MPV car hire

[PopGoesTheWeaz]

I need to hire a car in italy this holiday and can either get two small cards or one car big enough for the 6 of us. For some reason all the car hire places are listing what I would think of as 7 seaters (Zafira, touran, s-max) as 5 seaters. Any ideas if this is correct? There is a huge jump in price to get the larger people movers (galaxy, or 9 seaters). Are htere 5 person versions of those cars i just don't know about?

Although those cars have 7 seats, the rearmost pair of seats are not big enough to take your average-sized adult, plus there's virtually no boot space when they are up. So they do not really work as full 7-seaters.

Galaxy OTOH has 7 full-sizzled seats plus retains reasonable amount of boot (think buggy + picnic + coats + day sacks for everyone).

There are pluses and minuses to having 2 smaller cars. Are you all one family?

My family plus DSis and DBIL. Those cars would be fine (I own one so am aware of the size) but am just confused then as why they aren't listed as 5+2 or 7 with not boot space. I got into a discussion with a lady from one of the hire sites and she refused to believe that the s-max, for instance, could seat 7. I don't know if I should risk it or if we'll get there and it will be a will be some modified version with the boot seats out or insurance doesn't cover those seats or something.

Last year we hired a 7 seater. They gave us a seat Alabambra which was great in size! This year they seemed to think a Nissan XTrail was a reasonable car and didn't get my point of wanting 7 proper seats! The back 2 seats were not what I would class as full sized.