Virtually anywhere and everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve had our Uppababy Cruz within reach. After two and a half years, and over a thousand miles on the ground, we take a look at how it’s worked for us.
Strollers are one of the first Big Purchases you make when you have a kid. Even if you keep yourself to a low budget, it’s a purchase you think a lot about. You think about the size – will it fit in the back of the car, will it hold the things we need? You think about the features – does it fold easily, does it have a good hood, is it easily-cleaned? You think about the durability – will I have to replace this soon? And of course, you think about the price – how much should I really spend on this?
We bought the stroller a few months before Spencer was born, taking advantage of what seemed like some good Black Friday deals. We of course got some recommendations from friends, which produced a short list of usual suspects (Uppababy, BOB, Baby Jogger, and Britax, among others).
Ultimately, the Cruz fell into the right spot for us. It’s light, maneuverable, has a handle tall enough for me to use comfortably (I’m 6’2″), has lots of storage space, seemed well-built, and had a well-regarded warranty. Oh, and it looked great too. We thought about its big brother (sister?) the Vista, but we didn’t think we needed the extra expandability or features, not to mention the extra weight and extra $300.
As a bonus, we also got an Uppababy Mesa car seat, which plugs directly into the stroller (no adapter needed), and they seemed to work together well. So this combination sealed the deal, and off we went with our For-Use-In-the-Future™ stroller and car seat combo.
The Early Days
When Spencer was a newborn, we virtually always used the stroller with the car seat. We didn’t even end up buying the newborn insert for the stroller, since we never used the actual stroller seat.
This was a pretty convenient arrangement. If we needed to use the car, we dropped the seat off the stroller into its base in the car. When we were done in the car, we’d just press a button, lift it out, and drop it onto the stroller frame. Easy breezy. And since the car seat was sized and designed to protect an infant, it fit him perfectly throughout the time we used it.
As a bonus, there’s a great cover Uppababy makes for the car seat, providing sun and wind protection while still looking good. We used to get stopped pretty regularly around San Francisco and asked what the cover was and where to get it. Even if you don’t use the Mesa car seat, it likely fits a lot of other models too.
Little did I realize at the time that this car seat arrangement made the stroller WAY heavier. We walk a lot – often 10-15 miles per day on a weekend – so this wasn’t a minor thing for us. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but pushing that thing up all the SF hills definitely explained why our family got into the habit of having me do most of the stroller pushing.
Winter is Coming
When Spencer was about six months old, we moved from San Francisco to Boston. At the same time, we decided to graduate him into the normal stroller seat to give him a little more room. Of course, I also figured out at the same time just how light this stroller really is, when you don’t have a car seat attached to it, but, yeah, I’m obviously over it.
Still, we didn’t stop walking, especially now that we had a new city to explore, and the miles were really adding up. Daycare was a little under a mile away, and we walked him to and from, in addition to long weekend outings. Still, the stroller was great – it always carried everything we needed, Spencer had no trouble sleeping in it, and it continued looking great.
A few months later, we were lucky™ enough to experience the snowiest winter in Boston history. Of course, bull-headed as I was, I was determined to continue walking Spencer to daycare, and the stroller just seemed safer than me carrying him in the snow.
But pushing a stroller through all that snow was no easy task. Several times, I had to lift the stroller over my head, kid still strapped in, over 6- to 8-foot snow banks. I was glad it was lighter at that point, for sure.
Pushing the Cruz down snowy streets was a pain. I regularly wondered if we should have a jogging stroller with bigger wheels, and maybe we should have. Or maybe it’s just unreasonable to ask any stroller to deal with multiple miles per day in 108″ of snow.
Besides my back, one casualty of the winter was the wheels. They were starting to split and peel, which made enough sense – we put miles on them, and there were some tough conditions. Since wheels weren’t easily orderable on the Uppababy store, we sent in some photos, and they instantly just sent us replacements under warranty. Nice!
Off to the Stroller Hospital
Toward the end of the winter, we made a trip back to San Francisco. We actually did a fair amount of flying with Spencer so we’d bought the stroller-carrying bag Uppababy makes, mostly for the extra warranty coverage it provides. We’d gate-check the stroller, stored in the bag, and pick it up gateside when we got off. So it seemed worth the $80 (at the time) to protect the investment during all those flights.
It turned out to be worth it. On the way back from SF, we found that the stroller had been damaged in-flight. The frame was a little bent, and it didn’t fold/unfold properly, and the canopy/hood was torn. We sent in photos, receipts (hold onto them!), gate-check tags (hold onto them!) to Uppababy and they shipped out replacement parts really quickly, with few questions asked.
So, twice, we took advantage of Uppababy’s warranty coverage. You don’t want to have to do it ever, of course, but it’s good that they’re so responsive. On the other hand, it’s a pain in the butt to have to keep the documentation around. Even though we’d registered for coverage when we bought the stroller, we still needed to produce receipts. I’d lost ours, but was lucky that Giggle still had it in their system and was able to send me a copy. Dear Uppababy: just let folks give you proof when they register, and then just use that. Don’t try to hide behind administrative “gotchas.”
Those Darn Wheels
We made it through another year without incident, the stroller holding up well and doing what it needed to do, looking basically like it did when we got it.
Of course, winter came again and wreaked havoc on our wheels. This time, we were out of warranty, so we paid ($50, if I recall) for another set of wheels. @Carol had placed the order, and Uppababy actually lost it, so they sent us a cup holder as an apology, which was nice enough. Aside: the cup holder is kinda lame. For us, it didn’t fit in a consistent and convenient spot on the frame, and so we ended up not using it.
So we had another set of wheels, which we put on after our second winter (around the two year mark in total). Things were back to feeling like new.
Until summer came around, when the wheels started splitting again. Seriously? This is our third set of wheels, and now we’ll need to get a fourth.
Maybe this is the kind of thing that just happens with all strollers. Like razor blades, you just need to replace them and that’s that. But at $50 a set (our front wheels have been fine), it’s kinda a real expense. Do we get a one-year warranty on these wheels, which we bought six months ago? Not sure yet, but obviously we’ll find out soon.
The Final Calculus
Despite an airline injury, snow mobility challenges, and some really annoyingly brittle wheels, we’ve really loved the Cruz, and I’m pretty sure we’d buy it again.
A big piece of the equation is the storage. The basket underneath this thing really holds a lot, and we often end up carrying stuff for our friends, who can’t fit nearly as much under their stroller. It’s easy to underestimate how important this is before you actually have a kid, but it makes a difference.
But also, we love its size. It’s light and narrow, fits in almost every store we might want to go into (I guess I sometimes want to avoid going in, so it’s a double-edged sword), and easy to maneuver.
Could it fold up more easily? Sure, but it’s not hard to fold, and it fits snugly-but-easily lengthwise in the trunk of our midsized car, leaving the other half for all the other crap we have to schlep everywhere.
Finally, our Cruz basically looks the same as the day we got it. It’s clean, thoughtful and well-designed.
Unlike Spencer, who just spit milk in my face.
