anyone travel in Europe with a convertible carseat?

[smokey26]

Hi. A friend of mine is going to Europe for x-mas/new year's with her 11 month old. I know lots of people like the Scenera/Scenara for an extra travel seat (she has the marathon and it's too big to bring). Are these likely to fit the variety of (possibly smallish) European cars that might be waiting for her there? How easy are they to install quickly (I would say that she is not likely to be very mechanically inclined)? I don't suppose the LATCH hooks will be there? Is the Roundabout much easier? Cost isn't a big factor, but it seems kind of crazy to recommend that she buy such an expensive seat for one trip if the others are perfectly good.

She told me she is thinking of trying to arrange for seat rental at destination through a car service that would be driving them or through the hotel concierge somehow (they'll be in Paris, Zurich and Berlin) but this to me sounds like it would be a bit (a) iffy - esp since she'd be doing it at 3 different places - something's likely to go wrong at one of them and (b) probably extremely expensive - I can see totally imagine it being $50 a day or something! I don't suppose anyone has done this successfully?

Thanks in advance!!
Julie
mom to Madeleine 01/05

[TylersMommy]

I cant really tell you about the installation of the seats, I'll leave that to the experts. But I can tell you that I live in Germany, and if the baby is RF, tell her to bring her own seat! I personally wouldn't rent a seat from any car rental place either in the US or Europe. Especially with being so far away from home it would be awful to get stuck with no car seat in a foreign country. And it doesn't seem to be a big deal to have convertible car seats here, so she would probably get a FF only seat anyway, if she rented one. From my understanding, the Cosco Scenera seems alot lighter and smaller than a Marathon, so I would rather spend the $40 for that seat than risk the Marathon not fitting right in a small rental. And yeah, if she rents an "economy" car, it will be pretty tiny.

HTH!

Christie

[american_mama]

I used my regular Graco Comfort Sport in Europe for my daughter aged 18 months to 2 1/2 years. I was totally happy with it. It fit on two flights taken within Europe (i.e. smaller planes than a transatlantic one), although it was a tight fit once. We used it in a couple different rental cars and friend's car, plus our own. It is easy to travel with, not too heavy and has a carry handle at the back.

I saw car seats being rented at a facility in Spain (where car seats weren't even required until very recently) and it was not trustworthy looking.

LATCH does exist in Europe and is called Isofix, I believe. I do not use LATCH here or there, so that's all I know about it.