In-town moving (small)

We just arrived and stayed some place temporarily for two weeks... now we are moving to another short term place.  From the airport we used a minivan to transport our 4 big suitcases, 2 carryon suitcases, and a couple other personal bags/belongings...

It seems I will need another minivan again to move a few miles, as the cabs / taxis here are pretty small, and there are no SUV/Minivan cabs that you can get like in NY.

Or are there?  If I call a cab service, will they have the bigger cars/minivans as well?

I was thinking of taking a couple suitcases on my own first, and then maybe the rest would fit on a normal sized cab...   though the normal sized cabs are pretty small already..

Any ideas, suggestions?   I also saw that you can rent a car/minivan for the day, but that may be quite an extra hassle...   Any helpful advice welcome and appreciated!

  London cabs are massive, we moved a 42" TV, suitcases and a huge box in one once.
You can sit in the front, fill in the entire massive passenger space and they also have a giant boot.

It doesn't sound like you have that much stuff at all, especially if it fit in a minivan coming  from the airport.

Or call a mini cab service and ask for a people carrier (mini van). Some will have minivans, some wont, call and ask.

Or get a moving van, try www.shiply.com

Or get 2 cabs.

Or move most of your stuff in a cab and take the rest on the bus.

Confused as well.  Black cabs are huge and sound like it would transport the majority if not all of your things.

Most taxi services will have a minivan you can book in advance. You could also search Gumtree for "man and a van" services -- but, these can range anywhere from 15 to 40 pounds, so may not save you any money.

I've moved six times within London and until the last time just did it all taking public transport. It's a sucky couple hours but definitely worth the money saved. Taxis can be so expensive!

If you call taxi services, you might want to try a place near where you are now, and a place near where you are moving to -- prices can vary a lot across neighbourhoods.

good luck!

We've booked minivan-like minicabs a few times before.  In pretty much every case, we'd have been better off (cost aside) using a black cab -- they're ginormous and have so much more room for voluminous things than the VW multi-person carrier that a lot of places send out.

Before we learned this, we arrived at Heathrow for the move with 4 massive suitcases, two small suitcases, two large animal carriers (with cats) and carry-on bags.  We called for a people-carrier from the Animal Reception Centre and they sent an 80s era Mercedes sedan.   We were annoyed, but exhausted, so we gave it a try and it all fit (albeit less than comfortably).  In hindsight, it would all have fit easily in a cab.

We ended up taking a number of bus trips to move our 4+ suitcases (cheap, I know) but you can easily call a car company and request a minivan-type car or a saloon car.  I used to use a good one in London that had vans; we used it when we took four of us plus luggage to Heathrow.  Just ask and tell them you have a lot of luggage.

I just called a cheaper car service that my friend recommended, told them how much I had, and they arrived with the appropriate car.  I think all told, from where I was staying to my current apartment, it was £11.  This was 2 weeks after I arrived here, and I had a good chunk of stuff, though it was all suitcased up for the most part.

It's the beauty of moving when you aren't settled yet, I guess.  Now I would need something bigger.