I am not very familiar with the CRJ700, having only flown a regional jet once as a child. I am flying to Orlando (GRR-DTW-MCO) with my two, teenage daughters and we are on a CRJ700 for the GRR-DTW leg. We are assigned to row 5 and we each have a 20" hardside spinner bag (which I assume will be valet checked at the gate) but it's our other bags that I am concerned about. Since we typically fly Southwest, I am only familiar with their setup. We are always able to put our rolling bags in the overhead bin (which we plan to do on our DTW-MCO leg) and then we put our backpacks under the seat. Well, our backpacks are rather large...not huge...but large. They double as our computer bags so my daughters will have the school Chromebooks in them, My plan is to put them in the overhead bin on the CRJ and then just take out our purses to put under the seat. It's a very short flight so laptops and such can stay up top. We will just need some music, a magazine and our headphones. My concern is that they will not fit in the overhead. I have NO idea how big the overhead bins are in the regional planes. Like I said, these bags will not be stuffed full, and they can be compressed to a certain degree. They fit under the seats on the SWA planes, including the middle seats, so we have always been able to use them as our "personal item".
(I tried to post a picture or a link, but I am too new...)
We have the eBags TLS MotherLode Weekender Convertible JUNIOR bags.

So...do I need to be concerned?? We have the ComfortPlus seats with the "Priority Boarding" and "dedicated overhead bin space" so we should be OK as far as finding the space available. I just need to know that the bags will actually FIT. If not, we are going to have to find some new luggage. We only fly once a year, at most, so these bags have served us well for the past 3 years. I never thought I'd run into an issue where we might not be able to use them....I hope we are still good to go<br /><br />Thanks for helping a rookie