I recently acquired this stroller because I had my road trip coming up and wanted something light and portable for long walks in Key West where space on the sidewalks is a commodity. I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money. There were a few things I was looking at:
- It needed to have a sunshade.
- The ability to recline was high on my list because the baby loves to fall asleep in strollers and I didn’t want him to be in a weird position.
- It needed to have a fairly decent storage space to store my diaper changer and any extras we may have with us.
This stroller had everything I was looking for and at $79 it was definitely in my price range.
We got the box home (after a smallish mishap) and assembled it. It was very easy to get it together. We just needed to snap on the wheels and snap in the shade and it was done! The baby fits nicely in it, and he seems pretty comfortable.
He fell asleep a few times in it on our trip so he must’ve been comfortable. It was very easy to recline. My travel stroller has a strap that you pull and the baby drops down. This one, there are two buttons on either side that you press and down he goes, but you can control the speed at which it reclines so it doesn’t feel like he’s falling backward. There is a fairly large sized basket underneath that you can get from the back and sides. It also comes with a cupholder that can be moved from the top for parents to use, or the bottom for baby to use. There is also a storage pouch on the back where you can put things like your keys, wallet, etc. and keep them out of direct view. Also, the crotch strap has this neat thing where it can be kept covered. This is great for kids that like to push buttons and end up releasing themselves. I thankfully don’t have that problem (yet, but it’s only a matter of time) so I can’t say too much more about that. The best thing about this stroller is that it has a carry strap for when it’s folded. So say you’re going to Disney and want to take a smallish stroller, you can fold the stroller up, and put in on your shoulder so if you’re taking Disney transportation instead of having to deal with juggling a big stroller and the baby you just strap this sucker onto your should and then the only things you’ll have to juggle are baby and your bag. This is such an awesome little perk and I don’t understand why all umbrella strollers don’t come with this strap!
Now for the cons. There are two problems, and one of them I’m not sure is really that much of a problem. The first problem is that during certain times of the day, the sunshade is worthless.
This picture was taken at 9am, so the sun was not exactly directly in front of him, but it wasn’t the full-on overhead sun. Not ideal, because as you can see, the sun was really bothering him and it just so happened to be in the direction we were walking so there was no avoiding it. I had been looking at another stroller, The First Years by Tomy Jet Stroller that was about $20 cheaper than this one (but didn’t recline and it didn’t have that awesome carrying strap), but the sunshade on it clipped on to the bar so it was technically adjustable up and down on the stroller. Something like that would’ve been awesome on this stroller. It’s almost like my little guy is still too short for the sunshade on this stroller. In a year or so it may be better, because he’ll be taller, but right now it didn’t work very well.
Now for the other problem. Since I was getting a light umbrella stroller, I figured I could keep it in my trunk so I didn’t have the big travel stroller taking up space and should we happen to go to the mall on a whim or somewhere else, I could use what should’ve been the compact umbrella stroller to zip the baby around. Well, this is how it fits in my trunk.
I should’ve known this would be a problem when the box didn’t fit in the trunk, but this isn’t exactly space saving. Honestly, the big travel stroller fits much nicer. I have a 2000 VW Golf, so it may be that it’s a smallish car, but I thought this stroller would fit better. Again, I don’t know if it’s my car or that I just had the wrong expectations of an umbrella stroller since I’m a first-time mom and have never had to deal with baby gear before, but this wasn’t exactly the type of trunk fit I was hoping for.
All in all, for my purposes though, the stroller worked. We were able to zip around Key West. We were able to fold it up nice and small in the hotel rooms and keep it out of the way, the baby seemed comfortable enough in it that he fell asleep, so even though it’s not totally perfect, it worked great!
