Traveling to Europe, should I rent carseats

We are traveling to Europe (Germany specifically). I am debating on renting car seats or taking the carseats with us (for one year old twins and a 5 year old). The twins will be in radians which are quite heavy, but I am thinking about checking in at least one carseat at the counter. The younger twin will be a lap child and getting the infant bassinet.

Are car seats in rentals good seats? We will be renting from Sixt. Anyone try the car seat rentals from Sixt?

Thank you!

In Germany it's all forward facing from 9 months. If you rent a seat for the little ones it will be a forward facing one which would be awful.

Renting a high back booster for your older one is far easier and should not be an issue. A HBB offer the same safety as a forward facing harnessed seat.

If you will be doing mostly short drives a booster cushion will offer the same safety as above. Exception would be when your child falls asleep and belt placement will be all over the place.

We have a carseat at Oma and Opa's in Germany, but it is FF only, and good only 'til 18kg (IIRC). Which means our older child will have to be in a booster the next time we visit, and our RF'ing toddler would be FF - ick all around! I don't recall ever seeing a German seat that allows harnessing beyond 18 kg.

Which is why, when we lived there and racked up 20,000km in 6 months (quite a few of those at 180km/h on the Autobahn), we used our Canadian seats!

PS - Sixt is the company we always use. It is either Budget or Hertz in North America - I'll ask my husband to confirm so I give you the correct info

I wouldn't rent seats at all. You don't know how they have been treated or if they have all parts or are expired. Kind of the same thing as buying a used seat, just too many unknowns. There was a program in the US on renting car seats from a rental company. I don't remember the exact percentage, but a large amount of them had fecal matter on then & were moldy. They also looked & some had been recalled.

As a mom, CPST and 3 time traveler between East coast and Germany, the flight TO Germany is not fun what so ever. It's 10 hours of overnight travel. You leave in the late afternoon and arrive at the butt crack of dawn in Germany. I just did it a week ago.

SO..................... take you seats on the plane with you and have your kids use them in their own seats. Yes, it more expensive. However, your kids are already used to riding in them and sleeping in them in the car. They won't *have* to be in them the entire flight, but it will be so worth it.

The last 2 flights I was on, there were at least 6 toddlers who needed to be in seats. They were absolutely miserable, cranky, wanting to run around, not sit in mom or dad's lap etc. Then, I saw 2 who I didn't even know were on board because they were in their car seat buckled into the plane's seat.

Do yourself and everyone else on board who wants to sleep a favor and take your seats and buy your children their own seats. It's totally worth it all the way around.

PS- there are some airlines that will give up to a 50% discount for children but you have to call and ask!

I don't know about Germany, but the last time I was in Greece, the rental car seat was so yucky and flimsy and expired, we couldn't bear to put DS in it for an extra 10 Euros a day.