When PackThePJs travel, we almost always travel independently, needing to arrange our own transfers between airport and hotel. Last year, with a planned stop-over in Abu Dhabi, we pre-booked transfers online with Hoppa. We booked and paid before we left the UK, and a driver greeted us on arrival in Abu Dhabi. He guided us to his car before whisking us swiftly to our hotel on the Corniche. It was very good value for money, easy, efficient and professional – so when we went to San Francisco, we decided to use Hoppa again.
What is Hoppa?
Hoppa is an online booking website dealing purely with airport transfers around the world. It’s incredibly quick and easy to use – they don’t try to tempt you to buy lots of other things you don’t need! You simply input your arrival airport, destination hotel, date, time and number of people travelling.
You are then presented with some simple options: for instance a ‘shared shuttle’ with other travellers (often the cheapest option) or a private transfer in cab or minibus (depending on number of travellers). 1 suitcase and 1 piece of carry-on, per person, is allowed – the same as the airlines generally. If you need special assistance, or have additional luggage, or need car seats for children, there’s a box to state your request. You can then pay – by credit card or PayPal. It’s as simple as that. Simply print off the email confirmation and concentrate on all other things you need to remember when planning a trip.
I must also add that the airport transfer quotes were cheaper with Hoppa than any others we found; for both Abu Dhabi last year, and San Francisco last month.
Our Experience
A 10 hour flight with two children is stressful enough, even though they are excellent travellers; there’s still all the planning and packing to take care of. When we book our trips we tend to book flights, hotel, airport parking (in UK) and destination transfers immediately, in one session. Once these are sorted, we can focus on the destination, and what to do during the visit.
Abu Dhabi
We arrived in Abu Dhabi at 11:30pm. It was a country we’d never visited before and we wanted to get to our hotel as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Public transport – which we occasionally use – wasn’t an option at that time of night. As we walked through the doors to the Arrivals lounge, we were met by our driver. He was holding a board with my name on. He helped us with our bags, and we followed him outside to his car. 30 minutes later we checked into our hotel.
On our return transfer, our Hoppa driver arrived at the hotel at exactly the agreed time, and again efficiently whisked us back to the airport. Totally stress-free!
San Francisco
We booked our transfer in the same way as before. We chose the private minibus transfer option because we were a party of 5 travelling (my brother came to San Francisco too). Once we’d landed at San Francisco International the instructions on my printed confirmation were to go to the airport transfer desk in arrivals. This was easy to find and I was instructed to use their free payphone to call the transfer company. I made the call, gave my booking name and reference, and we were told to wait at a pick-up point outside. Within 10 minutes our mini van had arrived.
The driver was super-friendly. He advised us on the best things to see/where to go while in San Francisco and some of his suggestions turned out to be ‘hidden gems’ that we’d never have found alone.
We were delivered right to the reception door of our hotel. At the end of our stay, exactly on time, the minibus turned up to take us back to the airport.
Our Thoughts
It has been known for us to walk from the airport to the hotel (Gibraltar)! Occasionally, if we have little luggage (short stay) and are close to our destination, we’ve used public transport (Baltimore). However, this isn’t always the cheapest option (and it’s often the most stressful). After a long flight, or when landing in a new country where you perhaps don’t share a common language, you just want to get to your hotel as quickly as possible. Especially when travelling with children.
We’ve used Hoppa twice now – and on both occasions the service has performed exactly as we needed it to. Based on our experiences, Hoppa will definitely remain our first choice for airport transfers when booking future trips. They often offer discounts too, making their prices even more competitive. So if you travel independently, don’t forget to get a transfer quote from Hoppa for your next trip. Public transport isn’t always the cheapest way to reach your destination, and is rarely the quickest. Need to book a transfer? Take a look at the Hoppa website here.
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