car rental input

[smusiak]

so we planning on staying in Cal for 8 nights
any issue with car rentals i should know about
i found a place with van for 85
what about car seats
can i bring canada to usa
i know you cant use usa in canada

 

[starvenger]

For me personally if the airport has a car rental centre I try to rent from the places there, and/or stick with the big name companies.

85 sounds ok for a van. If you have a costco membership, have you checked their car rental website? Or used an aggregator to see what prices you can get?

Car seats will run you about 10-15 per day from the car rental. I've not had a problem using CSA approved car seats, and they are free to check in for most airlines (I'd assume Ryanair would charge, but that's neither here nor there). Drawback, of course, is that you have to haul the doggone thing to and from the airport. Which I just did yesterday, coming back from MCO.

 

[Fanboy]

I second what starvenger said about Costco, if you have the membership.

Got a minivan for a week for $199 USD taxes in through Hertz.

Before that, the best deal I found was through Hotwire, but you should check Orbitz/Expedia/Travelocity as well.

 

[bankr63]

so we planning on staying in Cal for 8 nights
any issue with car rentals i should know about
i found a place with van for 85
what about car seats
can i bring canada to usa
i know you cant use usa in canada

To be clear, US seats are not legal for importation, advertising, or sale in Canada unless they carry the National Safety Mark for Canada (which some US models may have). CBSA does not stop Americans and make them take out their car seats at the border because they are not Canada labelled, and they can use their seats in Canada. Use of a non-registered seat in a Canadian registered car could void Canadian insurance for the occupant, but if the driver is insured by a US carrier, that probably would not be the case.

Since Canadian Standards are higher than US, a Canadian seat should be acceptable but I would imagine that most Canadian seats would carry the correct US certifications. Check the labelling on the seat for any certifications from NHTSA, UL or ASTME (it's not clear from a scan of US sites who actually certifies seats in the US). Seats are generally not acceptable for use anywhere after 6 years from the manufacturing date.

 

[smusiak]

To be clear, US seats are not legal for importation, advertising, or sale in Canada unless they carry the National Safety Mark for Canada (which some US models may have). CBSA does not stop Americans and make them take out their car seats at the border because they are not Canada labelled, and they can use their seats in Canada. Use of a non-registered seat in a Canadian registered car could void Canadian insurance for the occupant, but if the driver is insured by a US carrier, that probably would not be the case.

Since Canadian Standards are higher than US, a Canadian seat should be acceptable but I would imagine that most Canadian seats would carry the correct US certifications. Check the labelling on the seat for any certifications from NHTSA, UL or ASTME (it's not clear from a scan of US sites who actually certifies seats in the US). Seats are generally not acceptable for use anywhere after 6 years from the manufacturing date.

I understand
So it's ok to bring our own seats then

 

[smusiak]

I may look at useing urber and shuttle buses
I really do not want to drive