Please recommend your portable DVD player for the plane...

[lillykat]

We are taking DD to WDW for her first trip at the end of Sept when she will be 15 months. She is all over the place and doesn't like to sit still. We got a seat for her so we will be bringing her car seat on the plane so that will help a little bit. I thought in addition to some books and toys she might sit still for a while if she had something to watch. So can anyone recommend their portable DVD player that isn't too expensive.

 

[mebandy]

I LOVE my Panasonic LS82 dvd player. Long battery life, but no headphones. Target has kids headphones. We even hooked it up to the tv at the hotel which helped the wind down at the end of the day. Have a great trip!

 

[Wendybird55]

I had an Audiovox and a GPX and they are fine for my son...Audiovox is a brand usually with good prices. If you ever see COBY brand (again can have low prices) I suggest stay away - it could have been a fluke, but I had one and on the 2nd day it had a burning odor and it started to smoke.

The biggest concern is battery life. Most batteries that come with portable DVD players may last about 2 hours. The last thing you want is for your battery to run out before the flight ends. I just got an addtional universal battery for my portable DVD player to extend the battery life. IT was about $60. SOme of the hight en portabel DVD players may have longer battery life. IF so you hace to comparre the price of the higher end DVD player to the cost of buying a less expensive one and an additional battery.

Before going on the trip I recommend you charge the battery and use the player non stop (as you would on the plane) until the battery runs out to see how long it lasts.

 

[all4fun]

I would also recommend one with a flip screen so you can flip it around so the buttons are on the back. At that age, my ds was all about the buttons, LOL. You don't want to spend half the flight turning the darn thing back on.

We have a Zenith 7" wide screen one like this one at Best Buy. Click on "more images" icon under the picture to see how the screen swivels (in case you haven't seen one before, it's actually pretty cool feature imo).

Also, I recommend turning the volume all the way down, as most airlines require the use of headphones and at that age, most kids won't wear them. She won't mind the lack of volume probably anyway. Even at a low volume, other pax may complain about the noise,too.

When she gets older, these headphones called GE kids flexible Headphones, are smaller sized as well. We bought these for ds(5) to use and they work very nicely. I think they would even be snug enough for a younger child to wear.


hth!

 

[Disney Crazy Debbie]

If you have a laptop you can play DVDs on that. My DS is 18 and of course doesn't want to take his DVD player so he takes his laptop and plays them on there, of course if you are concerned about button pushing that would be a separate issue.

 

[bzzymom]

Our first portable DVD player was a panosonic. It worked really nice, but it will only show in black and white now. DS 11 uses it in his room to hook up to his tv to watch DVD's on. We have a new audiovox one the we got in may and we really like it.

I have taken a portable DVD player on the last 3 trips, when DD was 11 months, 19 months, and 2.5 years. She didn't really watch it much. She liked to eat snacks, and play with stickers. I bought a bunch of stickers and brought notebook paper and she decorated it. Also, a few sticker books too. I also had to take goldfish crackers or some other kind of snack. On our return flight, I didn't have as many snacks and the kids ate all of the snacks and she got really fussy. A lady 2 rows behind me had a bag of pretzels that she kindly offered to give me, which I did take from her. DD calm right down.

 

[lillykat]

Thank you I will look into all of them! I will have some snacks but DD isn't a huge eater so the snacks don't entertain her for more than say 5 minutes. I hope that she will sleep for most of the flight (720 am flight) but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[CharmedLife]

Good decision to get her her own seat. My kids would get that "car seat mentality" where they're just expecting to be sitting strapped in like a car. The one time (only once!) that we held DD on our lap, it was terrible, she was all over the place.

We have an 8" Poloroid and it's been great. I agree with a previous poster about checking the battery life beforehand so you know what to expect, and possibly getting a second battery. I would also recommend the service plan with a device like this. Our first player didn't work very well and Best Buy wound up just replacing it with a better model for no cost.

We have always used headphones with ours (get a player with 2 headphone jacks so you can listen, too, or for future kids!). When our kids were too little to wear them, I'd hang the headphones around their neck and turn up the volume so they could still hear. I've found that airplanes are so loud from the engines that the kids couldn't hear the DVD player even turned all the way up unless I did this headphone trick. I have bought "kid-size" headphones at Target, but again at such a young age, they wouldn't keep them on.

I also agree about the screen that rotates around, not only to keep the buttons away but just to get the screen closer. A laptop is also a good idea if you have one.

We took our DVD player to Sweden with us last summer, and it was a blessing during many times sitting and waiting for ferries, trains, etc. At one point on a 3-hour ferry ride, some Swedish children came over and sat down next to my kids and nieces and watched the movie with them!

 

[Colinsmom]

Do you have a video iPod? We just loaded a few shows on ours for DS, and it worked great - small, portable, lightweight. I wouldn't buy one just for this purpose, but if you already have one, might as well use it!