Baby's First Travels - Review of The Stokke Prampack

Baby's First Travels - Review of The Stokke Prampack

we travelled a little lighter than this

One of my main concerns once we started talking about going away for a few days for the Christmas holidays, was how we would bring our pram along. In November, when we had a long weekend in England, we braved it without the pram, as we couldn't fit both the rocker and the pram in the boot of the car. Instead we took the rocker and the baby carrier/sling. Well, that didn't work out to be the best plan, as the rocker was hardly used and I really missed the pram when we went out on a walk. As light as the baby carrier or sling is, I find they are best for the house or a short trip, especially as Coco is getting bigger, which is what we want!

This time around, we were catching a flight - her first, so the rocker/swing, was definitely not coming along, as it is way too big. Even the basic baby bouncer, wouldn't collapse neatly to fit into one of our bags, so that and had to stay at home too, which seemed a shame. I know that one of the down sides of the Stokke xplory, is it's rather large and heavy frame but I remember an option being available to pack it away from my research before we bought the pram.. I went online, found and bought the Stokke Prampack. The prampack folds up very small, when it is not is use. It arrived all rolled up and compact and I wondered out loud to MisterB, if it was going to fit the pram and car seat. But, it did. It expands quite generously into a large hold-all bag, to fit the pram frame, car seat and we threw in a few other bits and bobs, for good measure. 

At the airport, before we got to the check in desk, Baby C came out of the car seat (with help from one of us), and we added it into the Prampack bag, which already contained the frame. I then put her in the sling. At Heathrow, I walked through the security barriers with her strapped-in in the sling, no problem. If we had taken the pram, we would have pushed her through the security barriers in it, too. I always thought you were stripped of carriers/pushchairs and had to physically hold the baby, but that is not the case, at Heathrow at least.

While walking through the duty free shops, we spotted a couple pushing a toddler in the same pram we have and Mister B questioned whether we shouldn't have done the same. I reminded him that:

• We didn't want to take a chance with the pram or car seat getting damaged. Yes, we would be able to get a replacement on warrantee, but for the duration of the holiday, we would be without a pram/car seat and we had planned hours of driving. There was no damage to both items having used the Prampack.

• Baby C in the carrier was the hassle free way. After check in, we could take it easy and not worry pushing the pram about. If we had taken the pram through security, we would have had to fold it away at the boarding gate and hand it over.

• Baby C slept the whole way through. She sleeps well in the pram, generally, but sometimes I have to pick her up and rock her back to sleep, if she wakes up. In the carrier, if she wriggled, I just rocked her or walked around and she went right back to sleep. 

I am also going to be honest about the negatives of using the pram pack the way we did:

• We practiced putting it all together at home, because I had read online to do that, and I am glad we did, as it would have been a bit of a faff doing it for the first time at the airport.

• We didn't take the car seat on the flight. The safer way to travel with a baby on a flight, is by putting them in the car seat, in a separate seat, like you would in a car, not holding them in your arms. This provides the best protection if there is heavy turbulence and the plane bounces up and down mid-air. I have never seen anyone do this though, perhaps, because that requires you to pay for a separate full-fare seat for your little baby - which you might view as a waste if other than for take off or landing, you will be holding them.  On both flights to and fro, we had an empty seat, between us and so we could have taken the car seat along anyway. For future flights that would be dependent on how busy the flight is and whether that would be permissible by the airline.

• If I was travelling on my own, putting the car seat in the pram pack and then moving baby to the carrier at the airport, would be quite tricky to manage. But travelling as one adult, one baby with luggage can be quite difficult, I imagine.

• It is expensive. It costs almost as much as some prams/push chairs on the market at £128. I am not going to try to justify that price, as I do believe that for what it is, it's too high a cost. There are simply currently no good alternatives, if you know of any, please do share.

• It is Ma-hoo-sive. To give you an idea, if you have one of those big (African style, haha) suitcases, the Prampack measures bigger than it. We had to drop it off at the heavy baggage section of check in and the snow boarders were staring us down, so that says it all. 

I have just been back on Amazon.com to see what the main negatives were in the reviews and the major gripe was the size. There were other minor ones I did not mention, including the fact that it does not stand up on its own - true, instructions included are not the best - we found a video on Youtube. 

I am not 100% sure this was the easiest way to travel, to be honest. How do you travel with your pram? Is it light enough to just be wheeled to the boarding gate and handed over there?

Happy Hump day.
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Baby's First Travels - Review of The Stokke Prampack