Egypt - car seat situation

[jodesxx]

We are going to Sharm El Sheikh in November. Will have a 5 month old and 2.5 year old at the time. I'm very worried about the car seat situation for the transfers from airport. Has anyone got experience/suggestions?

What kind of transfer do you have booked?

Could you take your own car seat? Or maybe book a bus transfer as accidents are slightly less common in buses?

Hire a car and hire one with car seats.. won't you need a car to go sight seeing and get around etc?

Take them with you

Absolutely take your own seats.

The airline will probably let you take a car seat per child as extra luggage. But a taxi driver may not want to faff around clipping them into Isofix points. And if you are in a shared transfer by bus then there may not even be any seat belts.

Sometimes, though, you just have to take a minor risk or two when you choose to travel to places that have different norms from what you are used to. If you multiply the chances of having an accident in a taxi on any given day by the chance that the child seat will make a big difference to the injuries that occur in that specific accident, you will end up with a very small number. Most accidents in modern cars cause relatively little harm anyway.

Don't get me wrong, child seats are a great idea and they save dozens of lives every year, but that's out of billions of car journeys. Not having one for one trip does not make you a bad parent and does not expose your child to a major risk of serious injury.

Bring your own seats.

Thanks.

It'll be a taxi that we get from the airport.

I will deffo take the newborn carrier but not sure about 2.5 year old. I'd rather him in car seat but a lot bigger to travel with. What are the chances of getting a transfer service that has a child car seat in sharm el sheikh?

What are the chances of getting a transfer service that has a child car seat in sharm el sheikh?

I priced up transfers with a few companies. Both hoppa.com and suntransfers.com asked for the age range of the passengers (0-2, 2-13, adult). Hoppa didn't immediately show what they then do about child seats but Suntransfers allowed me to rent a seat "Suitable for toddlers weighing 9-18 kg (approx 1 to 6 years)". Probably the 5 month old would need to travel on your lap, as they will have done on the plane.

Egypt is absolutely horrendous in terms of driving and road safety. Most very young children just travel in the front passenger seat on mum's knee.

Book with a decent transfer company as the car MIGHT have working seatbelts, and take your own car seats.

We’ve had real issues in Egypt with taxi drivers having removed the actual seat belts - in otherwise very nice and well kept cars. If you’re booking a taxi transfer you may need to double check before you start loading your luggage on.

If you multiply the chances of having an accident in a taxi on any given day by the chance that the child seat will make a big difference to the injuries that occur in that specific accident, you will end up with a very small number. Most accidents in modern cars cause relatively little harm anyway.

I do think you can reasonably take the attitude that the chances of an accident are pretty low. (Not everyone would be happy with that as a risk). But in the case of an accident, child seats do make a substantial difference, especially at the ages OP's children are. It is unlikely to be a very modern car with top safety features in Egypt.

Yeah in Egypt the majority of taxis and Ubers have no seat belts in the back. The drivers remove them or fit them underneath the seating.