Easy to Use Stroller

We received this stroller as a gift before our baby was born. We’ve been using it for nearly 11 months and we have gotten a lot of good use out of it.

The Stroller
We have official donned our Evenflo Aura Stroller the “Cadillac.” Why? Because this thing is huge! At the tallest point which is the middle of the handle bar is about 39 inches in height. The height on the stroller is wonderful, it is very easy for me to push and for Daddy push and is basically at a perfect level. The base however (wheels included, the stick out on each side) is about 32 inches from front to back and about 10 and half inches wide. Does anyone shop at Spencers? Not with this thing you will! Well you can you just get stuck a lot and sometimes run into shelves and displays. While the stroller is quite, um, large it has a lot of great features and is honestly a great stroller.

Features For Mom and Dad
The great thing about the Aura Stroller is that the makers had us in mind. The stroller offers a great handle bar system. Two bars on each side of the stroller allow you to push with both hands or you can use the One-Hand Steering bar which extends from the center of the handle. The stroller maneuvers smoothly and even absorbs some of the shock from bumps in the sidewalk, street, etc. One-Hand Steering is a great feature in large areas like a mall that isn’t crowded or walking in a park where traffic is minimal. One-Hand steering is however a bit more difficult to steer. The stroller has a tendency to veer off on uneven grades and the control is left completely to your ability to shift weight with one hand, which can be slightly difficult. Another great feature for Mom and Dad are the two cup holders in front of the handle bars. The two cup holders feature grippers which holds your drink of choice in place. The cup holders work great for us on smooth surfaces (like in a mall), but when the roads bumpy (like our local neighborhood streets) my soda has the tendency to splash out, if full, and quickly goes flat if it doesn’t. Between the two cup holders is a small storage compartment. I use this quite a bit while out shopping or walking. The compartment is about 6 inches by 4 inches and is about 2 inches deep. I have placed my wallet in here while shopping so I could leave my purse in the car. I also use it often as small storage area for pacifiers or smaller toys. It works great and since it has a lid it can conceal small items. Like a dirty diaper that you couldn’t find a trash can for! My favorite thing about this stroller for “us” is the storage basket located underneath the seat. This is a great place to stow away the diaper bag, regardless of were you go. I’ve also used it to hold bags while shopping or my purse, coat just about anything. The storage basket is fairly large and I love it, I wish there was one on our umbrella stroller.

For The Baby
The Aura Stroller offers a nicely padded seat for baby to sit or sleep in. The great thing about the padding is, is that it is simple to remove and wash and still looks the same after you do wash it. The seat back can recline to nearly laying down, but doesn’t sit straight up when placed at the utmost setting. Reclining the seat all of the way back makes a great way for baby to take a nap or an ideal location to change baby’s diaper. Since it doesn’t recline to a fully flat position it is slightly difficult, but I prefer to use the stroller as opposed to some of the unclean baby changing stations I have seen. The seat back is can be adjusted by using a strap at the back of the seat, where it is easily accessible my Mom and Dad. You pull on a large plastic handle (which is connected to the strap) to raise the seat back up or you lift on an adjuster tab located on the strap to let the seat back go down. The stroller offers a three-point harness. The restraint is easily adjust loosened or tightened by pressing a small button on the side of clasp and pulling on the straps, but too hard for baby to figure out on his own. The restraint buckle works easily and is sturdy. The stroller offers a tray that sits directly in front of the child. The tray offers two cup holders and small middle section for foods. The tray can also be lifted and swung to the side for easy access to baby. The tray sits up fairly high and can block the view of younger babies, but has been very helpful to us since baby has learned he can sit up in his stroller. The cup holders are somewhat shallow and easy for baby to kick or knock a bottle or sippy cup out of. The cup holders are also a tad small and all sippy cups may not fit in them. Another baby comfort is the adjustable canopy. The canopy is attached to the stroller running in front of the “Mom and Dad” cup holders and storage compartment. The canopy extends out about 20 inches and has a large peek-a-boo window so Mom and Dad can still see baby. When using the stroller alone (without the car seat) the canopy is minimal, it usually doesn’t do a great job of blocking the sun out on his face especially if walking towards the sun. And at mid-day when the sun is high in the sky the peek-a-boo window is so large that the sun is beating down right on baby’s head.

The “Cadillac” has a whopping six wheels, two in back (with brakes) and 2 on each side in front. The fact the wheels are so large make this stroller hard to move around in small spaces, they take up a lot of room when going around corners, especially the front dual wheels. We have used the stroller quite a bit on especially hard surfaces and the tires have faired pretty good, we haven’t had any issues with tires coming of or coming loose.

Of course the “Cadillac” condenses to a smaller size for storage and travel (to go into the trunk). The stroller is very easy to fold down. Between the handle bars is a small area where you press a couple of buttons and the stroller basically folds itself up. You squeeze one button up and into the next, squeezing them together. When you do this you basically walk forward a couple of steps and the stroller collapses. The child’s tray then folds into the seat and a small locking lever catches to keep the stroller locked so it won’t come undone. When folded the stroller is about 11 inches long and about 16 inches tall (at its tallest), but its still 10 and half inches across. So its still fairly large and takes up most of our trunk space in our car. Unfolding the stroller is simple and easy, you unlock the lever latch (which is on the side of the backrest) and pull up on the handles until the stroller extends and makes a clicking noise and its locked into place. Folding and Unfolding the stroller is fairly easy and can be done with one hand, but it is bulky and heavy, especially if your holding baby in the other arm. But it is doable.

Manufactures Warnings
Item specific warnings include:
DO NOT load cargo basket with over 10 pounds. DO NOT load console and console storage areas with over 5 pounds.
Only use the following infant car seats with your Aura: Evenflo Embrace and Evenflo PortAbout

The other warnings cover basics like don’t leave your child unattended and don’t leave the stroller on a hill, even with the brakes on, fairly basic and pretty much included with every stroller system.

Child Requirements:
Maximum Weight - 40 pounds
Maximum Height - 38 Inches


The Car Seat
The car seat is a good addition to this travel system. If you use your car seat in the car it offers easy moving from car seat to stroller by snapping the car seat into it. You do this by placing the seat on the stroller over the child’s tray where it snaps into place. You also use a small plastic strap that connects to the plastic body of the car seat to stabilize the seat onto the stroller. This strap is located just off of the seat back on a supporting bar. This is convenient because you don’t have to spend time transferring baby from one piece of equipment to the next and you can transfer a sleeping baby, most often without waking them up. Using the stroller and car seat together leaves baby facing you while you push him around and the canopy when used extends completely over the seat offer protection for baby at all times.

Our stroller system came with the Evenflo Embrace 5 rear-facing seat. I used this seat for about 3 weeks at one point only to return it to the closet. We had already purchased a Graco SnugRide Seat when we received this set as a gift and I much preferred our Graco infant seat to this one.


Child Requirements:
Weight: 5 to 22 pounds
Height: 19 to 26 inches

The Embrace 5 comes with a base, that MUST be used, you cannot use this seat with out the base. Installing the base consists of engaging the LATCH hooks into place on each side of the carrier and tightening them while pressing down on the base. You can also install the base with locking seat belts. You also must make sure that the seat is leveled.

The car seat snaps into the base with a clicking noise and is removed by pulling on a large red lever while pulling up on the seat. I had a few problems with the seat locking into the base by simply sitting it onto the base, in comparison to our Graco, but a little wiggle and it usually locked in.

The car seat offers decent padding and compared to our Graco, maybe not quite as padded, but fairly close. The seat it self was about two inches wider which would provide more room to a chunky baby, but somehow we ended up with a tall and lean one. The padding is removed by unlatching 4 plastic clips from the edges of the seat, pulling the straps through it and pulling it off of the top. The cover washes easily and suffers no damage from the wash machine. It is also easy to replace on the seat itself.

The seat has a five point harness with one of the best chest clips I have ever used. The shoulder straps can be adjusted to 3 different levels and the center buckle can be adjusted between two slots. Changing the height of the straps is simple, you press a tab on the back of the seat which allows you to pull the strap out then reroute it through the setting you want pushing it through a small black box which holds it in place. The middle buckle has a small metal tag that holds it in place, to change this you simple push the metal tag through to the front of the seat and reinsert it into the other adjustment and align it to lock back into place. The chest clip is fairly large and stiff on the straps. This made it a lot harder for baby to move up and down the straps after we put him in the seat. Overall Evenflo has a better harness system than our Graco. The adjustments were much easier to make and the straps and chest clip stayed in place much better.

The handle bar has three settings; a carrying position, a car position and a stand position. In the carrying position the handle bar is up directly over baby. The handle bar is constructed with a handle, that is made out of a zig-zag pattern on it. This is suppose to make it easier to carry, but I had much more luck wrapping my arm around the handle of our Graco. This handle is meant to be used while carrying with one hand, arm extended down. This is something my arms could never handle for more than 5 or 6 steps. The zig-zag in the handle bar almost made it impossible to carry this car seat as I had the other one. The car position leaves the handle level with the top, back of the seat. Of course you are suppose to use this while the seat is in the car. The stand position reclines the handle back level with the floor and acts as a prop to stop the seat from rocking while on the floor, it also inclines baby a bit. One of my main problems with this seat was the handle bar. It basically wasn’t as strong as the handle bar on our Graco seat and it would actually bow when I picked the seat up with my son in it. The latches or buttons used to switch the positions of the seat was also finicky sometimes they would work good other times not so.

Overall the Embrace 5 is a decent car seat, but I was happier using the Graco SnugRide seat we already had. Altogether travel system and all we probably used it as a combo 5 or 6 times, we used the car seat for maybe 3 weeks, but the stroller we have really gotten a lot of good use out of. It handle bumpy roads well and strolls where my umbrella stroller would never think of going, like a trip around the grassy back yard. Baby enjoys strolling is it and can easily lay back and take a nap if need be. The stroller is well constructed and very durable.

You can checkout my review of the Graco SnugRide Infant Seat here.