CARES harness and trunki suitcase

[kristidiaz1]

Anyone have any advice or personal experience with either of these products for a toddler and a Disney trip? Thanks!

 

[jenPSU]

We’ve used the CARES harness for both kids for flights to Disney. It works pretty well. Over time, the strap part that goes around the seat tends to slide down, but you can just move it up again. It is great to kepp squirmy kids contained and doesn’t seem to bother my kids too much.

 

[unrequited23]

The CARES harness worked very well with our 2.5 yr old. It seemed to remind him he needed to sit nicely and not climb all over the place. It was very lightweight and took up minimal room in the personal item we took on the plane. We have 2 kids and found that not sitting in the same row seemed to help our boys behave/not bother their brother. Kids were in the window seat, parents in the middle and we sat in the row in front of my DH and DS5.

 

[musika]

Haven't used the CARES harness, and haven't been to WDW yet, but we did travel a fair bit with our toddler last year (England, Boston, Cuba)... my vote would personally be a no on the Trunki or any other kid luggage. My experience lugging 2 preschoolers through multiple airports is that they are all excited about the luggage for about 5 minutes and then it becomes mom or dad's problem. I would much rather have a "normal" sized carryon/backpack that is easier to handle for *me* and use an umbrella stroller/kid leash/carrier depending on your kid's size and tendency to bolt. My DD is just about 6 and I still wouldn't give her anything much larger than a toddler sized backpack until recently. Now, she will likely take her school backpack as her carryon and be responsible for it.

On this trip, since we are planning on renting a car midway through, we are taking our carseat for DS. If that wasn't the case, I'm not sure I'd bother with the CARES harness. But you know your own kids best - mine are pretty good at sitting as long as they have something to occupy them.

 

[JK World]

I considered the CARES harness last year due to 2 trips with my then 2.5 year old, but decided not to purchase one. He did fine on both flights, never once attempting to get out of his seat. Fortunately his legs were too short to reach the seat in front of him or there may have been an issue with kicking the seat, but CARES wouldn't have stopped that anyways. But my son is not one to try to escape his car seat, and I scheduled flights during his normal nap time, and made sure he had plenty of opportunities to run around and burn energy before flights. Those things combined for a subdued kid who happily colored, ate snacks and watched shows on my tablet during flights.

 

[EeyoreME]

We haven't used a CARES harness.... this will be our first flight but we have a Trunki suitcase. Not sure if we will be bringing both her regular suitcase and this one and checking both? Not sure how it'll hold up being checked luggage? The thought of having a hardcase luggage to hold souviners is a thought on my end.

 

[nemofans]

We have used CARES harness for 7 years for both my kids & loved how easy it was to travel on planes with.

 

[kenthanson]

I loved our trunki when taking our son when he was 2 and 4 to WDW, for tooling around the airports he had a seat and I pulled him around to where we needed to go instead of having to carry him all over the place.

 

[acciobrain]

We used a CARES harness for my 2 year old son. We also had selected first row seating on the plane for extra leg room. It turned out that the first row had airbags or flotation devices (I can't remember which) in the seat belts. Not only does the CARES harness not fit, it becomes incredibly unsafe in the event that the seatbelt deploys. It meant we had to wait for the entire plane to be seated while we stood around awkwardly so an attendant could find 3 people to switch with us.

 

[kristidiaz1]

We used a CARES harness for my 2 year old son. We also had selected first row seating on the plane for extra leg room. It turned out that the first row had airbags or flotation devices (I can't remember which) in the seat belts. Not only does the CARES harness not fit, it becomes incredibly unsafe in the event that the seatbelt deploys. It meant we had to wait for the entire plane to be seated while we stood around awkwardly so an attendant could find 3 people to switch with us.

Thanks for this info, I'm thinking we will use the harness and I never would have known this. Sorry for your experience, that sounds awful!