Travelling with children: child seats, chauffeurs and the arrivals hall

A child seat is the one thing on a booking form that cannot be improvised at the kerb. Here is how restraints work in the Netherlands, which of our cars take which seat, and how to plan a Schiphol arrival around a toddler who has not slept.

Almost everything about a chauffeur booking can be adjusted on the day. The pickup can move, the route can change, a stop can be added while the car is running. Child seats are the exception: a seat has to be in the car before it leaves for you, fitted and checked, so the decision happens when you book rather than when you land. This guide is what our dispatchers need from a family, why they need it, and what the journey looks like once the seat is in.

Seats are ordered, not borrowed

Child and baby seats are an option in the booking form. Select the number you need, and they are fitted in advance at €5 each, per seat, per journey. Nothing else changes: the fixed all-in price you see before you confirm already includes the seats, and there is no separate conversation about them with the chauffeur at the kerb.

The detail that helps us most is the child’s age, and their height or weight if you know it. The booking form offers two labels, a baby seat and a child seat, because two labels are enough for a parent to choose from. Behind them, the right restraint for a six-month-old is not the right restraint for a six-year-old, and the age you give us decides which one goes into the car.

• One seat per child. Siblings are not a problem, but two children need two seats booked.
• Tell us the ages at the time of booking, not in a message an hour before pickup.
• If you are bringing your own seat, say so — the chauffeur will help fit it, and we will not add one of ours.
• Return journeys are separate bookings. Add the seats to both legs.

Which restraint suits which child

The Netherlands follows the same rules as most of Europe: a child shorter than roughly 1.35 metres travels in an approved restraint suited to their size, and above that height the car’s own belt does the work. Visitors from the United States and the United Kingdom sometimes find the thresholds unfamiliar, so it is worth knowing the three groups by name, because they are the vocabulary every hire company and chauffeur in the country uses.

1. Group 0+ — the rear-facing infant carrier, from birth to roughly thirteen kilograms. This is what we mean by a baby seat. It faces backwards, sits in the rear of the car, and suits most children until somewhere around their first birthday.
2. Group 1 — a forward-facing seat with its own harness, roughly nine to eighteen kilograms, which covers most toddlers and pre-schoolers. This is the workhorse of the range and the seat most often requested at Schiphol.
3. Group 2-3 — a high-backed booster that raises the child so the car’s own seatbelt crosses the shoulder and hip correctly, roughly fifteen to thirty-six kilograms. It is the seat for school-age children, and the one families most often forget to ask for because the child looks big enough without it.

The groups overlap, which is why age alone is a starting point rather than an answer: a small five-year-old and a large three-year-old may end up in the same seat. If your child sits near a boundary, say what they weigh and let dispatch decide.

Which car takes which seat

All three of our everyday classes take child and baby seats, and the choice between them is decided by the number of people and the amount of luggage rather than by the seats themselves.

• Business Class — the Mercedes E-Class and EQE, the BMW i5 and 5 Series. Up to three passengers and three bags. One child seat here still leaves room for two adults, but the boot is the constraint: see Business Class for what fits.
• Van Class — the Mercedes V-Class and the electric EQV. Up to seven passengers and seven bags, captain chairs behind the chauffeur and a sliding door you walk through rather than fold into. This is the car most families end up in.
• First Class — the S-Class, EQS, EQS SUV and BMW i7. Same three-passenger limit as Business Class, in a quieter and longer car.
• The Maybach is arranged for two adults and is not the car for a child seat. If you need one in that tier, ask dispatch on WhatsApp before booking.

If you are near the edge of a saloon’s capacity, take the van. The sliding door alone earns its place: a sleeping toddler can be lifted in and out without a door swinging into the car alongside, and the step up is low enough that a four-year-old climbs in unaided. We have written about the van’s luggage limits in more detail, and the short version is that bags, not people, decide most family bookings.

Landing at Schiphol with children

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is one terminal building with several arrivals halls side by side, numbered one to four, and the hall you emerge into depends on the pier your flight parks at. With children this matters less than you might fear: the chauffeur is already standing in the right hall with a sign carrying your name, having watched the flight rather than the clock. Nobody has to find a rank, a bus or a lift with a pushchair and four bags.

The realistic timeline with small children is longer than the one in your head. Arrivals from outside the Schengen Area clear passport control before baggage reclaim, and a family with a pushchair moves at roughly half adult speed through a large airport. The sixty free minutes after landing exist for exactly this, and so does the fixed price: it does not move because you spent twenty minutes at the nappy-changing room.

• Put the flight number on the booking so we track the arrival rather than guess it.
• Say if you have a pushchair, and whether it folds. It takes roughly the space of a check-in case.
• Keep one phone charged and switched on after landing. Dispatch is on WhatsApp and knows exactly where the chauffeur is standing.

Pushchairs, car seats and the boot

The commonest luggage mistake families make is forgetting that a folded pushchair is luggage. So is a travel cot, and so is the family’s own car seat if they are carrying one home. A saloon boot rated for three bags does not take three bags plus a pushchair, and an honest count at the booking stage saves a difficult conversation in the garage at Schiphol.

If the count is close, tell us what you actually have rather than how many people are travelling. The price is per car in every class, so a van carrying a family of five costs the same whether it leaves with three cases or seven.

Naps, timing and the drive itself

Parents plan around sleep, and a car is a good place for it. From Schiphol into central Amsterdam the drive is around half an hour on the A4 and the A10 ring road; to Haarlem or Amstelveen it is shorter, to Utrecht, The Hague or Rotterdam it is comfortably longer. Those are the windows you have. A child who falls asleep on the A4 will usually still be asleep at the hotel, which is an argument for booking the car straight through to the door rather than to a station.

The cars themselves help: they are quiet, the rear glass is dark enough to take the glare off a bright morning, and there is still water on board along with charging cables for iOS and Android — which, once a tablet is involved, becomes the most valuable object in the vehicle. Stops are fine. If a child has reached a limit and needs five minutes somewhere, tell the chauffeur; there is no meter in the car and nobody is watching a clock.

Departures reverse the order, with one addition: for a flight out of Schiphol we ask you to book at least three hours before departure, and with children we would add a margin on top. The chauffeur confirms the departure hall from your flight number and stops at its doors — the shortest possible walk between a car seat and a check-in desk.

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