Customer Reviews

J.L. Childress Gate Check Bag For Standard and Double Strollers, Red

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I bought this bag because I was travelling alone with our 5 month old son and I wanted to have the stroller in the airport (3 flights...). After the first flight, it was already torn and by the end of the day it had 4 tears in it, my stroller handle was slightly damaged and I am looking into another option for getting home. I can see how for an umbrella stroller, this idea may be a good option, but I am travelling with a BOB revolution and the stroller is too much for such wimpy fabric. It really needs to be a better quality fabric and have some structure to it, in order to put up with the rigors of airline travel. My decision was based on price and convience. It was convient enough, but it's clear that you get what you pay for.

We bought this to cover our BOB stroller for gate check in. It ripped into shreds on our first short 1 hour trip. Don't waste your money on it.

Edited to add: Bag fell apart and ruptured at the seams on second leg of first journey. It was a complete waste of my money and time. Do not follow in my disappointed footsteps.

******Original Review******

I have a Maclaren Techno XLR stroller and while it does collapse into an Umbrella style fold, it is really rather large and quite long. I had tried other travel bags, but they did not fit my stroller and I was not interested in paying what Maclaren wanted for a travel bag given how little we fly.

I ordered this and am happy to say that the stroller fits well.

Yet, I am only giving it two stars because the bag was not very well sewn and the fabric is far too flimsy for its intended purpose. The seam allowances are ragged and skimpy. The entire bag arrives folded in upon itself in a small pouch which is incorperated into the bag at the top near the opening. The idea of self storage is great, but the storage pouch is very small and requires precise oragami folds to get the entire gate check bag into the small pouch. In addition, the zipper on the pouch is very flimsy and the seams around the zipper were so frayed as to render it impossible to zip up the pouch as the threads kept getting into the zipper and stopping any forward or backward movement.

I wrestled with the zipper for almost 20 minutes and finally got it free. I then turned the pouch inside out and used a lighter to singe/melt the frayed nylon threads and seams as to render them sealed and no longer intruding into the zipper space. Now I can open and close the zipper, but it is still not a smooth process since the zipper is so flimsy.

I really like the idea and size of this bag, but I cannot recommend it for anyone. Frankly, I think I should have gotten the more expensive Maclaren travel bag as I doubt this bag will survive more than one plane trip. Given that the purpose of this bag is to protect a necessary item while undergoing rough treatment, it is inadequate. I would get far more protection if I took along a large lawn trash bag, placed my stroller inside and then taped it up with some red packing tape. For far less money I would have more protection for my stroller, though it would have looked horrible.

I have other accessories from J.L. Childress that were of excellent quality, and so I overlooked the other reviewers claims of shoddy construction. Alas, they were correct. While I will still buy from the company, I have learned my lesson and will stay far away from their items with less than stellar reviews.

We just returned from a trip to Florida and this bag literally saved our stroller! I read other reviews before buying it but here's what we discovered:
1. When we got our stroller back, the bag had black grease marks all over the bottom of it. If it weren't for the bag, our stroller would have been totally destroyed!
2. I'm not sure what "rough handling" other reviewers are talking about because you just hand-over the bag with your stroller in it to the people at the airline gate. It's not designed to be luggage-checked, hence the "GATE CHECK" graphic. We boarded with early family boarding and put the stroller in the bag right before we got onto the plane - it was really easy!
3. I was worried about the bag ripping but when I called the company to check that it fit our Chicco Cortina stroller, they told me that it is made of a lightweight but heavy-duty material and the seams are double-enforced for strength. It worked perfectly fine!
I can't say enough that this bag saved our stroller from damage. It is a definite must when traveling!

We bought this bag for a single Bob revoltution stroller. We got to the airport and surrise the stroller didn't fit. This bag didn't even come close to fitting over the stroller. I am not sure what we will use the bag for now, but hopefully we will use it for something. I have no idea what size stroller this bag would fit on and we double checked the size it definitely said it would fit the Bob stroller.

I bought this for a quick hop from EUG to LAX... it was my first flight with a baby and I wanted to be super prepared, so of course I researched everything I could find on traveling with a baby.

When this arrived, I was very excited. I decided to do a test run on my stroller to see how I could manage getting it in and out of the bag by myself (my first flight with an infant was also my first SOLO flight with an infant, no spouse to help!)

My stroller, a Graco Quattro Tour stroller, did not fit very well in the bag. The front wheels fit okay, the rear ones were really a TIGHT squeeze. It took some wrangling, and I was glad I did a trial run so that I would be prepared to fight with it at the gate.

After folding back up the bag, I went to put it back in the zippered pouch and the zipper broke. I folded it back up just fine, following the original fold lines... and it fit fine. But the zipper was just very flimsy and busted right away. For this reason alone I will be returning it for a refund; an item should not break on it's very first use - especially such a low-pressure usage situation (eg, not in a hurry or rushing).

When the time came to actually use this as intended, I was nearly in tears trying to shove the stroller in the dumb bag with my crying son in his carseat, my carryon, and my diaper bag. Thankfully a helpful fellow passenger came to my aid, because it was NOT easy to do by myself. Then I had to get the stroller to the (lazy, unhelpful!) airline personnel for gate checking. They rolled their eyes and muttered something about "Why do so many people bring so much crap with them" as they walked off.

Upon arrival in LA, I got my stroller right at the plane door - the (much more kind!) crew tried to help me get it out of the bag. It took 3 of us a good 4-5 minutes to actually remove the stroller. And lo and behold, the bag was not torn, dirty, or covered in oil. It looked pretty much just as it had when I had last seen it.

In conclusion? I felt like a grand idiot. Making so many cliched "first time mom" slip-ups, which make things harder than they need to be. I did not NEED this item, and it wound up costing me a lot of time, effort, and hassle. I decided not to use it for my return trip.

If one were flying internationally, or cross-country, or had multiple layovers or something... then I could see justifying the use of this bag - which is why I gave it 2 stars. Or if you had a super expensive stroller or something. But for my purposes and needs, this was extraneous.

We travel by air with young children at least 5 times a year and use this gate check bag most times, for stroller or car seat. We have had it about 2 years. It immediately developed several wear holes where hard edges of the stroller rubbed up against the fabric. The holes in the nylon fabric have not run or become larger over time, so it is somewhat "rip-stop". It is huge, which is why we bought it and it serves the same purpose as a large garbage bag (which was our former method of protecting car seats, strollers, etc) but is reusable and easier to label than a garbage bag. The fabric frays along the seams and around the drawstring, and there is always a lot of long red thread hanging out the hole and getting tangled in the drawstring, as well as a lot of red thread that "sheds" from the frayed area onto the stroller or car seat. The drawstring is super long when bag is closed and it can be a trick keeping it tucked inside the bag so that it doesn't tangle in airport machinery. However, it keeps oil, rain, or snow off our baby gear while it is being loaded/unloaded from the cargo bay of the plane, so we are happy with it. I take points off for durability, but it is pretty inexpensive and you get what you pay for in this case. We will probably use it until it disintegrates and then go back to garbage bags, which are about as durable and much cheaper, if rather unattractive.

I wasn't too confident that it would fit when I purchased it but kept my fingers crossed. And I was right, it didn't fit my side-by-side double stroller.

Our stroller didn't fit well even though the product description said fits Graco strollers. It was very difficult to get over the wheels. The grip handle on our stroller still got damaged during our first flight. We did not use the bag on our trip home. I was disappointed.

He and all of the flight crew were so thrilled about this big giant red bag. They all commented on how easy it will be to spot in the belly of the plane. We found it was big enough for our gigantic stroller so we love it too. Durable and visible. Good bag!