Plane ride #4.
Two as lap kids (16 months & 21 months)
One with paid tickets, but no car seats.
Time to knock out the final combination- Paid tickets, with Car Seats.
We were flying to San Francisco, which happens to be a direct flight from Hartford, believe it or not!
TT Dad had a trade show in San Jose, and we decided to join him, since we would be facing a few more time constraints when the kids started nursery school in the fall.
Our trip was broken into two parts- We’d start in San Francisco for a weekend before heading to San Jose for the trade show, on Monday.
Preparation Mode began with researching fun things to do with toddlers in SF and booking our hotels. We made our list of touristy things we’d like to do, and figured since we only had a couple of days, we’d just focus on the big ones!
We did the same for San Jose, even though I was planning on spending more time in the pool than anywhere else!
On this trip, we rented a smaller SUV, since they are cheaper than minivans to rent, and we didn’t have the dog to worry about. With the car rental, we’d be bringing our car seats, and using them on the plane. This would be the first time we did so, since we had no use for car seats in January in Disney, and attempted their first flight without car seats.
All safety concerns aside- I was not a fan of the flight without car seats. The kids just weren’t old enough to really understand (or really, care) that they needed to wear their seat belts at all times. Both flights were late, so we thought they’d sleep- but they didn’t. I have no doubts that if they had been in car seats, they would have been sleeping.
That leaves us with stroller arrangements. At two and a half, knowing I’d be alone with the kids for a good portion of the trip, I wanted to have a stroller available, but we were not excited about having one more thing to lug through the airport. Solution: Rental. True to TT style, we put this off until the last minute, and found ourselves calling quite a few companies to find one that would have a double jogger for us! Never fear, We eventually gave ‘Cloud of Goods’ a call, and we were delighted to find they did have a stroller that fit the bill.
From our very first interaction, Cloud of Goods was nothing but spectacular. It was so easy to reserve the stroller, and they were amazingly communicative, as well as accommodating. I received a call within 24 hours, to confirm the details of our request, as well as a drop off location.
CoG was willing to meet us by the rental car counter, and kept in touch until the drop off was successful, even though our flight was slightly delayed.
They contacted us again approximately 24 hours before our scheduled pick up, and didn’t blink an eye when we asked to make some changes.
Flights booked, Hotel, car, and stroller reserved. –
List of touristy things ready to go.
Added bonus- Auntie A, Uncle N, and baby cousin were going to be going, also!
Remember that village I have? There are a few of them that live in California, so I also reached out to see if I could steal a few moments with them. Plans were being made, and I was really excited!
We were flying out on a very early flight- take off was before 7am! We packed up, and prepared for an earlly wake up.
Here goes nothing!!