Ickle Bubba Stomp v2 - Travel System Review

Hi guys,

I am writing this review with a very heavy heart and a lot of regret because I thought I had found the perfect pram/travel system.

As most of you know I had my little girl 5 weeks ago, but we actually started looking for a travel system very early on. I really liked the bugaboo and other similar models but they are all very pricey and I wanted to find something which was in our price range but still looked good! I wanted to write about this pram in my next 'Baby on a Budget' post - but unfortunately I can not recommend it.

We picked the Ickle Bubba because we saw it for £376 (which is way way cheaper than the others) and we thought this was a very good price. BUT when I searched for it on google I also found it online at Costco for £249 which was an amazing deal (it is now £299.99 on their site) you can view it here if you would like. We actually bought the black/black one which they don't appear to have on Costco anymore but they do still have all the other colours and they are all the same and come with all the same things.

I read a few reviews online, there weren't many that I could find, but apart from 1 or 2 they were all good, and even the complaints about it were only minor - i.e it was bigger than they imagined, the chassis was stiff at first, the rain cover took them a while to work out...nothing major. My Nan even sent me a video review of the product on YouTube and it looked great I was super excited.

I purchased the travel system right away on August 22nd so I had it for almost 4 months before our little one arrived on December 11th. The first time I took it out was Christmas Eve and I went for a trip into town and bought a few bits from the shops and just got some fresh air, I really enjoyed it and fell in love with the pram - I was using the carry cot attachment - it fit really nicely in the boot of my grandads car - he has a bit boot but the chassis part would easily fit in the boot of most cars if you were using the car seat attachment. Fast forward a couple of weeks after the Christmas holidays - I did not go out during and when I did we were given lists and I used the car seat - which was fine. I used the pram on about 4 school runs and then used it for another school run on Thursday (14th Jan 16) so less than 3 weeks after the first time I had used it. I was walking my son from school to his gymnastics class - a 15min walk on my own but a 20min walk with him so not too far. About 10mins/half way into my journey I was crossing a road and going down hill towards a much busier road and 'SNAP' 1 side of the handle completely snapped! I would like to point out that there was absolutely no way the pram was being weighed down, I had my nappy bag hanging on the handle but way further down this had approx 5 nappies, 4 breast pads, a pack of wipes, a sample sized tube of nappy cream, a muslin cloth, 2 spare vests, a spare babygro, a hat, a pair of mittens, a pair of socks (all newborn sized so not massive!) and a 500ml bottle of water which was about half full! I also had a spare pair of clothes in the shopping basket for my small 5year old. SO I am talking minimal weight because this pram should be able to hold a lot more than that anyway, and none of the items mentioned were anywhere near the breakage anyway!

Had the other side of the pram handle also snapped my 5 week old baby would have been rolling down hill towards a very busy road! Needless to say I was shaken up a little, frustrated and very upset. I just about managed to do the rest of my journey but it was quite painful as the handle was sharp and the pram was now pretty difficult to control. I then spent the next morning phoning people to try and get my son picked up from school as I could not leave the house with a 5 week old and no pram.

I have spoken to Costco and they are refunding me my money, however, I have to wait 7 days (from Friday) for the pram to be picked up and then a further 5 - 10 business days for my refund.....I have no pram and I am not made of money - so unfortunately my stressful situation will last until I have the refund and I can purchase another travel system or pram!

There are many many good points about this travel system and until this happened I was very happy with the pram, it is light weight, folds really small, handles well and has a massive shopping trolly underneath - but unfortunately after my experience I would not trust the brand again, nor would I accept a replacement as there is no guarantee that this won't happen again!

I would also like to point out that I emailed Ickle Bubba with pictures and told them what had happened, they wrote back very quickly and were very apologetic but unfortunately it does not change what has happened and I can not even bare to think about how bad the consequences could have been had both sides snapped....

Here are the pictures of my snapped pram :(

Thanks for reading
Sophie Jo x