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UK rental for 4 6'+ adults

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Working on our families grand UK adventure for early Aug 2024. We are renting a car for 10 days and driving from London area to Edinburgh to Invrness to Isle of Skye a d back to London. Basically a large counter clockwise oval. Looks like our rental will be a "Ford Galaxy or similar". Wanted 3 rows of seats to ensure enough space for 3 full size check luggage bags and enough room for 2 adult males who are 6'4" 250# and 6'2 120# in the back.

My questions are:

  1. Will that class of rental (via Enterprise rental) be a good choice?
  2. Should I consider an estate car class rental instead for ease of getting around small roads? Will it be big enough?
  3. Will it come with std infotainment options like in the US, like Android auto or will I need a dash mount for my phone for navigation? (already worked out the cell phone logistics)

I have rented and driven in the UK before so I am overall comfortable with driving, its more around navigation, parking, and having enough space to be comfortable. No planned driving in inner London. Picking up the car from outskirts of London to avoid LHR rental fees and cost to get back to LHR after the first 3 days in London.

Posted by
1006 posts

A Ford Galaxy is a big car by British standards. I think you’ll have more comfort in that than in an estate car. It’ll have an infotainment screen. Everything does these days except the cheapest, smallest cars.

I would say that is a LOT of driving for 10 days. Have you looked at the driving times? London to Inverness is about 10 hours without stops and it’ll be even longer on the way back from Skye. Driving in this country is not like the US. The roads are very busy and it’s much harder work.

Posted by
27112 posts

Have you considered taking the train up to Edinburgh and renting a vehicle after you've seen that city (assuming you want to do that)? ViaMichelin estimates the driving time to Edinburgh at 7-1/2 hours. You can get there by train in about 4-1/2 hours.

Posted by
6 posts

We prefer travel by car...better options to really explore the country. Also, the cost of the train x4 is almost 1/2 the cost of the entire rental.

As for drive time, we played out the itinerary with Google maps so have a good handle on drive times. No more than 4 hours a day driving other than the last day heading back from Carlisle area to LHR area.

Glad to hear that the Galaxy will be roomy AND have a display unit for Android auto hopefully. That will make navigation much easier.

Posted by
5748 posts

How on earth are 4x return train tickets from London to Edinburgh half the cost of a 10 day rental of a Galaxy type vehicle, if booked in advance. Let alone the cost of the petrol (gas?). I'm sorry but you are way mis-informed.

I would seriously question if you have a handle on drive times if you are just using Google maps. On Friday there were roadworks from Staffordshire to Wigan (at one stage needing an off motorway diversion onto another road with roadworks). It took 5 hours to get from Birmingham to Carlisle. Much of those roadworks are long term.

It reminded me of many, many Friday afternoons of old, and of why all my colleagues insisted on leaving London by 12 noon, to get home to North West England at a vaguely reasonable time in the evening.

I can not ever remember having a clear run to London- there are always roadworks somewhere (the West Midlands has always been a total black spot for that). If there are by a miracle no roadworks somewhere (probably last happened in the 1970's) there will be a road accident or breakdown causing a lane closure.

The train from Carlisle to London takes 3 1/2 hours and costs £35 each (£23 with a railcard). Glasgow or Edinburgh are well under 5 hours.

Posted by
6 posts

A quick search just now shows one way ticket London to Edinburgh is $145-$350. My rental is already confirmed for Aug 3-13 for $850. Figure gas for the entire trip will be roughly $600.

I fully get the potential slowness of UK road travel. I lived near Cambridge for 4 years in the mid 80s.

We are very flexible with our travel in that very few things are pre scheduled. Only hard dates are flights, rental car and the tattoo tickets at the moment...and Tattoo is not purchased yet but will be soon...basically have to choose which of 2 nights.

I initially looked at train travel to Cambridge then picking up the rental car, but again when you have 4 people it starts adding up, not to mention dealing with luggage on the train etc.

Posted by
32756 posts

a colleague of mine just sent me a WhatsApp saying how much longer it took him to get back to Liverpool this afternoon because the M6 was down to one lane. He was not a happy bunny

Posted by
27112 posts

You appear to have looked at rail fares for the immediate future. They are indeed exorbitant. You can save a small fortune by buying Advance fares well ahead of time (check change/cancellation policies, though). Tickets for August aren't on sale yet, but today you can buy early May tickets for the London-Edinburgh run at 60-65 GBP each. That's without a rail card. Two people can buy a Two Together rail card for 30 GBP that provides a 1/3-off discount as long as they don't travel on a weekday morning during rush hour.

You won't save money with a car. I understand the siren call of flexibility, but the fact is that you don't have time for random wandering off the direct route if you want to travel from London all the way to the Isle of Skye and back, with time to enjoy Edinburgh and Inverness along the way.

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