Bee List

I have mine on order, fully paid up, I just need to wait and wait and wait for the UK release. Someone clued me in on the fact that, though I might save bucks getting it shipped from the USA, if anything went wrong, I'd have to pay to send it back again, and we get ripped on postage(it'd be about £90!). Soooo, that put me off both that and the Cameleon-by-part idea.
I can't wait for the Bee, I ordered yellow, but I'm thinking of changing my mind. Any suggestions or is yellow cool? That silver sunshade looks sweet too.

Sorry Melissa, but if you don't mind me saying, if you are looking for web consensus on whether yellow is cool, you're missing the point.

It does suck though that you have to pre-pay your order in full before you can get your hands on that puppy, or bee as it were.

[yeah, whether yellow is the coolest or the lamest because IT LOOKS JUST LIKE A BEE! is rendered moot by the insect-like weirdness of the whole stroller itself. Also i'm actually a little surprised at that full pre-pay thing. Is that from a US retailer? -ed.]

I missed out some of my post there(baby night-waking based distraction), I'm certainly not looking for web approval as such on my colour choice, or I would have also been posting seeking approval for the pink and orange I'm having together on the Cameleon.
What should have come after thinking of changing my mind was a bit of rambling on my part about yellow making my baby possibly look jaundiced/its fly and insect attracting qualities. I LOVE the yellow,(perfect for its name/winter visibility), the khaki to me is too invisible for me given that I will be pushing it a lot of dark English winter nights, I like the blue and also the red but yellow's not going to look so good if it gets covered in little flies. I didn't mean cool, as in "will I look cool with it and be the hippest person in my town?"- I want one and I don't care if it is hated by anyone else, I just meant is yellow okay (re flies etc) and if so, I'll just stick with what I previously decided as I'll probably think I've changed my mind three times before it arrives anyway. I'm thinking of customising a Canopy if I can figure the pattern out.
Does anyone have yellow on their Bugaboo? Does it reflect and make your kid look ill/attract insects?

Regarding "missing the point", the Bee has a point now? You can have one only if you're not having one to be fashionable/one of the design elite? It is to me, just another kid pushing device to make my life easier. And yes I did want advice on my purchase, but not on whether it makes me "trendy" or not...I already paid for it so that's irrelevent now anyway.
Yes, I like the design, but I don't want to be defined by my ownership of one. It fits the needs I have at the moment, and I would order one still if it was uglier( and I'm using a Graco at the moment because that's what meets my needs and is available), due to the durability and customer service offered by Bugaboo. I just sold three of my expensive, attractive pushchairs on ebay because they weren't practical for me. If it was just about looking good, I'd have kept them.

Re the mosquito net, I like it, I saw pics of it used sans canopy and it looked better, to me anyway. The site in question had it down as being a sunshade though, in addition the canopy one as they had that also.
I didn't mind the paying in advance part, I had the money now, I may not have had it later. What DID suck was paying about $700 for it versus the US price. Grrr! Apparently ours will have had more safety features put in/tests run, which is why the higher price. I was tempted to say so what if the kid gets her finger trapped? Just kidding. Seriously.

[ah, interesting questions I, for one, have never thought about. I guess if the quality of the reflected light inside the stroller is a concern, I'd go with pink, at least for white people. As for the flies, I would think that if brightly colored strollers attracted an above-average amount of flies or other bugs, we would've heard about it by now from Cameleon owners. This could just be disinformation put out there by the embittered makers of less intensely colored strollers *cough Graco cough*. And as for the UK prices, the extra testing doesn't automatically make it safer; it's just that the UK's specs are not synched with the EU and thus require wholly separate design fixes and testing. -ed.]

Buga Boobee. Heh heh heh.

(Couldn't help myself. Sorry.)

Nice plug "ed"!

Here's a follow up to my Bugaboo Bee-xperience! I had originally pre-ordered a black Bee but the wife over ruled me and we were lucky enough to grab their last khaki (thanks manager!). We wanted to make sure we got to play around with the Bee before dishing out the $529 for it so we had them take it out of the box and pop it up. This gave the other moms who were inquiring about the Bee a chance to see and touch, ooh and ahh. The store manager gave us all a quick demo of the features and next thing you know I'm out the door with my new "babywhip"!

I could have been mistaken as one of the guys in the Bee video, running around the house without a baby inside the thing (wife is due in October). But I just had to get my hands on one being the gadget geek that I am. And the Bee is exactly that; a versatile, minimal, multi-functional and good looking gadget. Mom on the other hand loves the size, weight and how easy it is to pop open and close. It's a win-win situation ;)

And for those looking to connect their infant seat to the Bee... word on the street is that they will not be out until Spring 2008. I have Maxi Cosi Mico on pre-order as well and was concerned about not having that capability of attaching it to the Bee. Bugaboo responed to my inquiry regarding this and their response was:

"We are manufacturing and selling the Bugaboo Bee car seat adaptors, but as the Maxi Cosi wasn’t approved for sale until mid-summer, we are waiting on the approval of our car seat adaptors in the US market... The adaptors will be launching with the Bee in October in Europe. North America is the first part of the world to get the Bee. Hopefully the adaptors will be approved in the US before then."

So I guess you'd have to order the adapters in Europe if you want them earlier.

Cheers!

Hey Joah, would you please post the folded dimensions of the Bee? I haven't been able to find any specs other than the 20" width. Thanks!

The Bee is lovely but it has two major flaws that made me buy a Maclaren Volo instead. The damn thing is nearly 20 pounds _and_ it only carries a kid up to 34 point something pounds. The Volo weighs 8 pounds and carries a 55 pound kid and folds more compactly. I suppose if I were where I was last November, I'd buy the Bee instead of the Frog that I wound up buying. I love it but it's anything but convenient to fold....but I still think Bugaboo needs to trim the weight by half on the Bee. Why spend 550 bucks or so to get something that is better served by a 150 dollar umbrella stroller?

[we found the frog-volo combination to be almost perfect. I really think the Bee is meant to go up against more full-range strollers like the Techno, or the Peg Perego or the Zooper, not an ultralight like the Volo, though. -ed.]

[in response to the editor's note above :) ] The thing is that the Bee doesn't have the all-terrain wheels and though it has the 'system' features of baby nest and car seat adapters, it still needs to be lighter and, at least if you plan to walk places other than a shopping mall, you're still going to want the frog to get through the snow and such. Basically, the Bee is a 525 dollar umbrella stroller with lots of design and features except the ones that an umbrella stroller is bought for...the weight or lack thereof.

The Bee is lovely but it has two major flaws that made me buy a Maclaren Volo instead. The damn thing is nearly 20 pounds _and_ it only carries a kid up to 34 point something pounds. The Volo weighs 8 pounds and carries a 55 pound kid and folds more compactly. I suppose if I were where I was last November, I'd buy the Bee instead of the Frog that I wound up buying. I love it but it's anything but convenient to fold....but I still think Bugaboo needs to trim the weight by half on the Bee. Why spend 550 bucks or so to get something that is better served by a 150 dollar umbrella stroller?

WHAT HE SAID. i don't get it either.

[Maybe the problem with the Bee is the problem with the whole traditional, all-in-one mall stroller segment it targets: it's either too much stroller (vs. Volo) or not enough (vs. Phil & Teds or Frog). The truth of the Volo is, a lot of the time, you can do just fine with a basic umbrella stroller, of which the Volo is the best. -ed.]

I´ve recently found two stroller systems, which are in their concepts similar to the bee, but - at least in europe - aren´t that expensive. The look is not as funky as the bee, but I guess some people would prefer that.
I give you the links, where you can find the strollers. I hope it doesn´t contravenes to your policy.

1) Bebe Confort Streety
2) Chicco 'Trio for Me'

(Please note that I´m not a native English speaker, there might be some mistakes in my comment.)

[the Streety actually looks a bit like the Bee, even. That Chicco is EUR579!? exchange rates are crazy, but $800 is crazy-squared. -ed.]

Yes, exchange from euro to dollars is not advisable. Backwards on the other hand all the more ;-) (I consider to buy the Bugaboo frog in the US. With shipping it will be about 580€. (The Gecko costs 630€) Aside from the fact that the frog isn´t available in Europe anymore.)
- The Streety looks indeed like the BEE. I would even go so far as to say that Bugaboo was a little bit copying... My opinion.
- I expect the price for the Chicco will reduced by the time and you get a car seat and the baby carrier with it.

Reponse to Heather: When I measured the Bee folded it was just about 17" wide and 30" long.

[and easily 10-11" deep. -ed.]