Dover to Calais crossing..

[rara67]

do we need to take the buggy out of the car for our 1 year old? We have DS1 who is 6 and will also take picnic lunch, so plenty to carry! However buggy will be in tightly packed boot so dont know if we can face the in-out-in-out, but DS2 will want to crawl and ferries not the cleanest/safest place.I know it's only 75 mins but I want it to be stress-free (packing for two week mobile home holiday is stressful enough!)

Some ferries have a play area for lo's. Personally I would have thought a buggy was unnecessary, find an area to sit, eat and let him roam a bit.

I don't think you would need the buggy. It would be quite difficult to get it up the 2 flights of stairs from the car deck to the seating areas.

Alpech

Don't take the buggy. We did for our 10m old and found it wasn't needed. We located the childs play area (really just some seating round a tv showing cartoons, although one ferry did have those bead tables which she enjoyed) and DD was happy to crawl around there (a few germs never hurt) and steal the cream off my hot choc. The only time we found the buggy useful was when I had to use the lift to go back down to the car at the end as DH had gone ahead with several crates of beer

Thanks. Think we'll leave buggy and try with hipseat (he's 25lbs).DS1 is high maintenance so DH will have to be on red alert (ie no crates of beer, we can get that when we get to final destination!)