Traveling with the UPPAbaby Vista Stroller

Please see our update to this review, here !

Recently we took a road trip to the Grand Canyon and Santa Fe.  We took along our Vista stroller from UPPAbaby.  The stroller comes with both a bassinet and a regular stroller seat.  We also bought the car seat adaptor which allows you to use the stroller with your car seat.  The stroller frame itself weighs 18lbs, which isn’t light, but considering the big wheels, shock absorption and easy steering, isn’t that heavy, either.  It folds easily and didn’t take up too much room in the back of our mid-sized SUV.

The stroller seat and the car seat adaptor can both snap in both ways – facing you or facing forward.  You can fold the stroller with the seat attached, but only if the seat is facing forward.  Since our daughter is still a baby, we like to have her facing us, which means that you have to take the seat off first.  It’s not hard, but it does take two hands.  When the bassinet, seat or car seat adaptor are snapped in correctly there are two little red circles – one on each side of the stroller – which turn green.  We find it really nice to know that everything’s safe and ready to go.

Before this trip we really found it annoying that you could snap the car seat adaptor in “the wrong way”.  We couldn’t imagine wanting to have it facing forward.  Then we went for a walk along the Rim Trail at the Grand Canyon.  Our daughter had fallen asleep in the car (a rarity for her).  We didn’t want to wake her, so we snapped in the car seat adaptor.  Only thing was that the sun was on our backs, making the sun shade useless.  A quick turn of the car seat adaptor and she was in total shade!

Although we have and use the Phil and Ted’s travel cot, the bassinet made sleeping at the hotel super easy.     Had she been younger we would have used it in the stroller during the day, too.  We used to before she became much more interested in looking out at the world around her.

The Vista has a large basket which makes it easy to take all the stuff you need with you for the day.  We didn’t even need to carry a backpack this time!  The back of it can be pushed down to allow you easy access to everything, too.

The only thing we really wish UPPAbaby would make is a mesh sunshade.  In fact, when we first bought our stroller the mesh bug screen that is included was described as being for the sun as well.  It turned out to be only SPF 5 and is now no longer described as a sunshade.  Even though the fabric sunshade is very large and extends way out, sometimes the angle of the sun just makes it hard to get complete coverage.  We wind up covering our daughter up with blankets which means that she can’t see and doesn’t get air circulation which makes it very hot and uncomfortable.  As you can see in the photo above we tried a stroller umbrella with limited success, but a mesh sunshade would be perfect.

All in all, we were really pleased with the way the stroller performed.  It’s super easy to push, even on surfaces that aren’t or are poorly paved.  The basket is large and carries a lot of stuff easily.  The bassinet gives you an easy solution to sleeping in the hotel.  The car seat adaptor and the forward or rear facing seat all give you lots of options to keep your little one shady and comfortable.  But best of all – it’s all machine washable!  All the fabric can be taken off and thrown in the wash.  So when you get home from your trip a little grubby, it’s no problem!  We’ll definitely be traveling with our UPPAbaby Vista stroller again – we’ll only be sorry that our little one will soon be too big for the bassinet!