Strollers at the Parks

[SharpMomOfTwo]

I know this is the wrong place to post this, but I like this board.....

I was wondering what everyone with small children will do for strollers. Will you bring your own, or rent them? My girls will be 2 and 3 when we go, and I am leaning towards bringing our Mclaren double for them. My reasons are the following:

* If your renting them at the parks, you still have to walk through the hotel, to the bus stop, through part of the park and to the stroller rental place. That can take some time!
* Its really expencive! I looked it up, and its almost $130 for the time we will be there if we get the double for the entire trip!

The reason to not bring your own, is because if it is stolen or "misplaced" by someone, I've just lost a $300 stroller. I've heard stories of people that went on rides, come out for their stroller, and can't find it anywhere. Finally, they locate it like 3 rides away, because a "cast member" just felt the need to move it. Also, we will be flying down, kind of nervous that the airlines may loose it or something... you can't say thats carry-on!

Whats everyone else planning on doing?

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

When we went our boys were 4 and 5. Rather than lugging a stroller to the airport, we rented a double from this place www.abbf.com. They were awesome and fairly price. When we got to our resort, it was waiting for us and we were able to use it the entire time (not just at the parks). With girls your ages I would HIGHLY recommend this. You are right, it does take a while to get to the bus, park entrance, etc. The stroller we rented was very clean, lightweight, and had a huge basked underneath to hold stuff. Plus, each seat fully reclined so my 4 year old fell asleep in it one evening waiting in line for Chef Mickey's.

 

[maxiesmom]

Don't worry about the airlines loosing your stroller. Just use it at the airport, and then gate check it before you board. That way you will have it when you get to Orlando too.

The only negative I think there is to bringing your own stroller is the hassle you have with it getting on and off of the busses. You wheel up to the bus, someone has to grab the kids out so you can fold the stroller up, and you have to hold it on the bus. Then you still have the kids and all of your other stuff to hang on to too. Get off of the bus, take a few steps, and load your kids back in. To me it is much easier to have the kids walking, and then rent a stroller at the parks.

 

[SSRFred]

This is not an option for everyone but...
I'd just pick up a couple of umbrella strollers in Orlando for $15 each. Bring with you that connector that combines singles into doubles. No baskets, no frills but the diaper bag and the shopping bags takes care of extra storage needs. Simple strollers make it easier to fold when getting on the parking trams and buses.
At the end of your trip, you donate the stroller(s) to someone else.
For me, the strollers are more of a hassle at the airports than they are worth. For $15, I get to "rent" an easy to fold, new stroller that I can take everywhere with me for my entire stay.

 

[Desnik]

We always brought ours from home. It was great to have at the airport and then we just gate checked it. It was waiting for us when we got off the plane in Orlando. We have done this many times. Also, the park strollers are hard plastic. Your Mac will be much more comfy and doesn't it recline? That will come in handy in case they fall asleep. It is also great to have your stroller when leaving a park late at night. Ever have to hold 2 sleeping toddlers after a long day at the park? Not fun!LOL It's great to have the stroller for the walk from the bus to our room at the resort. We have never had a stroller stolen or lost while at the parks and I have taken Mac's, Peg's and Combies! Just put something on your stroller to help identify yours in the crowd. There is some great info on all of this on the families board. I know you don't want to post over there but just do a search and you can read all the threads about this subject. It has been talked about a lot!

 

[DannysMom]

I was wondering what everyone with small children will do for strollers. Will you bring your own, or rent them? My girls will be 2 and 3 when we go, and I am leaning towards bringing our Mclaren double for them. My reasons are the following:

* If your renting them at the parks, you still have to walk through the hotel, to the bus stop, through part of the park and to the stroller rental place. That can take some time!
* Its really expencive! I looked it up, and its almost $130 for the time we will be there if we get the double for the entire trip!

I think with the ages of your kids you definitely want a stroller full time (that it, not rented at the parks) whether you bring your own double, rent one from an Orlando provider, or buy a couple of cheapies as "disposable" is up to you.

If you do bring your own (which is what I'd do) you can gate check it at the airport, so have it to use to the gate on departure & from the gate when you land. I have a single McClaren & love it for ease of use, as you will need to fold it for busses and some other transportation. To make finding it easier, admist the seas of parked strollers, you can either tie a loud scarf to the handle or get a balloon to help. Have a great trip.

 

[mericletwins]

I know this is the wrong place to post this, but I like this board.....

I was wondering what everyone with small children will do for strollers. Will you bring your own, or rent them? My girls will be 2 and 3 when we go, and I am leaning towards bringing our Mclaren double for them. My reasons are the following:

* If your renting them at the parks, you still have to walk through the hotel, to the bus stop, through part of the park and to the stroller rental place. That can take some time!
* Its really expencive! I looked it up, and its almost $130 for the time we will be there if we get the double for the entire trip!

The reason to not bring your own, is because if it is stolen or "misplaced" by someone, I've just lost a $300 stroller. I've heard stories of people that went on rides, come out for their stroller, and can't find it anywhere. Finally, they locate it like 3 rides away, because a "cast member" just felt the need to move it. Also, we will be flying down, kind of nervous that the airlines may loose it or something... you can't say thats carry-on!

Whats everyone else planning on doing?

For all the reasons above we bought umbrella strollers and bought the clip thingy that attaches them together to make them a side by side double when we needed. We had three in strollers and we loved the umbrellas. Easy to fold, take on and off transportation, store in the room, etc. We also liked having the stroller full time at that age. I would not rent them in the parks because of having to get back to your hotel.

Another bonus to an umbrella is that if it is stolen or damaged, etc. it isn't a big monetary investment. Look around at a bunch of different ones and push them around. We found some with higher than normal handles at a Carter's outlet that were great. They had a flip top shade thing. We used them for four or 5 Disney trips. Last Easter was the first time we didn't take them and the kids were 7, 7 and 6. We did rent a stroller once or twice though. We have loaned them out to people a couple of times and they swore they would never take their bulky heavy stroller again.

 

[tjmw2727]

When our kids were the ages of yours we always brought our own stroller from home for all the reasons you mentioned. If your using bus transportation it helps to have one that folds up quickly and easily. We also used a backpack instead of a diaper bag and kept the baskets free of loose items.

Identify it with a brightly colored ribbon or bandana for easy spotting and put a luggage tage on it and you willl be fine. I think you will find the stroller parking is very well marked. If you park your stroller where it belongs it may be moved but only toward the front of that same area since the CM's keep things pretty organized. Often times folks think they have found a better spot and park a stroller in a path or other place it dosen't belong, in this case it will be moved to a stroller parking area which may result in difficulty finding it.

If you mark it and park it properly you should have no problems with your own stroller.

TJ

 

[TJA]

You are exactly correct in your reasoning as to why you should bring your own stroller. We normally stay at BC and our young girls would never be able to walk to Epcot and MGM each day/night. They are 4 now and do fine in the parks, but it's all the outside-of-the-parks walking that we need the stroller for. At ages 2 and 3, our girls liked to nap in the stroller, so we always brought a very comfortable stroller from home, reclining seats, large canopies, lots of storage. It isn't the easiest to get on and off buses, but to us it was more important that the girls were comfortable and happy. Oh, and we never had a problem finding our stroller after rides and have never had one stolen. Keep in mind that you won't have to fold up your stroller on the monorail or the big boats, so that is a huge plus when you have a double. We take a double jogger and rarely take a bus (just to AK....). Have fun!

 

[Taja]

We recently traveled with a 14-week-old infant and had to bring his stroller, as he couldn't sit up yet. It was a bit unwieldy and had to be folded for the trams (my friends didn't take WDW buses), which annoyed my friends to no end!

I did attach a glow-in-the dark bracelet to the handle so we could find it more easily at night, and attached a laminated large red tag with last name and cell phone number in case it was "misplaced" with a cable tie. No problems!

 

[sharbev]

If you're not already a member of StrollerSwap (a yahoo group), I would definitely check over there. They always have great advice about using strollers at Disney!!

~ shari

 

[Disney grandma]

While it may not happen often (although CM's told us it happens a lot) our deluxe stroller was taken from outside the children's resting and changing area at MK behind the Crystal Palace. We reported it and Disney did nothing to help recover it. Our son in law ran to the bus loading and spotted it and called security. We got the stroller back and the family who stole it went on their merry way with a handshake from the head of security. They "didn't want to make waves". The last three times we have gone we tie a bicycle lock around the wheels and park it far enough way where it won't have to be moved. Guest relations was wonderful to work with and they expressed their apology about the incident. Having your own stroller is great and you can store a lot in the basket, especially ponchos, etc. for the unexpected rain storms.

 

[SharpMomOfTwo]

Thanks for all of your great advice everyone. Another good thing to do that I just read, is if you are going to bring your own stroller with you, is to tie a see through bag with what looks to be a nasty dirty diaper to it. No one wants to steal a stroller if its stinkie!

 

[eandt]

We are out of the stroller years now but we always rented at the parks when we got there........the $10 a day or so for us at least was well worth not having the hassle of lugging those things on and off of the buses, storing them in your room etc.....You get a Disney Dollar back when you return it to the front of the park.

 

[TJA]

Renting is a good idea once the kids are older, but I'm not sure if age 2 and age 3 is old enough to handle all of the hotel walking, especially if OP is staying in the Epcot resort area and walks back and forth to Epcot and MGM (like we do...). We like to stay extra hours at the parks and then let the kids fall asleep in the stroller and walk back to our resort. Honestly, my twins at age 2 couldn't handle all of that outside-the-parks walking. Don't think they could handle it currently at age 4 either.

 

[DebbieB]

Think twice about using the bus system with a double stroller. When I was there earlier this month, we saw a couple dragging 3 sleeping kids onto the bus after MVMCP, followed by a fold up double jogging stroller. The bus was crowded and it was crazy, they were blocking the whole front of the bus. The funniest thing was after all that, they had a musical hat that kept playing, they couldn't turn it off! After all that, we couldn't help but bust up laughing.