Car seats at rental companies

[Wanna be Ariel]

As anyone ever had a problem not getting the car seat they requested? It says if available when I click it to my reservation (Alamo) I have no idea what I would do if they don't have one when we check in. Has this happened to anyone? What do you do?

 

[puffkin]

Most people on here advise never to use the rental car seats. They are old, dirty and you have no idea of how safe they are. I would either bring my own or a lot of people suggest stopping at walmart to get a cheap seat to use there. We have been travelling with small kids for years and we curbside check our carseats (in a bag) and never have had a problem. It is really only a pain to get them from baggage claim to the rental car, so we just rent one of those big carts or tip a porter. Well worth the $5-$10 over the exhorbitant costs to rent a dirty, unsafe seat.

 

[haileyaliyah]

I used a car seat from hertz last august very clean checked experation date also and it was still good just had to get the seat at the rental counter in the garage had no problems with the seat

 

[BadgerGirl84]

There is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks I would ever recommend renting a car seat from a rental company.

What is your reason for wanting to do this?

The seat could be dirty, expired or have been in a car crash. As you know, car seats in car crashes need to be replaced, and you have no way of knowing if that was done. Also, car seats (both the cushions and especially the straps) need to be cleaned in a very particular way to maintain safety--you have no way of knowing if that was done either.

If you really feel uncomfortable bringing your regular seat that you use, I highly recommend just buying an inexpensive seat before you go and use that as your "travel" seat. I'm probably going to buy this one for DD when we go in Sept and she is 14 months. http://www.amazon.com/Evenflo-Tribu...98281774&sr=1-5&keywords=convertible+car+seat

It's just $50 and many reviews say it's great for travel. If lugging the seat through the airport is your concern, I'm going to try out these straps that strap the car seat to a piece of rolling luggage. http://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Tod...53&sr=1-1&keywords=convertible+car+seat+strap

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Most people on here advise never to use the rental car seats. They are old, dirty and you have no idea of how safe they are. I would either bring my own or a lot of people suggest stopping at walmart to get a cheap seat to use there. We have been travelling with small kids for years and we curbside check our carseats (in a bag) and never have had a problem. It is really only a pain to get them from baggage claim to the rental car, so we just rent one of those big carts or tip a porter. Well worth the $5-$10 over the exhorbitant costs to rent a dirty, unsafe seat.

How do you get to Walmart without one?

 

[pixiemama91]

I rented a car seat from hertz last year. I am a AAA member so I get a free car seat rental. There were plenty when we landed but we always take early morning flight from Bos to MCO so we were picking up our car around 10:30am. There were plenty of car seats. It was Cosco Brand, clean and easy to install. I had a little trouble figuring out how to adjust the straps but after a few minutes we figured it out and were on our way.

 

[GillianP1301]

Never had a problem getting a car seat and we've flown into both MCO and TPA. MCO with Alamo and they had tons of seats stacked up when we picked ours out.

 

[safetymom]

Please take the time to use the rental seat correctly. The start of your WDW vacation is not when most people want to take the time to read the manual to install and use the seat correctly. A misused car seat will not protect the child.

 

[CourtneyL]

Looking at your signature, your son is 2, so you've already purchased a seat on the plane for him. If you rented a car seat from Alamo you will most likely get a Cosco Scenera. The rental price is $10 a day I think. You can purchase a Scenera at walmart for $40 brand new. It would be cheaper and safer to just purchase a new carseat to use for the trip and use it on the plane as well. Airplane seat belts don't really fit until the child is much older and usually over 40lbs. The scenera weighs less than 10lbs and you can attach it to a rolling carryon using a bungee cord.