Hello, I am planning our first trip to Disney in November. My son will have just turned two so I did have to purchase him a ticket for the plane. We have never flown anywhere before so I am questioning whether or not to bring his car seat. I was thinking it would be easier on the plane to have him strapped into his familiar seat but then I'm not sure what to do with it for the rest of our trip. We are not renting a car & I'm assuming the Magical Express bus will not have seat belts so he would not use it then. We are taking a cab to & from Universal one day but I was told you can request a cab with a car seat..is that true?
So I'm just not sure if it is worth the hassle of having to lug it through the airport, to the hotel, storing it somewhere in our already cramped room & then back again if he will only use in on the plane. I'll also have our stroller & two other children so the less "stuff" we have to bring the better. Any advice from you veteran travelers?? Thank you in advance!
A friend was a flight attendant and based on her stories of injured children during turbulence, the stuff my friend who used to be a rental car agent has said (they reuse carseats even after a fender bender which is a HUGE no no), and the recommendations of carseats dot org, we always bring and use ours.
We have over 20 flights under our belt and DD is 3.
We prefer flying with Southwest, use a radian rxt and gogobabyz so even though the radian is around 30lbs, it's quite easy. We either wheel our (now) toddler through the airport although most of the time unless we're in a huge crowd, she walks and we put our carryons in the carseat and wheel it. It rolls right up the aisle, and DH puts it in while we wait a minute a row ahead. Then I put her in, our bags and we're good to go.
Once landing in Phoenix we slammed into the ground so hard from a wind sheer the wheels had flats, and another time landing at Midway in the winter, the plane must have skidded too far down the runway (we were still on it, but it was a very rough landing and we ended up kinda sideways). It took forever for us to be pulled or escorted (not sure which we couldn't see) to the gate.
I also like that we have it on the other end for our rental car and I know it's clean, safe, and DD is comfortable in it.
Carseats dot org has tons of info on it from where the FAA sticker should be and even paperwork you might want to carry on another airline (Southwest has never asked us) in case a flight attendant tries to give you a hard time.
The person in front of DD can't really put their seat back all the way, so we tell them before they sit down and always offer to buy them a drink. No one has EVER been anything but nice about it. (My DH usually also offers to help them later with their bag at the luggage carousel.)
There are seatbelts on the bus, but they are not safe for a young child. There is an FAA approved restraining system you can rent on ebay or buy for $70, but my friend has it and it's a complete pain in the butt. You have to disable the person behind you's traytable and it's very easy for the kiddo to unlatch.
We almost bought a smaller/lighter $65 seat (seneca I think it was called) for travel but DD is so tall that we stayed with what we have.
For taxis, we bring our own seat and request a minivan. But it's also really inexpensive to rent a car in Disney. We're renting a minivan and it's around $20 a day.
Can I also offer some toddler in-flight tips too? Bring small presents to unwrap during the flight. Triangle crayons that won't roll off a table and a coloring book are great as are the magnet sets of animals and other scenes (cars, the ocean, zoo, a farm). I hit the dollar store before we go for little surprises. Snacks and something to drink during takeoff and landing are a must to pop the ears and a lolly for worst case scenario. And then there's the ipad with some videos when it gets really too much for them to sit still any more.
Have a great trip!
) and DH used the disney site return. He said it was a pita using that system because they were SO disorganized. They told him they were out of minivans and he was like, well, I JUST NOW returned one. Can I rerent it? (For $22/night -- same car!) When he returned the minivan it also took him a long time and then it took him almost 2 hours to ride the bus back too.
We had the front first seats last time so that worked out okay, but since I can't guarantee we would this time too, we're renting.
