"Luxury" minivan

[Anonymous]

It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

Why do we need so much room for just 2 kids?
Because a lot of the time, it's more than 2 kids. It's taking 6 kids to a
birthday party. It's taking 4 kids to soccer. I'm also the soccer coach, so
there's goals, cones, extra balls, bag of pennies, and a water cooler. I'm
the fundraising volunteer for scouting... so there's boxes upon boxes of
popcorn and buts that I have to distribute.
Oh yes, I am solidly in the "suburban soccer mom" category that some on DCUM
snub their noses at. But you know what? I'm happy and my kids are happy and
thriving with suburban life. I've traveled the world, from skiing in the
French Alps and snorkeling in Australia to volunteering at an AIDS orphanage
in Ethiopia. Yeah, I miss that life. But seeing my children grow and learn
and thrive means more - even if I am a soccer mom driving a minivan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After considering several luxury SUVs, we've decided we actually will be happier off with a minivan (we have 2 kids in carseats and 1 on the way).

But I'm sad because I *really* wanted a luxury SUV and *really* didn't want a minivan.

Can anyone recommend their "luxury" (I know it's not really a thing) minivan? Are you glad you have one instead of an SUV?

Honda Odyssey Elite. Full stop.

Same! We have one and were ready to buy an Escalade. Glad we saved the 45k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

You don't need a car. You could bus, train, walk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

Why do we need so much room for just 2 kids?
Because a lot of the time, it's more than 2 kids. It's taking 6 kids to a
birthday party. It's taking 4 kids to soccer. I'm also the soccer coach, so
there's goals, cones, extra balls, bag of pennies, and a water cooler. I'm
the fundraising volunteer for scouting... so there's boxes upon boxes of
popcorn and buts that I have to distribute.
Oh yes, I am solidly in the "suburban soccer mom" category that some on DCUM
snub their noses at. But you know what? I'm happy and my kids are happy and
thriving with suburban life. I've traveled the world, from skiing in the
French Alps and snorkeling in Australia to volunteering at an AIDS orphanage
in Ethiopia. Yeah, I miss that life. But seeing my children grow and learn
and thrive means more - even if I am a soccer mom driving a minivan.

Yet my kids do all of the same things without being shuttled around in a gas guzzling tank. I even coached my youngest kids baseball team for a few seasons and often drove a couple of extra kids to/from practice. All in a car. Quite comfortably in fact but we aren't insecure.

You don't need an oversized car to do these things. Most oversized cars are driven in the same manner as every other car - with someone alone behind the wheel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

You don't need a car. You could bus, train, walk.

Silly response but nice try. We do need a car. What we don't need is a large car packed with extraneous junk. Probably almost no one else needs a large car either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

Why do we need so much room for just 2 kids?
Because a lot of the time, it's more than 2 kids. It's taking 6 kids to a
birthday party. It's taking 4 kids to soccer. I'm also the soccer coach, so
there's goals, cones, extra balls, bag of pennies, and a water cooler. I'm
the fundraising volunteer for scouting... so there's boxes upon boxes of
popcorn and buts that I have to distribute.
Oh yes, I am solidly in the "suburban soccer mom" category that some on DCUM
snub their noses at. But you know what? I'm happy and my kids are happy and
thriving with suburban life. I've traveled the world, from skiing in the
French Alps and snorkeling in Australia to volunteering at an AIDS orphanage
in Ethiopia. Yeah, I miss that life. But seeing my children grow and learn
and thrive means more - even if I am a soccer mom driving a minivan.

Yet my kids do all of the same things without being shuttled around in a gas guzzling tank. I even coached my youngest kids baseball team for a few seasons and often drove a couple of extra kids to/from practice. All in a car. Quite comfortably in fact but we aren't insecure.

You don't need an oversized car to do these things. Most oversized cars are driven in the same manner as every other car - with someone alone behind the wheel.

NP. You really think a minivan is an oversized tank? Oh, and 2 of the options listed in this thread are electric or Hybrid, so sorry, they're not all gas-guzzlers either. But go ahead and feel superior in your station wagon, which I somehow doubt has ever shuttled 6 kids around, or your whole family plus grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Love my sienna- I am on my 2nd one. Holds a ton for vacation, great for carpooling, can't beat the sliding doors (less dings when kids get in and out). No one aspires to driving a minivan- but once you have one...it's great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

Why do we need so much room for just 2 kids?
Because a lot of the time, it's more than 2 kids. It's taking 6 kids to a
birthday party. It's taking 4 kids to soccer. I'm also the soccer coach, so
there's goals, cones, extra balls, bag of pennies, and a water cooler. I'm
the fundraising volunteer for scouting... so there's boxes upon boxes of
popcorn and buts that I have to distribute.
Oh yes, I am solidly in the "suburban soccer mom" category that some on DCUM
snub their noses at. But you know what? I'm happy and my kids are happy and
thriving with suburban life. I've traveled the world, from skiing in the
French Alps and snorkeling in Australia to volunteering at an AIDS orphanage
in Ethiopia. Yeah, I miss that life. But seeing my children grow and learn
and thrive means more - even if I am a soccer mom driving a minivan.

Yet my kids do all of the same things without being shuttled around in a gas guzzling tank. I even coached my youngest kids baseball team for a few seasons and often drove a couple of extra kids to/from practice. All in a car. Quite comfortably in fact but we aren't insecure.

You don't need an oversized car to do these things. Most oversized cars are driven in the same manner as every other car - with someone alone behind the wheel.

NP. You really think a minivan is an oversized tank? Oh, and 2 of the options listed in this thread are electric or Hybrid, so sorry, they're not all gas-guzzlers either. But go ahead and feel superior in your station wagon, which I somehow doubt has ever shuttled 6 kids around, or your whole family plus grandparents.

Sorry if I wasn't clear - I don't really have a problem with mini-vans though most people don't really need or use the capacity they have either. I was responding to the numerous earlier posters telling the OP to stratch that insecurity itch and get a wasteful SUV.

FWIW we have had grandparents in town and needed a bigger car. So we rent a mini-van for the weekend or even week. I think in 12 years of having kids we've had to do that 3 times and it was certainly a lot less expensive and wasteful than keeping something around that we only very rarely actually need. Even our station wagon is almost exclusively driven by a solo driver or even with passengers passengers with minimal luggage - it probably would not be hard for us to get by with a compact car for 95% of the trips we take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry if I wasn't clear - I don't really have a problem with mini-vans though most people don't really need or use the capacity they have either. I was responding to the numerous earlier posters telling the OP to stratch that insecurity itch and get a wasteful SUV.

FWIW we have had grandparents in town and needed a bigger car. So we rent a mini-van for the weekend or even week. I think in 12 years of having kids we've had to do that 3 times and it was certainly a lot less expensive and wasteful than keeping something around that we only very rarely actually need. Even our station wagon is almost exclusively driven by a solo driver or even with passengers passengers with minimal luggage - it probably would not be hard for us to get by with a compact car for 95% of the trips we take.

Fair enough, I certainly see your point about SUVs (which to me seem to be the worst of all worlds). My point was just that there are plenty of us who use the full capacity of our minivans regularly, with local families or carpools or just hauling stuff around (because we're the ones with the big car and can do that). The way I look at it, my minivan enables some of my friends to keep driving their smaller cars, because if our kids need to get somewhere in a group, they can all ride with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It continually stuns me the amount of stuff people have and the amount of space they need.

Like the OP we have two kids.

And we do just fine with a station wagon, including for road trips and regular trips to the beach. The car was more than adequate when we had two car seats and is more than adequate now that our oldest is more than 5 feet tall and the other will be in a couple of years. The car is also perfectly adequate for getting us to trail heads when we go backpacking/camping.

We meet in-laws at the beach each year who show up in this SUV that could carry an entire lacrosse team and they have a trailer and a roof rack too. And like us just two kids.

But they bring bikes for the entire family (that no one ever rides) and boogie boards and coolers and enough food to live on for a week along with two bags per person. I have no idea what they are packing for but it is stunning the amount of stuff they show up with - the amount of time they waste packing and unloading it, the amount of it they don't use or ever need, the money they waste on this stuff.

The irony, that they will never get, is that their great suburban home near Annapolis is regularly not reachable because of flooding caused by global warming. Something that happened a couple of times a year when they moved in 12 years ago and now happens weekly. But hey keep driving the Yukon because of some need or insecurity that no one can articulate.

We really need to get by in this world with what we need not what we want or what makes us most comfortable.

OP has two kids in cat seats with one on the way. Station wagon with THREE car seats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been driving my Sienna for 7+ years. The only things a “luxury” vehicle has that I would want over my van is a quieter ride and a more comfortable seat—it’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not luxurious.

But seriously, DH started a “if I won the lottery I would buy...” conversation and I said I would get a newer Sienna but with the highest trim level.

We’ve owned all sorts of SUVs and the minivan is way more functional than any of them, unless you’re actually going to drive off-road.

Same. If I were given $50k to spend on any car, I’d get the top trim level Honda (or maybe Toytota, but I love my current Honda, it’s already my 2nd.)

[Anonymous]

Honda Odyssey Touring Elite. I really didn't want it. Then got it and went fully to the dark side. Love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been driving my Sienna for 7+ years. The only things a “luxury” vehicle has that I would want over my van is a quieter ride and a more comfortable seat—it’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not luxurious.

But seriously, DH started a “if I won the lottery I would buy...” conversation and I said I would get a newer Sienna but with the highest trim level.

We’ve owned all sorts of SUVs and the minivan is way more functional than any of them, unless you’re actually going to drive off-road.

Same. If I were given $50k to spend on any car, I’d get the top trim level Honda (or maybe Toytota, but I love my current Honda, it’s already my 2nd.)

The new Siennas are definitely a quieter ride. We just replaced our old one last year - much nicer.

[Anonymous]

How is everyone missing the obvious luxury option here?

The Honda Odyssey touring elite has a VACUUM. It doesn’t get more luxurious than that. Not staring at crunched up goldfish all day, every day is the ultimate luxury in my book.

There is (was?) a Mercedes minivan but it doesn’t have sliding doors, so it basically eliminates the one main benefit to having a minivan