toddlers and car seats in coaches on holiday

[KL07]

I've posted this in travel too....

We've booked a package holiday this summer. My son will be almost two when we travel. The transfer from airport to resort is only short - 30 mins or so - but is by coach. I may be being over cautious but am worried about the safety aspect of taking a toddler onto a coach with no suitable child seatbelts available, even for a short journey. I wouldn't take my son on a coach here in the UK and sit him on my lap with no seatbelt, even for a short journey like this one, so can't feel comfortable doing it abroad.

I've made one online enquiry about a private taxi transfer with a suitable car seat and the quote is £120 return which isn't insignificant.
Does anyone know if car seats or restraints can be fitted in a coach like this? We can't take his car seat with us as it's ISOFIX only and rear facing. What do other people do? Does anyone know of a car seat, even if forward facing, that would fit in a coach with a lap belt only please?

[ilovepowerhoop]

we just sat them on the coach seat tbh with the lap belt. I think there are 1 or 2 seats that fit with a lap belt but that would mean taking it with you which would be bulky. I have never seen anyone on the holidays we have been on with a car seat for the coach. Would you really take a car seat to go on a bus journey in the UK?

[s88]

Britax evolva can be used with the lap belt , we use this seat for my dd on the plane

[ilovepowerhoop]

I'm pretty sure the Evolva can only be fitted with a 3 point belt (we had an evolva 123 in the past)

[ilovepowerhoop]

the Britax Eclipse can be fitted with a lapbelt

[crashbangboom]

The only seats in UK that are able to use lap belt are britax eclipse and prince.

[yesnoyesnoyesno]

I took our car seat but the transfer coach turned out not to fit them at all. The gap between seats was too narrow

[AliceMum09]

I,

Will he even be allowed as seat to himself on the coach? As an 'infant' he won't have a seat on the plane will he? If it's peak season (ie school holidays) the coach might be full and you won't even have a seat to put the car seat on.

We had this problem in Majorca last year. My children were 7, 4 and 13 months when we went, at a push I would have allowed our 7 year old to travel on a coach without a seat but not the younger two. Luckily we booked with Thomson, they allow you to decline parts of the package deal and reduce the cost of your holiday if you do (ie. just have the free 15kgs baggage allowance instead of paying more for the 22kgs, don't have a meal on the plane etc). We declined the coach transfer, so that knocked some money off the cost of the holiday which we then used towards a private transfer with a company we'd used before that provides child seats. The did have a RF seat for our youngest, but it was along the lines of a Britax First Class Group 0+&1 seat, not an ERF one.

I'm glad it's not just me that thinks of these things and won't allow my kids to travel without a seat. We went to Disneyland Paris a few weeks ago, on the train to London and then on the Eurostar - we had to get a taxi to Sheffield train station (less than a 10 minute journey) but I insisted on Trunki boostapacs for the older two and the infant carrier for our youngest (she was 23 months at the time, but is very petite! She only weighs 22lbs now, and has just been 2, and her head still has another inch until she reaches the top of the seat). We carried the infant carrier on the train, but very helpfully the Premier Inn in London that we used for the night before and the night we got back from DLP stored the seat for the 4 nights we were away.

The taxi driver commented that during his 5 years of driving a taxi I was the first person to use a car seat for a baby!