more car questions?

I believe that I have decided to get a Mazda 5, after much deliberation and research. My thing is I need to know how much rear storage it has. Myself, my best friend, my 5 year old and my three year old are going on a 15 day road trip out to Vancouver Island. The biggest problem we are going to have, is that before we head into interior BC we are going to be picking my sister up, and her, he should be about five months old son. We are going to make several small trips, before the four of us are going out to the island. I would like to know if anyone knows in the back of the van if, we could fit 2 frontier xt's, a convertible car seat, I am buying one for this trip for my nephew, we will have to see, three adults. We are going to have to put two full size stroller's a diaper bag, if not two, and snacks for everyone. Is this a stretch? We are hoping to do it with one vehicle, to save money and gas. Any ideas, and what type of car seat would work for the littles member, and only boy of the group. Instead of taking stroller's I may order a carrier, for my three year old, and wear her on my back, and get some kind of carrier for Logan.

I'm not quite getting how often X amount of people are gonna be in there at any given time. In any case, diaper bags n snacks aren't too big a deal. You can stash the between feet, etc. It's the strollers that are the problem. Once the 3rd row is up, you really can't put much beyond a diaper bag in the trunk. A real thin umbrella stroller at best but no full sized anything.

3 carseats, 3 adults, plus 2 strollers - no luggage other than purses and diaper bags?

You might be able to do it, but only if you ignore the projectiles. I hauled my friend and her four kids with every single spare inch of room taken up with their luggage; we had trash bags of their clothes literally stuffed in the rear cargo area all the way up completely covering the rear window, each kid had luggage or a trash bag under his feet, as did my friend in the passenger seat, and we had the area between the 2nd row stuffed with boxes nearly to the roof. (It was an emergency, ugly custody issue, her dh had tried to kidnap the kids.) It technically worked, but projectiles were a major hazard, and no one was comfortable.

I know SOME strollers will fit in the cargo area (rear glove-box, I call it) but not all. If you can fit one stroller in there, you might be able to fit the 2nd one between the 2nd row seats, and put the diaper bags under the feet of the child in the carseat in the 2nd row.

My kids can fit their four backpacks in the cargo area, if we stuff them (they have big backpacks). I can fit two backless Turboboosters side-by-side if I arrange them so they're on their "backs." It's the depth that kills it - it's really shallow. A jug of milk fits with room to spare, but not enough for another jug - you have to line them up and I can get 6 in there side-by-side.

Does that help?

If we end up buying a mazda5, we'll be getting the roof racks for just this situation. Around town, I'd have plenty of room, as 2 kids will be in school full time next year and 99% of the time, it'll be me and dd. But for travel, we'll need a roof rack. We'd probably get a hard carrier to put our stuff in on top and only keep necessities in the car during long trips.

Yeah...with all 3 rows of the 5 up, there is almost no "cargo" room in the rear/hatch area. I could fit a Chicco Capri umbrella stroller in the space and that was about it. I used to place small bags on top of the stroller and it's be fine...but other than that, not so much.

I had an '08 and, sadly, when I was pregnant with #3, we realized it just wouldn't work for us anymore since our oldest would be in the 3rd row fulltime (which meant both seats had to be up because I wasn't comfortable with cargo area stuff rolling or "sitting" next to him). We also spend a lot of time in the car and do a lot of our vacation travel by car, though...and I never loved the idea of a roof rack/box/luggage, especially with highway travel (center of gravity). But I'm a little crazy like that.