Have Stroller Will Travel: Travel With UPPAbaby G-Luxe

At Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World

Stroller Reviews For Travel With Baby…

In spite of having a bit of a stroller problem, I never really found it necessary to purchase a second stroller specifically for travel. And depending on your destination and before airlines started changing their policies (ahem, American Airlines), most foldable daily-life strollers are just fine for travel. We traveled a lot with our UPPAbaby Vista, and other than being a little heavier and bigger than most, has really been a dream to travel with. But with our latest trip being a cruise, and knowing most staterooms are kinda in the New York City hotel room size category, I wanted to try out a good, lightweight stroller that would be ideal for cruising. The nice people at UPPAbaby sent along a G-Luxe for us to review. Our first outings in it were just for the morning school run, and two things surprised me. First – we had so many comments on how snazzy the stroller was. Second – pretty much every toddler being strolled in an umbrella stroller was in a G-Luxe. Maybe I’m losing my touch but I had no idea the G-Luxes were so popular – I thought Maclaren was top dog when it came to lightweight strollers. In our neck of the woods, UPPAbaby Vistas have definitely overtaken Bugaboos as the stroller du jour, so maybe they’re dominating all aspects of the stroller market. Who knew?

Well, now I can guess as to why – the G-Luxe is easy to push, easy to fold, easy to carry with the attached strap, and easy to adjust if your strollee nods off.

A Nap On Deck 11 Of The Disney Fantasy

I am not that familiar with using an umbrella stroller. Other than my ill-fated attempt at the mythical $10 cheapie stroller, we’ve stuck to full-size around these parts. My kids were always comfortable, and in spite of the somewhat bigger weight or size, travel with our everyday strollers was really no more effort than using them in our daily life. The G-Luxe took some getting used to for us – but now that we have it I can’t see us bringing our biggie with us for travel anymore. That could also be due to the fact that our kiddos are getting bigger (**sniff!**), but I was skeptical about our kids’ comfort and our ability to maneuver it. The G-Luxe passed with flying colours. On our first day using it, Bub napped in it for over three hours, and had decent sleeps in it throughout our trip. Gate-checking it was a breeze. I fastened all the straps and removed the cup holder. It does come with a travel-bag in case you are concerned about damage.

Now my husband loves the Vista because he’s super tall and he can push it with no issue. And even though the handles don’t extend on the G-Luxe, he could push it no problem – just not with a bag hanging off the handle.  And that was our main issue with our first outing with an umbrella stroller. Storage. We’re bad in the sense that we load up our stroller like a trolley when there’s not a kid in it, and the basket on the Vista is so enormous, you get used to having that kind of capacity when you’re out and about. It took a while for us to pare down our belongings, as well as to get smart about how we lugged them. When there was a body in the seat, it was ok to hang the diaper bag off the handles. But as soon as said body wanted out of the stroller, we got adept at swinging the bag into the seat so as not to send the stroller flying. At only 11lbs, the Uppababy G-Luxe is very easy to cart around, but it is obviously not used to managing a diaper bag at probably twice the weight!

By the end of our trip, on days we weren’t constantly folding and unfolding it (easy, by the way – which is good when using Disney’s bus transportation services where folding your stroller is required) I got pretty adept at packing our diaper bag in the G-Luxe’s basket so our essentials were within easy reach.

UPPAbaby G-Luxe

We’re late to the lightweight, umbrella stroller game, which is kind of a shame. My kids are big for their ages, and at almost-three Bub is almost 50lbs – the weight limit for the G-Luxe. My fingers are crossed that he continues to grow lengthwise instead of weight-wise for the next little while. Although my daughter is over that weight and at six is also over being in strollers, we did wheel her around in it from time to time in order to recover from various blisters and tired legs from long days at Walt Disney World 😉

Depending on how much or the type of travel you’ll be doing, I’m still not entirely convinced that you need to buy a travel stroller. However, this trip with the UPPAbaby G-Luxe has shown me that it’s a small luxury that can really make your life a little easier while you’re tripping around with a baby or toddler.

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