Joie - Chrome

It's not necessary, but it does help. We left our Joie Chrome at home and bought a much lighter Joie nitro for £50. We still needed to put it in hold because it didn't meet overhead sizes but it was much lighter to carry when needed

J'ai une Joie Chrome et je la trouve très bien

we got a joie one, after being gifted an iCandy. the iCandy peach it think it was it able to do a lot of things but is very bulky. our preferred one is the joie pram - sorry i cant remember the name but its a common high street one. its lightweight, but it is also suitable for hand luggage on planes. a strange comment, but we found it folds up well, and sits in a car footwell rather than taking up the entire boot - storage space in an estate car was very tight with the iCandy

Joie travel system is made by the same company as Nuna. They are almost exactly the same thing. I love ours and we saved about a grand getting the Joie instead

I love my Joie travel system. It’s made by the same parent company as Nuna and it’s really nice and sleek looking but much more affordable. We bought it with our completion discount and saved extra money. It’s not a swivel car seat but it’s a latch car seat so it’s very easy to get baby in and out of car. I just bought a diaper bag from Target 🤷‍♀️ I think social media makes you think you need something fancy but really just any diaper bag works

So I went to a store that sells only Nuna and Uppababy and was educated on both brands and how they work. I wanted a stroller that has good tires for walks (my parents live on a rocky dirt road), ease of transport (easy to fold up and put in the car by myself), and a travel system where I could just stick the car seat on the stroller. First of all the sales rep was literally body slamming these strollers and they were staying put and barely moving but still light enough for me to pickup and fold. Parts can be replaced and serviced which I loved since I’m planning on this stroller to last me five years. And they both automatically come with longer warranties than other brands. They are high end with lots of extras- but basic if that makes sense. Everything was easy to do (one button does this, one does that, anything that is light gray is a moving part, etc) just straight forward. There weren’t 8 different things you needed to do in order to switch out a seat or take the sunshade out. Plus there were some cool features like the magnetic buckle on the stroller and the magnets that easily hold the sunshade down on the car seat. Then I went to Target and tried out Joie, Chicco, and Graco. I want to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying any of these strollers. They are all good in their own ways, I was planning on purchasing a Joie system and probably still would if I hadn’t went to that first store. Yes I was a little biased because I just tested out $1600 travel systems. Everything just felt lighter- which could be great for many people. I wouldn’t trust these strollers to hold up if they were body slammed by a sales rep. None of the wheels compared to the ones on the Nuna and Uppababy models I was looking at and I am not sure they would comfortably make it down a dirt road. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to use the strollers and I was scared of snapping something if I twisted or pushed or pulled the wrong thing .They are less expensive and the quality just was not as high and it was noticeable. Because I live in the sticks and will be spending a lot of time alone with this stroller I just feel more comfortable with something more heavy duty. I also found so much other stuff second hand that my budget allowed me to splurge on the travel system. I hope this kind of helped? Want to reiterate I would never tell someone not to purchase a less expensive brand of stroller, but to answer your question there is absolutely a noticeable difference between budget and high end travel systems.

Highly recommend a Joie travel system - it’s made by the same company as Nuna and the quality is sooooo similar, but a fraction of the cost. They have a bunch of different tiers and mix and match car seat stroller combos where you can pick how many features you want, baseless/base car seats, if it can be double or single. Super customizable! Also, European safety standards.

Man. I spent HOURS (more than I care to admit) researching this. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Sooooo many options. We ended up going with a Joie Travel System with a baseless car seat. What I learned is the type of stroller and car seat you need varies massively from family to family. For instance our kid will be traveling a lot and be getting picked up by different people each day from day care. Could be me could be my wife and occasionally maybe someone else. I wanted something that could easily be moved which is why I went with a baseless car seat. It also is FAA approved for airline travel which is big for us. I got a stroller that works from newborn because we love being outside, walking the dog etc and wanted the ability to have an infant compatible stroller without it being tied to the car seat. What works for you may not work for me and to be honest our little one isn’t here yet so I could be completely wrong! I watched a lot of The Stroller Mom on YouTube and also used the baby list guides if you are registered there. Good luck! Edited for clarity

It’s going to be ok! It’s very overwhelming out there when it comes to strollers and car seats but what I learned is: 1. You NEED a travel system, it’s so important. Something that’s easy for you to take baby straight out of car and just snap into stroller and go. 2. There’s a really good travel system (great quality stroller & car seat at target called Joie) that I highly recommend because it comes with a car seat and a bassinet that converts into a toddler seat later on. 3. Only go for the convertible car seat once baby is past a year because it’s more convenient to be able to snap baby’s car seat into stroller while your on the go for that first year.

We LOVED the bassinet/pramette on ours. We got the Joie travel system - not a bad price! So sad when our son started rolling around and we couldn’t use that configuration anymore. ☹️

Go to Smyths or baby shop place and test drive some. We honestly figured they’re all basically the same but my goodness there are substantial differences in handling, weight, ease of use etc. We chose a joie travel system and it was head and shoulders above all the others we test drove. Best manoeuvring, single hand collapse/build, lightweight car seat… easy choice and it was barely £300 on sale.