Travelling to Hawaii from Australia with 4yo, 2yo and 1yo

U

Unregistered

Guest
Hi, we are travelling at Easter time for 2 1/2 weeks to Hawaii and I am wondering what best to do about transporting the kids to and from airports (we will have 3 return trips to airports all up). Initially i was contemplating bringing our carseats over (we have baby in rearfacing carseat, 2 yo in forward facing carseat and 4yo in booster seat). All our seats use the seatbelt and tether going to rear anchor points. It is a tight squeeze at the best of times and I am wondering if we just:
(a) arrive in Honolulu and get a taxi-van/limo/shuttle to Waikiki and grin and bear it (it seems very hard to get 3 carseats from anyone, and on enquiring i'm told taxi's etc don't require child carseats legally), sort it out later and hire a car later once we're rested
(b) hire a car and depend on car-hire company getting the combination right and also risk not knowing how to install US carseats if they're not actually installed by the carseat company. I don't really like this idea as we will more than likely have 3 tired kids and trying to sort out carseats on our own could well be a nightmare
(c) do option (a) and then buy some carseats there to use in a hire-car. We are staying on Kauai for a week, and hiring a car there, so will need them anyway. If we do buy carseats, are they likely to fit into say a Toyota Camry? In Australia, i have bought slimline seats as we would be flat out fitting 3 big seats in any car

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
ADS

Maedze

New member
Welcome to C-S. org :)

Can you give the sizes of your three kids and tell us the child restraints they're currently riding in?
 

astromom

New member
We've rented seats before - the car rental company would NOT install them for us- they said it was a liability issue. At the time, we had to try two different seats from the rental company because the 1st just wouldn't install in the car we had. So I don't recommend renting seats.
 

ketchupqueen

CPST and ketchup snob
Staff member
I've had one good experience with renting seats (in an emergency), and many BAD experiences (before I knew how much easier it was and how incredibly safer it was to just supply my own seats.) I do not recommend it at all. Also, I've never heard of a rental place that will install the seats for you, you have to do it yourself, and generally you are paying more than it would cost to just buy the seat if you rent them by the day or week.

Now, I know Hawaii can be difficult as far as selection, pricing, etc. However, I'm sure they have something that would be appropriate, and you can probably find a combination that would fit 3 seats in the car (if we know ages and weights, we can help with that.) The issue is, you really don't want to even be travelling with them unrestrained for ONE trip. Is there any option for bringing your seats at all? What airline are you flying? Is there someone who can stay with the kids while you go pick up the rental, drive to get seats, and come back with seats in it?
 

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