Q for parents: Travelling (flying) with a baby

[Beefcake]

I've got a question for the parents on the board who've flown with a "new born" (mine's at 2-months now).

We're heading on a family vacation to the Caribbean, and have a rental car lined-up that will include a baby-seat. This will be great while we're down there, but if we don't take our own seat with us, that leaves us with a couple of problems:
- No baby-seat for the ride to/from the airport (we may have a solution for this)
- No baby-seat when we arrive in Atlanta where we have to overnight it and will have to travel by some form of car to/from the hotel.

Besides the arguable parental negligence of taking your baby into a car without the proper seat/security, I beleive it's also illegal. Has anyone from the board had experience with this and come up with a good solution?

[Titan]

Bring your own seat. The airlines don't count it as luggage, you take it right to the gate and they put it under and then you have your own stuff when you get there. If you are taking the stroller as well you can do the same. I got a huge plastic bag from Air Canada to put it in to protect it, if you care about that. This way you also have the stroller in the airport and such while you are waiting for the flight.

My 2 cents.

[ericschand]

You're right, Beefcake. You're screwed.
I suggest you stay home with your 2 month old, and send me instead.

Actually, carry the car seat onto the plane with you. You can use
the seat belt to hook it onto the airplane seat. If you don't have
a seat purchased for your baby, have them stow it as baggage. The
car seat, not the baby.

ers

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by ericschand

have them stow it as baggage. The
car seat, not the baby.

That is a critical clarification!

[tete]

Not sure if you're flying Air Canada or not, but they've tightened their restrictions on allowable baggage and strollers at the gate. Only umbrella strollers (those small collapsable ones) will be allowed to be gate checked - everything else has to be checked at the counter AND it counts towards your child's baggage total. Even if you have a layover somewhere, you can't have your stroller with you.

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelin...ant-child.html

[Beefcake]

Thanks for the comments.

We're flying Delta (points), and so may still get away with having a larger sized stroller. We were hoping to avoid taking the car seat only because that's one extra "semi-large" item to have to lug around along our 2 stops/transfers (incl. 1 night layover) on the way there. Our stroller has the basinet on it, so the car seat would make for a second baby-related peice of luggage to try and get them to store at the gate.

[ernie]

NOt sure when Air Canada put those stroller restrictions in place but it was either in the last 6 weeks or they don't actually enforce it.

Bring your own car seat or if you are renting a car anywhere make sure you can rent a car seat as well.

Car seat is counted as baggage sometimes (depends who you checks you in) but between two parents and one child you have 5 pieces of checked baggage and 3 carry ons. If you can't use one of those 5 pieces of checked luggage as your car seat you are bringing too much stuff!

[lazy_programmer]

- No baby-seat for the ride to/from the airport (we may have a solution for this)
- No baby-seat when we arrive in Atlanta where we have to overnight it and will have to travel by some form of car to/from the hotel.



I don't know if this is true or not, but when my family went to Hawaii, I was looking into a the same thing. I ended bringing the car seat for my own comfort, but I recall reading that if you are in a commercial vehicle (taxi) you don't need a car seat. Again, I don't know if that's true or not, and I personally wasn't comfortable with it, but maybe something to check into with the local authorities if it works for you.