Gate-check or rent? A stroller quandry.

[Shellyred8]

With Disney's one-provider policy for stroller rental delivery now, what are your thoughts on gate-checking a stroller you already have vs renting one from the airport vs having one delivered to bell services?

We own a bob revolution, and I'm tempted to just gate-check it and save myself the $50+ and dealing with a rental counter or bell services.

Looking at scooterbug's offerings, WHAT are the "single pro" and "single lite"??????

If you end up bringing your own with you, be aware that the airlines may let a little air out of the tires for the flight. On the one trip I've been on where we took a Bob double stroller this happened to us. We couldn't figure out why the tires were so "sluggy" when pushing the stroller around. When we finally stopped at the wheelchair rental place at one of the parks to put air in the tires, they told us the airlines will sometimes let a little air out of the tires. Who knew?!?!?!?

 

[natebenma]

I want to give a little warning about stroller theft. I was with friends who brought their stroller from home for the parks. It was a fairly high-end ride. It was taken by someone while we were in the meet & greet for Olaf at Hollywood Studios in October. We checked with the CMs in the area and they had not moved the stroller around. It is a very small stroller lot there and we looked through all of the strollers there several times. I doubt it was taken in error by someone and if so, it was never turned in to lost and found. We overhead another family who were talking about their stroller going missing 30 minutes after we discovered ours was gone. And later in the trip, a family at Magic Kingdom mentioned their stroller was taken. The one we ended up renting came with a tracking system in case someone tried to take it.

 

[greenmom2b]

We use a stroller bag. Our December trip, it was raining when we arrived on first flight into MCO. Southwest took a long time to bring strollers up to the gate. Mine was the only dry one. There was a new mom with newborn with completely soaked car seat and full stroller as she didn’t have stroller bag. It’s well worth $15 and wrangling the bag to keep it dry and relatively clean. (I know I feel like I look like I’m wrestling trying to get that thing in there!) I felt terrible that she was faced with that so early in the morning. But I sure was glad I had prepared! Plus coming back home we threw the wet stroller cover and wet ponchos in a bag inside the stroller bag and didn’t have to keep up with that on plane.

 

[Beachmom0317]

We have traveled to Disney a bunch of times with our littles and I’ve traveled solo with my kids twice as toddlers. The first two times we gate checked our stroller and used a bag. I’m happy I did because there were a couple big drops of what looked like black oil or something on the bag. I would bag the stroller before I boarded so I wouldn’t hold up the line, but it was a pain trying to chase little kids, watch luggage and stroller. Last few trips we’ve just used the Tula in airport and rented from Kingdom strollers and that felt much easier for our family personally.