Phil and Ted's Vibe

I have to admit that, between my wife and I, most of the time I'm the cheap one.  The only time that changes is when we're looking at big purchases.  Four bucks for a  "frap" at the coffee shop?  No way, I've got blender at home.  My wife on the other hand, she loves those things but wouldn't dream of making one at home.  So, it should be no surprise that I was the one that ended up pushing for a Phil and Ted's Vibe stroller.  Not just any of their outrageously priced strollers, but their top-of-the-line model.  And so far it's just about the greatest thing ever.  Just about.

Let me start you off with the cons.  The list is looks long but it's minor stuff, and it bears keeping in mind if you're planning on blowing a ton of your hard-earned dough on one these suckers.  First, although it's light for a twin stroller, it's heavy when used for a single child.  It's much wider than our Combi and if you add a cup holder (which was twenty bucks extra!!!) then forget about shopping in cramped stores such as Wal-Mart.  The thing is big, and even folded without the extra seat (which was almost 100 dollars more!!!!) it just about fills up the trunk of my car.  It takes some practice and some patience to fold the thing, although it is mostly, but not entirely, easy to do.  It attracts a lot of attention wherever you go, so that's good and bad depending on your personality type.  The finishing work is not so great, but I guess that's what happens when you outsource your manufacturing to China and fail to supervise it properly.  Our stroller came with scratches, chipped paint, and sharp edges right out of the box.  Nothing other than cosmetic, really, but disappointing when you spend that much on a stroller.  Lastly, their customer service left much to be desired.  They were nice and all, but pretty much said that I was just out of luck and I should be happy that they allowed me to own one of their products.  Sure, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of my exchanges with them.  I did buy it online from a distributor, though, so maybe that was the problem.  The distributor flat out refused to exchange it and Phil and Ted's simply gave me the run-around and kept sending me back to them, even after I sent them copies of all of the emails from the distributor.  So, they lost a lot of points in my book after that.  Would I buy another Phil and Ted's Vibe?  Absolutely.

And now I'll tell you the good parts.  It looks cool!  I know, it's a stroller.  If you don't have kids you wouldn't understand, but if you have kids, you should be getting jealous right about now.  It just looks neat.  People want to stop us and take pictures of the stroller.  Crazy, huh?  Again, that's only impressive if you have kids.  Loaded down, with two kids, a diaper bag, a camera bag, and a full basket it's still easy to push around.  It's even easier to maneuver than our Combi, and that one only seats one kid.  It's probably the lightest and most compact of the twin strollers out there, and the padding on the seats seems pretty comfortable, but you'll have to ask the boys about that part.  I like being able to use it as a double or as a single.  It's useful in just about any situation, as long as there aren't any crowded spaces or narrow aisles.  The pro- list is short, but it sums up everything that's right about this stroller.  It's the lightest, most compact, and most adaptable double stroller that you can find.  We debated buying it for months, we shopped around and tried out other double strollers, but nothing matched the Phil and Ted's Vibe.  I probably wouldn't buy it online again, but I'd buy another one of these.  I even wish we'd bought the basic stroller when we had our fist boy, just to have gotten the most use out of it.