carseats on magical express

[luvwdw]

Can you use a car seat on the bus? Are there seatbelts? Thanks!

 

[D L and K's Mom]

We will have our carseat with us from the flight . Do we use it or put it under the bus???

 

[disneyjunkie]

The buses used for ME are like charter buses. They don't have seat belts.

You can store car seats under the bus.

 

[ZanneMarie]

You cannot use the carseat on the bus. They will need to be stored underneath.

 

[CleveRocks]

DME buses have plush upholstery. Disney Transport buses (the buses that take you from your resort to the parks) are like city buses (hard, molded seats), only clean.

NONE of the buses have seatbelts. This is normal for buses. Because they don't have seatbelts, you can't use a child safety seat.

Since buses are different than cars, due to both construction and the laws of physics, my wife and I have had no qualms about having our little ones on those buses. But if YOU aren't comfortable with that, then your only option is to rent a car at the airport and drive from the airport to your resort, and then from your resort to thr parks, of course after first installing your child safety seats in the rental car.

 

[KangaFan]

Some even provide toddler car seats.

 

[Gabby&Liv's Mommy]

DME buses have plush upholstery. Disney Transport buses (the buses that take you from your resort to the parks) are like city buses (hard, molded seats), only clean.

NONE of the buses have seatbelts. This is normal for buses. Because they don't have seatbelts, you can't use a child safety seat.

Since buses are different than cars, due to both construction and the laws of physics, my wife and I have had no qualms about having our little ones on those buses. But if YOU aren't comfortable with that, then your only option is to rent a car at the airport and drive from the airport to your resort, and then from your resort to thr parks, of course after first installing your child safety seats in the rental car.

I am interested in your comments regarding busses. Are they somehow safer in an accident? My husband and I were just talking about this topic yesterday. We leave on 12/6 and were wondering if using the ME with DD 2 & 4 was irresponsible.

 

[Windy City Heather]

If you arrive at an odd time (we arrived at 12:30 am) you may get a town car or van to take you to your hotel not a bus. I was in a bind when this happened as I did not have a car seat.

 

[CleveRocks]

Some even provide toddler car seats.

Okay, but then what happens once you take a town car to your resort? You're still gonna be putting your kids on a Disney Transport bus, unless you're staying at a monorail resort and will go only to Magic Kingdom and Epcot.

 

[dsneygirl]

We took DS at 3 months to WDW and had no qualms about using any Disney Transportation. I imagine families that live in big cities like NY or Chicago take their young ones on the public bus all the time.

If you are concerned your best bet is to probably rent a car with car seats.

 

[CleveRocks]

I am interested in your comments regarding busses. Are they somehow safer in an accident? My husband and I were just talking about this topic yesterday. We leave on 12/6 and were wondering if using the ME with DD 2 & 4 was irresponsible.

I'm not a motor vehicle expert or an engineer or anything like that, but I pick up a lot of information on the streets ...

Buses are much bigger and heavier than cars. In an accident, buses aren't crushed and tossed and turned around in the same way that cars and SUVs are. If the vehicle itself doesn't get jolted around as much because it's so large and massive, then the passengers inside don't get jolted around as much. Except in the case of bus rollovers, you never hear about people being ejected from a bus in an accident. I don't want to get gross, but ejections from cars and SUVs is an all-too-common mechanism of severe and grave injury -- this can really only occur if someone in a car or SUV wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Even though there are no seatbelts in buses, you never hear of ejections from those vehicles.

Of course, all bets are off in the case of a totally catastrophic accident such as a bus rollover.

I work with people who sustained brain injuries, and most of them sustained their brain injuries in motor vehicle accidents. My wife is a pediatrician, so she sees and has seen the horrible aftermath of motor vehicle accidents, as well. As you can imagine, we're very safety conscious. We have no qualms about taking our kids on buses. Period.

 

[Gabby&Liv's Mommy]

I'm not a motor vehicle expert or an engineer or anything like that, but I pick up a lot of information on the streets ...

Buses are much bigger and heavier than cars. In an accident, buses aren't crushed and tossed and turned around in the same way that cars and SUVs are. If the vehicle itself doesn't get jolted around as much because it's so large and massive, then the passengers inside don't get jolted around as much. Except in the case of bus rollovers, you never hear about people being ejected from a bus in an accident. I don't want to get gross, but ejections from cars and SUVs is an all-too-common mechanism of severe and grave injury -- this can really only occur if someone in a car or SUV wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Even though there are no seatbelts in buses, you never hear of ejections from those vehicles.

Of course, all bets are off in the case of a totally catastrophic accident such as a bus rollover.

I work with people who sustained brain injuries, and most of them sustained their brain injuries in motor vehicle accidents. My wife is a pediatrician, so she sees and has seen the horrible aftermath of motor vehicle accidents, as well. As you can imagine, we're very safety conscious. We have no qualms about taking our kids on buses. Period.

Thank you very much for this helpful information.

 

[hollyb]

Rats so much for taking the shuttle to the park . No seat belts means no buses for our kids. Even our school buses have seat belts. Oh well we will have our car anyway. DD is still in a booster and will be for another year. Yes buses are bigger and heavier that still does not mean that they are safer by any means. If I remember correctly traffic is a nightmare in FLA. We live in NJ so we know bad traffic.LOL

 

[CleveRocks]

Yes buses are bigger and heavier that still does not mean that they are safer by any means.

NHTSA statistics disagree with you. Buses are safer mostly because they are bigger.

Let's put it in easier-to-understand terms. If you are walking and someone around your own size or larger (in volume as well as mass) runs into you at full speed, you will likely be knocked over or at least knocked way off your intended path; you'll probably be at least bruised from that impact as well as any secondary impact, and you might even break bones or worse. But if a toddler runs into you, the toddler will almost always bounce off and you won't be thrown off your path; physically, you'd almost not notice it. The first scenario is a car-vs.-car accident. The second scenario is a bus-vs.-car accident. Due to the size differential between buses and cars/SUVs, cars will always fare much worse. Of course, I don't think a bus-vs.bus or bus-vs.tractor trailer collision would end well, but we all know that there are MANY more cars/SUVs on the road than buses and tractor trailers, so statistically a bus is more likely to be involved in an accident with a smaller vehicle than a same-size or larger vehicle.

Another thought .... There was a terrible, tragic accident last week in northern Alabama, where a school bus drove off a 30-foot high overpass. I believe there were around 30 people on the bus, and I believe about 3 of them died, sadly. That was a 10% death rate. Imagine if 10 cars/SUVs, each with 3 people inside, also drove off the same overpass and fell 30 feet to the ground. I fear that many more than 3 of the 30 people in those vehicles would perish. The mass and volume of the school bus, as well as the interior and exterior design and construction, spared the lives of most of the people on that bus.

 

[Schmeck]

Rats so much for taking the shuttle to the park . No seat belts means no buses for our kids. Even our school buses have seat belts. Oh well we will have our car anyway. DD is still in a booster and will be for another year. Yes buses are bigger and heavier that still does not mean that they are safer by any means. If I remember correctly traffic is a nightmare in FLA. We live in NJ so we know bad traffic.LOL

Your school buses have seatbelts? I guess your district never watched the video of the little kids trapped on the bus, stuck in their seatblets while the bus caught on fire? It's a nasty video, that's for sure!

If you're talking about a non Disney shuttle, you should call the hotel and see if they can tell you if the shuttle has seatbelts or not. Not all shuttles are the same. We've been on one that took us to the airport that did have seatbelts.

 

[all4fun]

THIS is actually an interesting article about the pros and cons of seatbelts on school busses.

My ds rides a small (special needs) school bus to preschool 3 days a week and it is equipped with lapbelts. Because of his small size and age, I have him in a special 4-pt harness that works with the lapbelt so he is secured in the bus in a similar way to being in a car seat. I have read too much about the damage that lapbelts can do so I won't put him on one of those.

Even though I'm a huge car seat "nut" I still felt pretty comfortable using DME and busses in general, mostly for the reason CleveRocks stated. Our only issue with a 3yr old was keeping him seated as traveling down the road w/out a car seat to keep him contained was quite novel for him.

 

[tjmw2727]

Rats so much for taking the shuttle to the park . No seat belts means no buses for our kids. Even our school buses have seat belts. Oh well we will have our car anyway. DD is still in a booster and will be for another year. Yes buses are bigger and heavier that still does not mean that they are safer by any means. If I remember correctly traffic is a nightmare in FLA. We live in NJ so we know bad traffic.LOL

If you were talking about babies or toddlers thats one thing. I certainly think that a 7 and 9yo can safely ride they Disney bus back and forth from PoP to the parks without much worry.

TJ

 

[jodifla]

If you were talking about babies or toddlers thats one thing. I certainly think that a 7 and 9yo can safely ride they Disney bus back and forth from PoP to the parks without much worry.

TJ

Anyone that concerned probably shouldn't even be going to WDW. To get to the Magic Kingdom, you have to take some sort of public transportation to get there: Bus, monorail (no seatbelts) or boat (no seatbelts, and the life jackets aren't too handy, either.)

This just shows how the whole car seat thing has made many parents so paranoid they won't take their kids on public transportation! Wonder how all those babies and toddlers get around in NYC? Or in Europe?

 

[disneyjunkie]

This just shows how the whole car seat thing has made many parents so paranoid they won't take their kids on public transportation! Wonder how all those babies and toddlers get around in NYC? Or in Europe?

Kids of all ages use public transportation(buses and trains) here day in a day out.

 

[hollyb]

Our jobs as parents is to keep the kids safe. Here in NJ DD has to be in a carseat until she is 8. Just because it's Disney doesnt take away from the danger of no carseats or seatbelts. JMHO you do want you what with your children we will do what we want.