Renting car seat on holiday

I have just been to Italy and took our cybex car set. We boxed it up and protected it really well with bubble wrap and padding. Box was a good strong one too. So it felt protected and I wasn’t worried about it going in the hold. No extra cost to take either. Most airlines if not all allow 2 baby items free. We went Ryanair. It’s something extra to carry that’s all. I personally wouldn’t hire a car seat. On seeing the hire ones they had in Italy I was glad I’d taken ours. They were in such bad condition all thrown in a big pile outside and looked gross and unsafe. We would have had to have gone and found a shop and bought a brand new one as would not have put my baby in one for sure. You just don’t know if it’s been in an accident etc even if they look ok (which these didn’t even look ok). Having said that dudai might be better but still wouldn’t know about accidents. Hope that helps x

I personally never take mine as it doesn’t take much to create a hairline fracture and cause a seat to fail on impact. Baggage handlers dgaf even with fragile stuff, things move in the hold etc. I’ve hired before and tbh always had a new seat from the box (enterprise, hertz and Avis). You can trust them as much as you can your own after it’s been out of your sight and handled by others. You’d never know if it was damaged until it’s too late xx

Thanks both! Gosh @Sarah didn’t think of that, now absolutely confused on what to do 🥺🥺

I don’t think there is a right answer really. We did have car seat and fragile written all over our box but neither way is the right way as risk either way. I just felt for us taking ours less risky and turns out from where we went it was the right decision for us.

Yeah sorry to confuse. I work in crash testing (including seats) and I just know how fragile they actually are and how people underestimate them. You should also always check your UK seat is legal to use in that country. For example, UK seats aren’t legal in Australia due to their own standards (inc top tether) and in the US it’s not clear cut either. I’d check Dubai before you consider it though as someone else said Dubai standards are pretty high for things like car rentals etc.

Thanks @Sarah but surely we’d just never know. We don’t get the car seats fresh from the factory, surely risk is still there even when they get shipped to us in a box from wherever we order them from!

Mine was packed for the flight much better than from the factory for sure 😂

We’ve hired cars twice on holidays (once when LO was 9 months old and once when she was 17 months) and hired car seats both times. The first time the car seat was very similar to the one we have at home and the second time the car seat was brand new, still had tags on! I didn’t trust the airlines to not throw our car seat about and it saved the stress of having to carry it around with us too. In future I’d hire one with the car again

Totally! I fly every month and I’ve just seen so many trashed prams/fragile items/luggage at the carousel. Literally watched baggage staff launch things onto the ramp to load the aircraft from the boarding gate. Even had a pelican case (near indestructible) cracked and handles snapped 🫣

We took our car seat on both holidays where we had car hire, particularly because we wanted it rear facing.