Check or rent carseat when traveling? - Page 3

[bmhpke96]

Originally Posted by Toolip 

Originally Posted by bmhpke96 

I see you've already completed your travel and bought a seat, but I just wanted to give a heads up on baby gear rental places.  I own one myself and all of my seats are practically brand new.  I carry Graco and Evenflo models.  If you ever have questions about what you are renting please call a baby gear company and they will be able to give you accurate information.  I know here where I live the car rental companies won't even guarantee that they will have a seat for you when you arrive.

I'm just curious how you deal with the liability of renting out seats that you don't know the complete history of, because they are out of your hands while they are rented. 

I have all my parents sign a liability waiver before renting.  It also states they are supposed to let me know if the seat has been in any type of accident and that there is no eating/drinking in the seats. 

Originally Posted by leighi123 

Originally Posted by bmhpke96 

I see you've already completed your travel and bought a seat, but I just wanted to give a heads up on baby gear rental places.  I own one myself and all of my seats are practically brand new.  I carry Graco and Evenflo models.  If you ever have questions about what you are renting please call a baby gear company and they will be able to give you accurate information.  I know here where I live the car rental companies won't even guarantee that they will have a seat for you when you arrive.

How do you clean your seats? (for example if they got puked on)

The carseat rental place here uses bleach to clean the straps, b/c apparantly all baby/kid stuff has to be cleaned that way, which ruins them of course. 

I clean them per the manfacturer's instructions.  I would never use bleach on a car seat!

Originally Posted by sunnymw 

Originally Posted by bmhpke96 

I see you've already completed your travel and bought a seat, but I just wanted to give a heads up on baby gear rental places.  I own one myself and all of my seats are practically brand new.  I carry Graco and Evenflo models.  If you ever have questions about what you are renting please call a baby gear company and they will be able to give you accurate information.  I know here where I live the car rental companies won't even guarantee that they will have a seat for you when you arrive.

I posted several questions for you in the other thread where you mentioned welcoming questions from people about your car seat rentals. Thanks :)

I answered them in the other thread!

I really believe that my car seats are safe.  I inspect them all and clean them thoroghly when they are returned to me.  Is there a small chance that they could have been in a fender bender and not damaged in any way that I can see?  Sure there is.  But I believe that there is just as great a chance that the car seat could have been damaged in the same way riding in the belly of a plane.  People that gate check their car seats (and I'm one of them!) inspect them when they get them back and make the best decision they can about them.  But they could have been damaged in such a slight way that you wouldn't be able to tell.  These are risks some people are willing to take when travelling.

[Stitches]

If you do take the car seat GATE check it.  We didn't know better the first time and checked the car seat in the regular luggage...and they lost it.  Total nightmare when we arrived, the lost luggage desk had this ancient, beat up old car seat as a loaner that I refused to use, and it was only ff and my DD was only 8 months old so it was useless to us anyway. 

Next year we need to fly across country with 2 car seats and I'm not looking forward to the logisitc of getting both plus both kids through the airport.  I've heard really good things about the go-baby travel system, you strap the car seat to the wheely base and can use it like a stroller in the airport and at least can drive it like luggage.