We bought a stroller.
With less than three months until the due date, it was probably time for us to start buying a few things; however, it was a different deadline that finally pushed us to action. We are going to New York soon, and we realized that we were running out of time to have an online purchase shipped to my brother's place before our arrival. After test-driving a few models in stores yesterday, we finally placed an order with amazon.com for the stroller of our dreams.
You'll never guess which one we bought (unless you've already looked at the title of this posting) -- the Zooper Hula.
In a previous stroller posting, I obsessed over the Combi Flash Ex Universal Car Seat Carrier, which allows you to convert an infant car seat into a stroller. I had planned to get one of these compact frames for the first 6 months and then move onto a light umbrella stroller later on. However, during a recent trip to a baby equipment warehouse (called Kiddie Town), I test-drove the super-compact Combi Flash Ex stroller I and found it wanting. It steered like a rusty shopping cart. I was still very impressed with the way that it folded down (amazing!), but I could not buy a stroller that worked best when collapsed. The salesman at the store suggested that we look at the Zooper Hula as an alternative.
The Hula is perfect for us. It's a good-quality, light umbrella stroller AND it accommodates ANY brand of infant car seat. It's almost as light and compact as one of the bare-bones frames, because it's nothing but aluminum and fabric, but it has all the functionality of one of those full-sized plastic-laden travel systems.
When we first saw it two weeks ago, we were dissuaded by the higher price: Kiddie town lists a sale price of CDN $289 -- a total price of CDN $329 with our wonderful 14 percent sales tax. Fortunately, amazon.com has it listed at US $199 (CDN $233), and there are no shipping fees or taxes to have it delivered to NY. This seems like a good value to us, because we only have to buy one stroller (instead of buying a universal frame as well) and the Hula comes with a bunch of matching extras: a zip-up fleece sleeping bag, a sunshade, and a rain cover. Sounds like a winner.
With that decided, we tried to find an infant car seat to go with it. Amazon.com sells the Hula in three colours: black, red and beige. We had decided to buy the Graco Snugride (since it is very safe and quite lightweight), but Graco has decided to create some of the UGLIEST patterns for their seats, and those are the only ones that are stocked by stores in Ottawa. We went to Sears, the Bay and Babies R Us and found that Kiddie Town still had the best match, with the brown and black Blackwell Model. It clashes somewhat with the beige Hula, but it looks much better than anything else we could find. We didn't buy it yet, since there's no rush, and Graco might suddenly create a perfect match for our stroller in the next three months.In the meantime, we get to sit and worry whether our shipment will make it to New York before we do. I could have paid $15 more to guarantee it, but that would cut into our $96 savings. You see, if you want to stick it to the man, you have to be willing to take some chances.
8 comments:
The name intrigues me. In all of your research did you ever come across an explanation for the name?
Anonymous: look who's talking about mysterious names.
Zooper has a bunch of strollers, all named after different styles of dance (ie: Salsa, Waltz, Tango, Disco, Twist, Boogie).
I have no idea what Zooper means.
Word up, Sister, take it to the man!!! Makes you almost wish the GST was still 7% so you'd be saving 15% in taxes instead of a paltry 14%.
One other thing: did you consider the title "Zooper Hoopla" for this post? That's what I thought the title was when I first read it, as it seemed like a good fit for your post - not that I'm trashing your actual title...
Don't be too casual about the car seat if you can only find it in one place. We had to search high and low to find the matching seat to our stroller because it was only in one store and a sale wiped their inventory out. So we had to phone all the locations, and of course being a department store spent hours on the phone with incompetents. In the end we finally got one from another province I think. Anyhow you have been warned! You think 3 months is a long time till you have to wait for one of these stores to replenish their stock!
Not to shatter the mystique, but I was "anonymous" above because I forgot to type my name before hitting "enter," and I couldn't figure out how to undo what I had done. This sort of incompetence may just qualify me to answer phones in department stores.
I like the idea of naming strollers after dances. It's original and even a little exciting!
Hey D, We have a Zooper Joggin stroller not sure on the name, its fancy smanshy if you ask me, anyways onto why im posting, Im only 5'9" tall and I have pushing the folding strollers cause i find that I always end up arched totally over the thing to reach down to the little stubby handles... have you checked out the height of the handles on your new HULA... Just wondering if their high enough for a Taller Gentleman such as yourself... If not i guess you could always attach some cheap mtn. bike bar extensions... Oh well thats all for now.
p.s. here is a link to our webpage if your ever in the Internet neighborhood.
http://jonandjen.logisity.com
later
Hello! I hope you check your comments. I am in need of a replacement stroller ASAP, and am considering the Zooper Hula. I need it for traveling, as well as enduring long days at baseball tournaments. How is yours working out? It is very odd that the three blogs I now enjoy are all written by Albertans! Just thought I would share some BC love.
Julie,
We've been using the Hula for almost a year now, and here's what we like/don't like about it:
LIKE:
- accommodates most types of infant carseats
- Comes with tons of extras (sun shade, rain cover, winter bag
- It folds down really easily and doesn't take up much space in the trunk
- Looks very nice
- Rolls pretty well and has shocks on all 4 wheels
DON'T LIKE:
- Cargo basket in the bottom doesn't hold very much, so we hang the diaper bag off the handles in the back
- The handles could extend a little longer for someone my height (6'3")
- The seat reclines partway, but not all the way back
We've really liked it, but I don't have any experience doing extensive travel with it, or taking it to baseball games. I think it would do well, but I don't want to give you any guarantees...
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