Flying on easy jet with 20 month old and a jogging stroller, car seat and child backpack carrier?
 

My husband and I are flying into Paris. We are then planning to take a flight into Milan (Easy Jet seems to be the cheapest option). We are planning to travel from Paris to Milan with one checked in (hold) baggage, one camera bag (carry on), and one carry on rolling bag for all three of us. So I think we should be fine on the baggage allowance front. The problem is we also need to take his car seat, jogging stroller and potentially even a child backpack carrier (the Kelty kind, only 3 kgs in self weight).

- Is that additional gear too much?
- Do they (Easy Jet or any other EU airlines) allow to check in the car seat with rest of luggage and then gate check the stroller?
- Will the size of jogging stroller be a concern?
- Will doing an additional gate check of the child carrier (only 3 Kgs in weight) be a problem?
- Any other feedback on Easy Jet?

Responses greatly appreciated. We are visiting Chamonix, CT and Tuscany. We were initially planning to rent in Paris drive to Chamonix, then to CT, then to Tuscany and then back to Paris. But then decided to explore the option of flying to Milan and then renting a car. Seems to be a much more central location for our 3 areas to visit. Will save us some driving time and allow more time to see the sights. Thoughts?

We have flown with EAsyjet x 2 , Zoom and Ryanair iwth our two year old and have been amazed what parents can get away with.

We have taken a stroller and a car seat without affecting our baggage allowance. There are even rumours that you can add a back carrier and a travel cot to this list.

We have always taken the stroller to the gate and it has been loaded onto the plane at that point. Comes in handy at some huge terminals when you are in a rush.

The advice every time has to be check with your airline.

I have used Easyjet for years and have flown to Mallorca twice this year using them. I have never had a problem and found them not to be as agressive as Ryanair in their passenger approach.

My only advice with a 20 month old is limit the number of bases you use - our 23 month old was left "all at sea" after our tour of Vancouver and BC - with hindsight we should have chosen one base to retain some sort of routine for him. I would also consider the choice of destination - in our couple only days city breaks were fine but with a toddler we found him going stir crazy in Vancouver city but in his element with space on the beaches of Vancouver Island.

..I would check the specifics with the airline HOWEVER, it would be my inclination to check to see if the rental company would supply a car seat. I would bring the back pack and probably forget about the jogging stroller given the places you have chosen to stay. I would bring a light umbrella stroller which would take up minimal room and work better on crowded sidewalks IMO.

I as the victim of fraud!! in Vancouver when in the UK Thrifty quoted me $10 "full stop" to hire a car seat. On arrival in Canada I had to pay $10 A DAY for two weeks plus premium tax which came to $168. I had no option because it is illegal (and insane) to drive without a car seat. Considering I could have bought a car seat for this price I considered this extortion.

Don't line the coffers of the car hire companies - this must be where they make their margin. Take your own!

Did you ask them is it was $10 per day or $10 overall? (The latter really doesn;t make any sense - why should they give it to you for 14 days for $10 when they could be renting it to other people on all those other days?)

I would assume any charge from a car rental company is per day - unless they specifically say otherwise.

I would bring the carseat--you really never know what they're going to try to give you at the rental, a seven year old filthy thing that's been in an accident? I second the advice to bring an umbrella stroller over a jogging stroller. Not only is a jogging stroller unwieldy on European sidewalks, it's also really hard to use in the airport.

I asked what the cost was they said $10, I also asked what the cost of the card was they said £430.When I got to Vancouver I paid £430 for the car not £430 per day!!

$10 seemed perfectly reasonable to me for a 2 week rental - the asset value is $130 ie 3.8% at this rate it is still far more than hiring a £30,000 car for £215 per week this equates to 0.8% per week. At a rate of $84 a week I paid a rate of 64% per week - ie extortion!

Thanks a lot to all for the responses. Markrosy, your detailed response helped a lot especially since you have flown with Easy Jet. I actually read some bad reviews on easy jet on other threads. But have been surprised with their email response. I sent the baggage and child gear question to them on email and got a response in 5 mins. Markrosy, you are right. I think we can take a backpack carrier as well along with stroller and car seat. We are definitely planning to take our car seat as we are visiting Dubai and India after that as well. With all of the wonderful advice on this thread, we will have to seriously consider taking our usual stroller. The only concern is that my husband's back and my back are not the strongest. We are working on it but we are unsure of how long we will be able to carry the baby and if we will be able to do so on inclined walks. That is why we wanted to take the jogging stroller as back up.

AVS

All low cost airlines get bad press in Europe simply because they haven't the margin on seats to cover the costs involved when things go wrong. Remember the days when BA would put you up in a 5 star hotel and send Concorde to pick you up - if one of their planes developed a fault. These days have clearly gone. In my experience if things go wrong Easyjet listen and do actually try but Ryanair run for cover.