Carseats - take or rent from Budget?

[AngieWin]

We are flying non-stop from Kansas City to Orlando in July and staying for 2 weeks. We are renting a mini-wan from Budget and picking up onsite. DS4 will have a seat on the plane, but DS1 (23 months at that time) will not have one, unless the plane is not full (but cant count on that). DS4 has been on a airplane without his carseat and I have a Baby B'Air for DS1 http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog...Id=85184&categoryId=85218&subCategoryId=86218

We are traveling down with my 12 year olds baseball team and will have baseball equipment in addition to luggage for 6 people and a double stroller. I am very tempted to leave the car seats at home (well in the car at the airport) so we have 2 less things to carry. How can I make sure the seats at the car rental site are safe enough? I am positive that they would have to be up-to-date with LATCH, but it took me a month of researching to choose our carseats we use at home. Would they think I was crazy if I called Budget with 20 questions about their car seats??

When we booked they said the rental for the car seats for 15 days would be $60 (I am assuming a piece, so $120 for both).

Opinions?

 

[mjh8955]

Just an opinion here, based on past experience. When our kids were small and we needed a car seat for our DD3, we decided to just pick one up at the car rental place instead of bringing our own. The one we got was not the cleanest, but the most stressful part was that the strap/locking mechanism was VASTLY different and more complicated than the simple one we were used to. Every time we had to strap or unstrap her it was unbearably hot out, we were all hot and cranky and it was just the biggest pain to deal with our whole trip. I wished the whole time that we had our own car seat. Just my 2 cents worth... I would at least check and see what kind of car seats they provide before deciding not to take your own.