emkay

Anyone ever use the Doona carseat/stroller? have some questions before i spend $500 on it

JMR1223

Haven't used, but very interested in feedback as well! Reviews on Amazon are overall great, but there aren't many.

emkay

I ended up buying it a couple weeks back, haven't used it much yet a absolutely am loving it already. Will be using it on a couple international flights later this week.

fredandgingermad

That was marketed at the baby show I went to in London the other month, unfortunately they were marketing it as an alternative to a pushchair which goes against recommendations in the UK that a baby spend no more than 2 hours in a car seat at a time and should also lie flat for the first 6 months (there's been an increased number of deaths of infants this year due to sudden infant death syndrome whilst in their car seat in the UK) oh and of course that once your child grows out of the car seat you'll still need to buy a stroller ;-). Great I guess if you fly the right airlines but plenty of airlines don't allow use of rear facing car seats!

emkay

The deaths related to carseats have nothing to do with lying flat reclined in a car seat. also 99.99% of airlines allow forward facing as thats what the FAA ruled.

fredandgingermad

Where the FAA is concerned doesn't count for me, I rarely fly airlines that come under them

emkay

im also not based in the states nonetheless

fredandgingermad

Surely the point of the doona is that its a rear facing car seat so that saying airlines allow forward facing seats is mute

emkay

Was a typo. I meant rear facing.

fredandgingermad

Most airlines we fly don't allow rear facing so ymmv

PHLondoner

Sorry for an old thread bump.

We're travelling with an infant internationally and will be bringing the Doona. The infant will not have her own seat on the flights - lap child/Bassinet on Lufthansa.

A few questions: since she won't have her own seat, can the Doona be carried on and stowed overhead?

If I have to gate check any concerns with throwing your $500 stroller in the cargo hold? It looks Doona sells a travel bag - but it seems somewhat bulky to bring along and lug around through the airport.

Any Doona airport/airplane tips/tricks you can share?

Aroeder

My daughter is now 15 month old and is starting to get too big for her Doona but it has been a life saver. We always travel with it and just gate check it.

We use it in the airport and then I put it in the non padded travel bag and gate check it. We have not had any real issues with it being gate checked.

We have taken her domestically all over the US and Internationally to Europe.

The travel bag actually works out quite well as we bring a Boppy pillow for the plane and I keep it in the Doona bag among with few other things and wear it like a backpack. Once we get to the gate I take those things out that we want to bring on the plane and put the stroller in the bag. I hope this helps.

Best of luck!

PHLondoner

So we got burned a few times with gate checking the Doona - the worst example was returning to PHL in Business Class at the front of the plane on an international flight. After deplaning, normally they're pretty quick getting seats and strollers up...but not today. It took them about 15 minutes to bring it to the ramp. Meanwhile as i waited - the entire 747 full of passengers deplaned. That 15 minutes meant that we were basically dead last getting through customs - took more than 90 minutes. All told - gatechecking cost us about 2 extra hours at the airport after a long International trip.

We're flying transcon in J a330 this weekend with the Doona - i think i'm going to try and bring it on board and stow overhead and see if i can get it to fit.

GUWonder

Gate-checking items for gate-delivery can cause delays at time, so there may be times to attempt to do something else. Gate-checking for baggage-belt/oversize station delivery is something else that is possible rather often, but you should ask for that arrangement if you want that. Doing this latter thing would help avoid the issue of “falling behind” for immigration/passport control (and, if applicable, transit pax security screening) purposes while waiting by the plane for the gate/jetbridge-area delivery of the item.

PHLondoner

I've had an issue there as well w/ the Doona. I gate-checked the Doona and explicitly told them that I didn't want to pick it up at the gate when we land but have it checked all the way through to our final destination - tagged, etc (we had a short layover in between and we were just going to carry the little munchkin in the bjorn). I thought I was pretty clear and it seemed they understood what i wanted.

However, when we landed for our layover - we were in a remote stand - deplaned and boarded a bus to zip us to our terminal. As the bus starts to pull away a divine person tapped me on the shoulder - seeing i was carrying a baby - pointed out the window and asked, "Is that yours?" Sure enough, sitting idly in the middle of the tarmac all by its lonesome was our glorious Doona. I screamed at the bus driver to "STOP" - basically pushed past him - may have shoved an old lady out of the way to get to the front door - and charged out onto the tarmac presumably against some flight regulations and snatched the Doona.

Anyways, again - it seems the easiest thing to do is simply carry the damn thing on the plane if i can fit it and know exactly where it is and where it's going at all times.