Car seat - Portugal

[cvchap]

I'm off to Portugal in May with my six month old, what the hell do I do about a car seat? We have to get a taxi from the airport to the apartment. What are my best options? A) Bring our car seat and ask the kind Portuguese taxi driver to strap it into his taxi. Would the car seat not get bashed in the hold of the plane and will the taxi driver think I'm mental? How can I be sure that it's strapped in properly (at home I used an Isofix) B) Hire a car and hire a baby car seat? How do I know whether the car seat is safe? I can't think what's the best way around this! I think maybe packing our own car seat, but I'm really worried it'll get bashed in the hold of the plane and this will compromise it's effectiveness in an accident. There's no way my son is going anywhere near a car without being strapped in. Is there a really obvious answer? I've looked into trains, but they are so infrequent it won't really work! HELP! Any tips much much appreciated! x

Hi Cvchap

I've holidayed in Portugal twice or three times a year since my son was born, he's now three. My parents live there, hence the frequency.

Although they have a car & car seat, we've hired cars ourselves. I always ask for a suitable/age appropriate car seat from the car hire company and have always found them to be safe. The company we tend to use is Faro Car Hire.

I have seen other travelling families bring their own car seat and haven't seen any obviously bashed one coming through from the hold.

Happy holidays!

Can't comment on Portugal per se, but we're having a similar dilemma for our holiday to Spain later this year.

One thing I will say though is car seats have to pass European safety standards, so you can be pretty sure that the car hire companies will have a safe seat. It may be a cheap seat, but it will still have passed the safety standards to get out of the factory.