Customer Reviews

Lilly Gold Sit 'n' Stroll 5 in 1 Car Seat and Stroller Combination, Shoreline

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just took my 16-month-old, 22-pound daughter on a plane trip with this seat and the whole trip was MUCH smoother than a previous trip on which I had taken her regular car seat. After a little practice it is pretty easy to convert from a stroller to a car seat and back while the baby is sitting it it, which is a lifesaver for the godawful painful process of getting through security. I could leave her strapped in the stroller until I had all my various items unpacked and on the belt, convert it to a seat, set it up and on the table, take her out, then slide the seat through with one hand; much better than having to hang on to her with one hand while I try to collapse and hoist a regular stroller onto the belt with the other. It steers very easily with one hand, and although it has hardly any basket, the accessory sack that you can buy separately is very roomy, handy, and lightweight, simple to stuff into a small suitcase. The stroller even rolled (snugly) down the Economy class aisles of both Airbus A320 and Boeing 757 planes. Once at our destination, it was a piece of cake to collapse the stroller and toss her into a taxi, strapping her in safely. This stroller is a must if your travel includes much time spent in taxis.

There were, however, three serious drawbacks which prevent me from giving it 5 stars.

- The telescoping handle is somewhat floppily connected to the body of the stroller. This is apparently supposed to be a "feature" as it is prominently labeled "FLEX-STEER (TM)" but the floppiness means -- as the owner's manual tells you -- that in order to get the stroller over an obstruction like a street curb, you cannot do the normal operation of leaning down on the handle to pop up the front wheels and lift them over the curb. Instead, you are instructed to turn the stroller around backward, lift up on the handle to lift the back wheels over the curb, then turn around and proceed. At least once on my trip I found myself crossing a street, and a car turned onto the street and started barreling toward me and I had to try to do this operation in a real hurry. Also both planes I traveled on had large gaps between the plane deck and the jetbridge; there's no room for turning the stroller around in that situation, the only option is to bodily lift the seat and baby with both hands and set it on to the deck.

- As other reviewers have noted, to convert it from stroller to seat and back you have to lift both baby and stroller into the air. This is not a huge deal, but every dang time I collapsed or reset the stroller, some protruding piece of plastic on the back of it created a new bruise on my right arm. By the end of the trip my arm looked like leopardskin, peppered with purple bruises. Good thing I wasn't expected to look pretty.

- When the seat is in the forward-facing position, the seatbelt crosses the front of the seat in a position that is pretty high up the seat. For my 16-month-old, the belt crossed the seat at mid-chest level, pinning her upper arms. If she were a thumbsucker, this would have been utterly unworkable. As it was, I couldn't keep the seatbelt on for the whole flight; she wouldn't have stood for it. Once she has grown a couple more inches, her shoulders will be far enough above the seat belt position that her arms will be able to lie comfortably over the seat belt, but until then, strapping her in to the plane or car is equivalent to strapping her arms to her sides. At least in a plane you get to unbuckle the seat belt occasionally; this seat will not work for her in a car until she grows more.

One other random "pro" to mention: I discovered while hanging around in the airport that, with the wheels deployed but the handle in its stored position, the Sit'n'Stroll has a sixth function, as a walker -- my daughter pushed it up and down and up and down and up and down the concourse (to the annoyance, I am sure, of many harried travelers), getting those little legs nice and tired out for the flight.

We purchased this stroller because we traveled a lot and needed something compact and easy for traveling. After DD turned 7 months old we haven't looked back and have used this everyday. She is now 19 months old, weighs 22 pounds, and it holds up fairly well. I've traveled alone with her and this stroller has made it a whole lot easier! I would definitely purchase this again we couldn't be more satisfied!

Here are my pros and cons:
1.Makes traveling easier.
2.Durable the fabric is easy to clean
3.Well padded
4.Is easy to operate once you get the hang of opening and closing it.
5.When you close it the wheels are covered by the plastic so if they are dirty it will not mess your car's seats.

Cons:
1.Can be a bit heavy once your child is over 20 lbs
2.The wheels are small but are durable enough..difficult to tread in gravel and doesn't have much friction.
3.The foam handles tend to slip off
4.There isn't a sunshade (you would have to purchase this separately from the vendor)
5.The small compartment in the back is not big enough to house a diaper bag
6.No cup holder.

My wife and I travel a lot. This seat has seen London, Paris, and Buenos Aires - all with our little dude riding like a king.

Fly to London, stroll to and on the Tube, use as a booster seat at a restaurant in Piccadilly, stroll around South Kensington. To go home, just pull up the wheels to become a carseat and slide the seat into the taxi. Pull the standard seatbelt over the front and lock down.

This carseat/stroller has taken a beating and it is still going. Highly recommended!

Pros:
Versatility
Don't have to chech the stroller at the gate
Resilient
Looks very comfy

Cons:
A bit hard to pull wheels up/down for my wife
Barely squeezes down the aisle of the plane (watch fingers)

Impressive engineering. It earned its value during the first trip.

I purchased the "Sit'n'Stroll 5-n-1 Combination Carseat/Stroller" from your Amazon store for $249.95

I was very disappointed with the item for these reasons:

I am 6' 1", and the stroller handle is too short for me to use comfortably - I have to stoop

The unit is very hard to convert from a car-seat to a stroller, requiring two people, and many tries. The unit converts too easily back into a car-seat, and it actually collapsed back into a car-seat with our child in it!

The unit offers little or no head support for the child, and our child's head falls forward in the car seat or stroller modes. Although she was belted in, her head fell forward while she was sleeping, and banged into these sharp plastic protrusions that stick up from the side of the seat, causing her to wake up screaming. We are lucky these points did not hit her eye.

There is no washable seat cover, and the material, which is hot against the skin, collects dirt easily.

It is also too big/heavy for use by frequent travelers who need to repeatedly convert and store the unit. It does not fit down an airplane's aisle. Too bad if you also have a roller bag and diaper bag.

The "removable" sun-shade is not easy to install, and would require tools to remove.

Finally, the seat belt/latch is hard to install and easy to forget, as it goes over the child, instead of restraining the seat from behind like a regular car seat.

We will be very wary about such multi-function devices in future.

The idea is great - but there is a huge flaw. You cannot secure this well in the rear facing position! We have a 2000 infiniti I30 and a 2006 lexus gx470.
In both cars after installation, the seat easily tips backwards ( baby's face can be smashed by car's seat ). granted most of the force in an accident is forward, but there is always some whiplash effect - i can't imagine what would happen in a wreck - we can easily flip the seat with one hand!

the instruction manual recommends the use of a "pool noodle". that is unacceptable - there is no way to reliably make that secure. in addition, i don't wan't to carry some foam roller in addition to the seat. takes away from the whole portability idea.

if your child is going to be forward facing and you use the tether anchor as well as the seat belts- i think it would be ok. but, think twice if your child requires a rear facing seat.

Last month I bought a Sit n' Stroll for traveling with our 18 month old. It appeared to be the perfect solution for taking taxis to and from the airport and getting around cities.

Frustratingly, this is not the case. As you'll see below, the manufacturer's representative has even admitted in writing that they're receiving numerous complaints because the Sit 'n Stroll turns out to be incapable of handling either sidewalks or planes.

In our case, it became almost inoperable after a single use. We closed it per the instructions and checked it at the plane's gate as you do with any stroller. Even though the wheels should be protected once folded into shipping position, they turn out to be so fragile that one of them was damaged while in the plane's hold. This made the Sit 'n Stroll VERY difficult to open and close and gave it terrible wobble when pushing it.

When I contacted the company to arrange for a new wheel, I received an email saying wheels would not be available for 2 months due to an unexpectedly high number of customer complaints.

Here's a word for word quote from the manufacturer's email: "Unfortunately wheels are a hot commodity right now, people seem to be hitting a lot of curbs, potholes, and airline baggage handlers are just being extremely rough."

In other words, expect the Sit 'n Stroll to break if you bring it on a plane or push it down a normal city sidewalk.

Even if the wheel hadn't broken, it is REALLY difficult to open and close the stroller as you have to lift it and your child into the air while simultaneously sliding down a bar. I consider myself to be strong, but it takes me and my husband to do it.

This car seat is ugly, there is no doubt about it. We bought it as a second car seat/airplane stroller so that our nanny could take our daughter to the park in her own car without needing a car seat installed full time. It takes a little getting used to, especially since your kid will look really strapped down (pinned at the shoulders) Hannibal Lector style by the straps that attach to the car. The straps are necessary for the proper functioning of the seat but our daughter looks a little funny strapped down like that. But guess what, she doesn't care one bit. She likes to roll around in the seat when it is a stroller but it does look like a La-Z-Boy on wheels. It is one of the ONLY seats acceptable for the airlines (special writing in red on the seat). We'll be giving it a try over the x-mas holiday.

We bought this product to ship to Australia as it was not available here and we wanted to use something like this in several travels overseas this year.

I was very cautious worrying that it might not be all that it was written-up to be, but I am pleased to say that it is as good as described.

I haven't found much trouble at all opening and collapsing it while Baby is in it, which other users have found. It's very easy to put in and out of the car.

I was also concerned about the way it rides very low and has small wheels. In using it, however, I found it quite smooth and just simply does the job.

It's not intended as our primary car seat, but serves well as our secondary one, as intended.

Finally, I'm pleased to say it receives very positive looks ; or perhaps that's just Baby in it (-;

I'll give it 4 stars until I run it through its full paces overseas!

As others have mentioned, this is a compact option for air and train travel, allowing you travel without having to pack a stroller AND car seat. That said, I would not purchase this item again because of the weak construction of the stroller portion.

The name - 5-in-1 - is a bit disingenuous because 4 of the options (rear facing, forward facing, booster seat, airplane seat) can easily be applied to ANY car seat.

Another reviewer mentioned this is "not a stroller I would use on a regular basis" and I couldn't agree more. The wheels are so poorly put together that navigating simple rises in pavement or the space between the jetway and the place are extraordinarily difficult. We've probably used this on 8-10 trips and the front wheels snapped off when exiting a plane this last trip - effectively making this a 1-in-1 sit 'n' drag. We ended up having to buy an umbrella stroller anyway, nullifying this product's main benefit, compactness.

I have to say that I'm totally confounded by all of the positive reviews of this product when to me, it seems to be totally unsafe.

I was thrilled with the sit-n-stroll concept; especially since we travel so much - stroller and carseat all in one - anything to reduce the volume of stuff we have to lug on a plane and this seemed like a great solution. Although I cannot discourage people from buying this more, I want to be fair and give pros and cons:

Pros: It actually makes a very nice, comfy stroller. It's a nice set of wheels, easy to stear and our daughter seemed really comfy in it.

CONS: Long story short, with LATCH or regular belt, the seat works by attaching the belt OVER the seat - so you strap the baby into the five point harness and then run the belt across the seat (kind of like a booster seat for older kids but just a strap across). We were so uncomfortable and concerned about our daughter's safety that we went out and bought another car seat within an hour of landing at our desination because we didn't want her in the car in that thing. First, the way the belt landed, it went either too high up under her arms, so if she wanted her arms free, the belt was shoved up in her pits, or it pinned her arms under the belt and the belt was right at her neck! The belt is only kept in place with some hard plastic and if you were in an accident and the plastic broke, I think the belt could come up right under the neck. If you didn't attach the belt super firmly (like you need a 260 lb. male to sit on the seat and tighten it down), the whole seat could come loose and the baby would fly around in the car attached to the carseat.

I have never panned a product before, but this thing to us was just plain scary. Maybe if you're kid is taller than ours(30 inches according to the Dr. last week) AND you feel that a belt across the seat holding the seat down is safe, then okay, But I think it's a dangerous product. Even the LATCH straps across the seat and is not attached to the seat frame. Bad Bad Bad.