Renting strollers in Orlando is a fairly recent phenomenon, but baby strollers and this town go back a long way together. This is because even before the development of Walt Disney World Resort, people came to this part of Florida for the balmy climate, even during winter, and the healthy fresh fruit. And many of those people brought young children with them, who had to be pushed in something that we would call a stroller in these days, even if they had a different name back then.
If someone had had the bright idea of renting strollers back in the days immediately after the Civil War, when the town really began to grown and develop, the "strollers" would have been called perambulators (pram for short) and would have been pushed by nannies, at least in households wealthy enough to own a perambulator. About the only thing that these earliest strollers had in common with today's models was the hood, which was curved to keep sun and rain of a small child's face. The old perambulators were designed so a baby could lie flat in them, and they often doubled as a crib. As children got older or as the family got added to - which happened quite a lot in those days before the contraceptive pill was launched onto the mainstream market - older children sat at one end of the pram while the baby lay tucked up asleep at the other end. And usually, a bit of shopping or other luggage got tucked into the pram under the blankets as well.
This basic lie-flat design of pram was used for small children for quite a long time. The design of pram did change, though. Prams had a detachable crib area, meaning that a sleeping baby could be transferred from the pram to the car easily (though this was highly unsafe - the crib couldn't be strapped in like a car seat and the baby was an "unsecured load"). Strollers like this were still in use when Disney first released his famous cartoons, and people around the country, even if they weren't quite renting strollersyet, certainly wheeled the prams to the cinemas to take young children to watch Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Snow White.
But there were a lot of things that weren't quite right about these early prams, even if they were easy to walk with and babies could sleep in them while you carried the luggage about. You couldn't see the pavement where you were wheeling the pram, thanks to that big hood. If a small child did want to sit up and look about, the sides of the pram weren't very high and falls were a real risk. And the big old prams were heavy and hard to manoeuvre around corners or down stairs.
And so the designers came up with a new development in strollers - the proper stroller rather than the old pram. Many of the parents who are now interested in renting strollers were probably pushed around in one of these strollers in their early childhood, and this form of stroller was hitting the sidewalks around the Western world at about the same time that Orlando got its biggest attraction - Walt Disney World Resort.
These new strollers had a lot of advantages over the older prams. They were lightweight, making them easy to push. The wheels could turn around corners. The child inside the stroller could sit upright and see what was going on, rather than getting bored and grumpy. And these strollers were able to be folded flat so they could be transported in the back of a small car easily - which was a big consideration during the Conspicuous Thrift movement of the 1970s that saw small cars like the Mini and the VW Beetle sweep to popularity.
But work still needed to be done on these strollers, and even these lightweight models wouldn't be considered by anyone renting strollers. Brakes and safety harnesses were added fairly early on in the proceedings, as the need for these was obvious. But these strollers only had small hoods, and they could only be used by people taking small steps. They were a bit flimsy, so you could forget trying to carry two children in one, even if you could get hold of a double stroller. And if you wanted a place to stow your luggage and did the obvious thing and hung the bag of bits on the handles of the stroller, it had a dangerous tendency to tip up. And the strollers only had a few positions, some of which saw children sleeping in a very awkward position.
And so we come to the 21st century and the design of stroller wanted by modern families renting strollers. The City Mini model of baby stroller in our rental fleet has all the advantages of the old prams - a big hood, sturdy construction and room to pack the luggage - and the advantages of the strollers we were pushed around in during our childhood: easily folded, lightweight and an upright position with a safety harness and brakes. What's more, the City Mini is designed with higher handles - no bending down and sore backs for tall dads - and they can be pushed at a fast pace, which is great for parents with long legs or who want to walk in a hurry (or even jog). And the seat area of the City Mini baby strollers can go back into a reclining position that's comfortable for a toddler taking a nap after a busy day at Disney World. And even if you need a double stroller when you're thinking about renting strollers, the double City Mini is still easy to manoeuvre, folds flat and is lightweight enough to push about with ease.
Stroller design is still undergoing change, like everything else in life. Disney World is also undergoing change and development. But one thing's for certain: people will be coming to Orlando and will be renting strollers for a long time to come.
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