Holiday let or serviced apartment? Think about day four

For a family holiday in London, a holiday let gives you a home and leaves you to it, while a serviced apartment gives you a flat and a team to keep it running. Both usually come with bedrooms, a kitchen and a washing machine. The difference tends to show around day four, when the dishwasher leaks or the baby needs a second cot and it suddenly matters a great deal whether there's anyone to ring.

Who runs it, and when you can arrive

A holiday let is normally run by its owner or a small letting agent, who might be across town or at the other end of the country. You get a key code, a welcome folder and a phone number, and if the number goes to voicemail on a Sunday, you wait. A serviced apartment is run by an operator whose entire business is looking after guests, with a reservations team, a maintenance contact and, in about half the residences we list, a staffed front desk. None of that guarantees a quick fix, but it is somebody's job to try, and whichever you choose, it's worth asking before you pay who fixes things on a Sunday and how fast.

Holiday lets often run on a fixed changeover day, and in the school holidays plenty only take full weeks, which works if you can travel on a Saturday and less well if the cheap flights land on a Tuesday. Serviced apartments usually take arrivals any day of the week. Each residence sets its own minimum stay, typically a few nights, and only a handful insist on a month or more.

Cleaning, gardens and cots

Holiday lets get cleaned between guests: you pay a cleaning fee, and during your stay the cleaning's down to you. Some owners will send their cleaner mid-stay for a fee, though many can't, because the cleaner only works changeover days. Serviced apartments clean on a schedule, most often weekly, and swap the linen and towels on the same visit, and on a fortnight with three children, fresh towels on day seven count for more than they sound.

On outdoor room, the holiday let wins. The holiday market has whole houses with gardens in numbers serviced apartments can't touch, and only a small minority of serviced residences list any outside space at all, whether a terrace, a balcony or a garden. If your toddlers need to run about after breakfast, a house with a garden on a residential street a few stops out may beat a flat in Mayfair. Serviced apartments win on bedrooms in the middle of town, with plenty of three-bedroom flats and a fair few of four or more, most of them handy for the museums, parks and West End theatres that fill a family week.

Neither type puts a cot in every flat as standard. Ask for cots, high chairs and stair gates when you book, and ask which floor you'll be on, because not every serviced apartment building has a lift and a holiday let in a period house may have steep stairs and nothing else. Hauling a pushchair and a week's shopping up four flights sets the tone for the whole holiday.

Deposits, and which to choose

Holiday lets usually take a damage deposit and set house rules on noise, guest numbers and, now and then, shoes indoors, so if a grandparent might join you for a few nights, read the occupancy rules properly. Serviced apartments take a deposit or a card pre-authorisation too, but bills, Wi-Fi and cleaning are folded into the nightly rate and the invoice comes from a company rather than a private owner, which matters if any part of the trip is going through as business.

Go for a holiday let if you want a house, a garden and a residential street, and you don't mind sorting small problems yourselves. A serviced apartment makes more sense if it's your first family trip to London, your flights fix the arrival day, you want cleaning mid-stay, or you'd like to be central enough to walk back for a nap between the morning museum and the afternoon park.