Car Seats/Booster Seats

[SimonY]

Can I have some advice about car seats for my kids (8, 5 and 22 months) please? We will definitely need a car seat for the youngest and preferably booster seats for the other 2. Will the car hire company have these (we're going with Virgin)? Should we take our own?

Advice and other peoples' experiences welcomed.

Thanks

 

[PoohBears#1fan]

Hi Simon,

I'm sure US law states that your 8 year old doesn't need a booster seat (although at the end of the day it's up to you) We'll just be taking our seatbelt holder thingie for our 7 year old daughter.

Baby seats and child seats are available from car hire companies but payable locally, although you can request them here, they're around $5 a day each plus tax.
You can also take your own, BA told us if we mark baby seat as 'fragile' it's stored in a safe place in the hold so it doesn't get knocked around. This is what we're planning on doing for our baby who'll be 5 months when we go next. It will count as an item of luggage though i'm sure.

HTH

PBF

 

[BevS97]

the car hire company will have a car seat for your youngest, I'm not sure about booster seats, but they will charge you $5 per day, per seat, and the condition of the seats is terrible,

We always take our own - you can check them, and collect them with your luggage - one car seat has never been a problem, but 3 maybe more tricky, but if you can cope, then I would suggest taking them.

the other option is to buy some from Walmart, but that involves driving to Walmart without a seat, which is obviously not ideal.

Last time, we took a seat which splits into a booster and a back - we checked the back, and took the booster onboard - Katie sat on it, and found it made it easier to use the tray etc. We only had the one child, and were able to hang the booster on the back of the pushchair so it was not a hassle, but I would imagine with 3 kids, and 2 boosters, then that is probably not so easy.

Bev

 

[lisag1]

We took our 2 full car seats and 1 booster seat last year and we'll do so again this year as we've always had really tatty seats off the hire companies. Plus it costs a fortune when you've got to hire 3 seats.

I'm not 100% sure about this but I don't think Virgin counted it as luggage last year, I certainly don't remember them being weighed or anything. Just remember to pack and label them up yourself. Also depending on the airline, you may be able to actually use the seats on the plane (for the 22mo if you've paid for a seat).

Lisa

 

[Astrid]

When I took my son when he was 8 I didn't take a booster seat or anything with me and he just sat on a pillow from the room in the car.

I packed a really old and tatty booster seat for my daughter (then 5) and just left it out there which made life easier travelling home with all the extra things I had bought!

Astrid

 

[BevS97]

the car seats don't count as luggage - neither does a pushchair if you need one of those.

I've never packed mine at all - we used it in the car on the way to the airport, and then just hand it over at check-in. We did have a slight hiccup last year, as we had a new booster seat and didn't realise the back was detachable - I was worried part of it would get lost, so we split it up, checked the back, and used the seat part on the plane.

Bev

 

[PoohBears#1fan]

Ooh do car seats not count as luggage then? That would be nice, i'd just assumed that they would.