Little Miss Loves her Xplory

Apr 4, 2010 by cafebebemama

The Cafe Bebe household is a happy place right now…we are the proud recipients of a glorious new Stokke Xplory pushchair.  Little Miss loves her Xplory pushchair.  Those of you who know me, know that I have quite the collection of pushchairs at the moment.  Currently, we are in possession of 7 (I think) pushchairs!  It’s not that I’m going out and BUYING these pushchairs mind you.  I review pushchairs for MadeForMums website and that generally means that we end up keeping the pushchair in the end.  It’s been amazing being able to test all sorts of pushchairs and see what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve often thought that pushchair designers need to employ groups of mums to participate in the research and development phase of pushchair design.  There are so many things about various pushchairs that are brilliant but they rarely come together to make one outstanding pushchair.  I am continually amazed at the “shopping baskets” that are installed under the seats of pushchairs that you could maybe fit a folded newspaper in and not much more.  Why do they bother I say?  And as far as canopies go, what’s the point of having a canopy that only blocks out the sun and weather if it’s directly overhead or behind you?  Part of why we chose our Baby Jogger was because of the brilliant canopy.  It comes down far enough to block the sun from your child’s eyes while still allowing them to see out.

I believe that I have found the pushchair that ticks all of the boxes.  The Stokke Xplory is AMAZING!  I’ve admired it from afar, looked at it in stores, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over it at The Baby Show and marvelled at its versatility.  There’s a funny little video of it as well…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rIHh-qykak[/youtube]

The video was created by As Clear As PR who represent Stokke.  Sian To is the genius behind As Clear As and is a massive promoter of all things Stokke.  Stokke Lovers ran a competition a few weeks ago where we could submit any review we had done of a Stokke product and be in the running to win a Stokke Xplory.  I sent in the link for my review of Little Miss’ Stokke Tripp Trapp which is a firm favourite in our house.  Then, on Thursday Stokke Lovers announced the 5 winners of the Stokke Xplorys.  Guess who was one?  Squee!!!  As we live quite near to the lovely Sian, we took a little Saturday jaunt to her neck of the woods to collect what is now our new favourite pushchair.  Sian was a lovely host and her gorgeous daughters (and fluffy doggy & TALL kitten) entertained Little Miss thoroughly.  I think maybe Little Miss wants to be either Model Girl or Funny Girl when she grows up!  We came home with a gorgeous new pushchair so I was quite thrilled as well!

The Stokke Xplory is a brilliant pushchair.  There’s not much I can say that would be negative about it other than the price tag which is pretty high.  However, the Stokke Xplory should be considered an investment piece.  You will never need another pushchair again.  Period.  It’s lightweight, stylish, unique, colourful, versatile, easily adjustable, comfortable, highly functional, smooth and FUN!  Little Miss sits up nice and tall and is sitting well supported as well.  The canopy on the Stokke Xplory is perfect!  It comes down just right so Little Miss can still see out yet be protected.  We can put her in either forward facing or parent facing mode (she might really get cross with Parent facing at this stage of her life though) and could even push her right up to a table of any height and use the Xplory as a highchair if need be.  There’s no “shopping basket” so to speak but there is a brilliant and massive bag attached to the front plate of the chassis.  It can be expanded enough to store up to 4 shoe boxes (so I’m told!) so a trip to the shops should be a doddle.  All of the fabric wipes clean and can be removed and thrown in the wash which is always handy with a toddler.

After arriving back home yesterday I popped Little Miss in the Xplory and went for a tool around our village.  It was one of the most pleasant test drives I have ever been on.  Little Miss was thoroughly happy and I was really enjoying our walk while the birds were tweeting and the sun was shining.  It was our own Disney movie!  Am I ridiculous to be so excited about a pushchair??  Maybe to some!  I can’t wait to take the Xplory out on a big walk around Stamford and put it through its paces there.  I know it will perform admirably.  Check out Little Miss in front of our village church…doesn’t she look lovely?

Thank you so much to Sian, Stokke, Stokke Lovers and whatever good vibes allowed us to win the Stokke Xplory!  We’re extremely grateful and Little Miss absolutely loves her Xplory.