public transport instead. Hardly ideal.

Thankfully, there’s a solution!

After much trial and error, we finally found a company that we can trust and that has the elusive service of offering not juts airport pickup and drop off, but also car seats!

Please note: this post contains affiliate links. Should you make a purchase throught them, we might make a small commission.

The company is called  Welcome Pickups, and offers family-friendly airport transfers across Italy.

I use them most commonly in Rome (I am from Rome and fly in and out regularly) but they operates with professional drivers in Rome, Milan, Florence, and many other cities, so that are a great option in most tourist locations.

In my experience, they provide private, reliable transfers to and from most airports, train stations, and ports and they give the option to request a child car seat during booking.

I use them extensively and have always found their service excellent: communication is easy, prices are transparent, cars are comfortable, and their policy of tracking your actual flight arrival makes the process completely stress-free

Recently, a flight delay put their policy to the test, and Welcome Pickups proved absolutely excellent. So, I felt a proper review was in order. This is our experience with Welcome Pickups in Rome.

How to Book a Family-Friendly Airport Transfer in Italy with Welcome Pickups

Welcome Pickups has an easy-to-use online system that you can use to get a no-commitment immediate quote and to book.

Their website is welcomepickups.com. Their homepage looks like this:

If you just want a quote, you don’t even need to log in: using the box in front of you, just enter your pickup and drop-off points, select the number of passengers and bags, and add your flight details.

As you will see, the field populate as you type: you can enter the name of a hotel or, should it not be listed, you can juts type in the exact address.

You will also be asked to put in an arrival time and I’ll be honest, this is where I got a bit confused as I didn’t know whether I should put in an estimate of when we’d be out of the passport control / luggage area or time of arrival.

I ended up doing both: I have one hour after landing on this page and then filled out the flight info where requested. In reality (see below) they check the actual arrival time so this wasn’t an issue, but since I did find it confusing, I though it would be worth mentioning!

After you do this, a new page appears, with a summary of your request and the relevant price.

When you request a quote, a new page show your order summary and total price. The page for us for instance looked like this:

If you’re happy with it, you fill in your name, phone number, and email.

Here you also find the option to request a child seat and leave additional notes for the driver. Use the notes section to specify your child’s age and the seat size you need. If you don’t, they’ll provide a backless booster which is of course not suitable for small kids.

Good to know: EU car seats may look different from what you’re used to, for instance they may be forward facing also for an age that is backward facing back home or they may have a different strap system. By law however, all seats must be EU omologated and follow EU safety standards.

Once that’s done, click Continue, follow the on-screen instructions, pay and complete your booking. You’ll receive a confirmation email within seconds.

After booking with Welcome Pickup; what happenes Before Your Pickup Day

The last time we booked Welcome Pickups was to get to Rome, on a hot and busy July evening. This is our exact experience.

I had booked the transfer a couple of weeks before (at busy times, it is best to book a bit ahead). I received a confirmation in a matter of seconds.

Then, a few days before our trip, Welcome Pickups sent us an email with your driver’s name, photo, phone number, and WhatsApp contact (a must-have app for Italy, in my opinion), as well as details about the car and where to meet them.

This gave me great peace of mind as I liked being in touch with the person direct.

On the Day of Travel: my delay worries and why they were misplaced

On the day of travel, juts what I feared happened.

Our evening flight to Rome was delayed: and it wasn’t just delayed once!

It was delayed by one hour, then two, then four and then in a twist that I had never experience before, back to only being late about 1 hour (which yes, meant a crazy dash to the gate and leaving our dinner, fully paid for, on the table, untouched!)

This, for me, was me was just super stressful, especially since I was alone with the kids and hyper aware that I have a car booked at the other end, a car that surely would not wait for us forever.

At the first announcement of a delay, I texted our driver so I felt all would be ok, but then with the additional updates, I started feeling ridiculous. I felt silly updating them every time the display would show a different departure time but I also didn’t want to give up on the transfer.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to worry and because, and this is a big reason why I love Welcome Pickups: unlike many others, Welcome Pickups monitors your actual flight arrival and waits for you for up to one hour after landing.

So they start calculating the wait time, not from the scheduled arrival time which , let’s be honest, at busy times it often is an estimate at best, but from when you actually land!

This is amazing as it means no matter what happens, they know. Since I had not experienced a delay before, I hadn’t appreciated this element of their policy so I was really pleasantly surprised1

After we landed, we went through passport control (we’re from the EU but were flying from outside the Schengen area), and easily met our driver in the arrivals hall, where they were waiting with a sign showing our name. Perfect!

The Car

Our driver was waiting for us in the arrival hall of the airport with a sign with our name and walked us to their car, which was in the covered parking lot nearby.

The car was spotless, comfortable, air-conditioned, and in excellent condition.

My kids are past the car seat stage, but I noticed one in the trunk and asked about it: the driver confirmed it was for the previous family he hdd picked up and that it is a service they offer.

The drive was smooth and pleasant, the car and driver excellent and since all was paid for online, I had no worries over price, payment methods, route taken etc. We got home seamlessly!

Overall Experience

Our experience with Welcome Pickups was flawless, even with a flight delay in the mix. The fact that they monitor your arrival and that they have seats for kids makes them a rare find and the quality of car and driver is top, in my experience.

This is why I now consider them out  go-to family-friendly airport transfer service in Italy and I recommend them as a good solution for private pickup service in Italy

So, is Welcome Pickups Worth it?

Welcome Pickups is a private car service and therefore costs a little more than a standard taxi. Their cost depends on location, distance covered, number of people, luggage pieces etc and ranges from very reasonable to rather expensive, yet in my experience always in line or often better than the price of competitors.

How much the additional cost vs a taxi is worth it, is of course a personal call.

When evaluating if the extra cost is worth it to you, I recommend you look at:

• Car seat requirements: if you need one, there is simply no comparison with a standard taxi as official taxis simply do not have them.
• You are more 4 people or more: standard cars in Italy take up to 5 people (including the driver) so if you have more passenger than this, you need to wait for a van. This is usually not an issue as big airports tend to have several coming and going but may mean you have to wait for one. For instance if there are several groups ahead of you, the wait may become tiring soon, especially if landing after a long overnight flight. In this case, having a car of the guaranteed correct size, which is what you get with Welcome Pickups, may really help
• Length of your flight and level of tiredness on arrival, should you have to wait
• Level of comfort: if you are a new traveler especially, how important it is for you have something rearranged and prepared (which also means you are sure of cost, don’t have to deal with price / cash etc)
• If heading far out of the city centre: many cities have a flat fee to reach the city center but not for other destinations, which are metered. If going rather far out, in most cases Welcome Pickups will cost less than the metered fare: since this is so location dependent, I recommend you ask your host the approximate cost of a standard taxi to their place so you can compare

For us, in many cases yes, it has proven very well worth it, especially as in Rome for instance we found it wasn’t that much more expensive than a standard taxi and it came with all the additional advantages mention above.

I hope this review was helpful! Safe travels!

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