[Bernadette]

I've got 2 boys - 18months and 4 years - and we plan (along with husband) to move to NZ in July (passports have all been stamped!). Our idea is to go with just suitcases. Which is fine for all of us except our 4 year old. I just know he is going to get upset with leaving his toys behind. He loves his cars, trains and lego but there are only so much you can get into a suitcase (along with a few cuddy toys).

What is the best way to get some of his toys across to NZ?

Thanks Berni

[mgbridges]

Hi Berni,

We had almost exactly this same problem although our son is a little older. However, we had the advantage that OH came out ahead of us to start work so I simply boxed up some stuff and Fedexed it to him at work. This also included basic household stuff, bed linen as well as some toys.

Do you know where you will be going when you arrrive? Do you have an address you could send stuff to or a friend/relation who could receive stuff for you before you get here? If you could do this and plan far enough in advance you could send it surface mail to keep the costs down.

Bear in mind that your son will also get a carry-on allowance and its amazing how much one of those little pull along kids bags will take! :D Our sons had all sorts of favourite toys in it but he didn't have them all out on the plane as he was too busy watching Shrek 2 & 3 over and over again! :laugh

Good luck with the packing!
Anneliese

[SharpBlade]

Hi,
We came with four young kids and took a few toys/cars/jigsaws with us. However, there are a lot of excellent toy libraries all around NZ and the Warehouse is rather cheap if you need to buy a few little things. Some shops like Kmart seem to have toy sales regularly too. Garage sales are good places too to get dead cheap old toys.
Good luck, Laura

[andrewandjane]

we did a similar thing, came with a 3 yr old and a 5 yr old, they got to choose which toys to keep and ship and which to put in a case so they each had a suitcase for clothes and one for toys, and a small hand luggage bag, we went air nz via LA so could have two 23 kg suitcases each so kids had two each and we did. we shipped another 13 boxes using allied pickfords for about 300 quid i think.

kids did appreciate having a ferw toys with them from the start, top tip was to fill their case with toys then tip in the lego bricks at the end to fill every small bit of space, give it a shake and do it again. we got loads in, was a bit of a pain the other end though!!!

[Park City Partner]

I find that toys here are very expensive. You can find quite a bit on trademe etc but overall I would pack them and ship them surface...

[jackie m]

We brought some favourite toys in my daughters pull along case (hand luggage) inc portable dvd & a couple of dvd's for when we arrived, so my two could still watch some familiar dvd's. The rest we shipped over with the house items. It was like christmas all over again when the container arrived :D
Jackie

[Chiba]

Likewise for us - a 2 year old and a 3.5 year old. The younger one's too young to be bothered really, so we'll just carry a few favourite things. We've explained to the older one about the ship taking time and we packed things up together - that helped I think. Some of the bigger stuff, like sand pit toys, sorry, but we'll replace them in NZ. We'll of course take some things in the suitcases, and plan to buy a few more things when we arrive. Knowing that our "toys" (especially Daddy's car) are also being packed seems to be help! On our recce we went into a few toy shops too, so they do know that toys exist there. All kids are different of course, but being properly involved in the move seems to be the thing that's helping.

Anyway, an occasional toy purge is essential to stop the house being overrun! Less space for Daddy's toys is baaad! ;)

[Jo Jo]

Are you in the UK? We used the Excess Baggage Company to ship a box of stuff over (stuff which should have gone into our container as we had plenty of room, but someone didn't listen to me when we were getting ready for packing and only realised he couldn't take everything with him in his suitcases when it was too late...).

Anyway, it costs about £150 to send a tea chest via sea, and only about £20 more to send it by air from the UK to NZ.

http://www.excess-baggage.com/sea_freight_prices.php

[Familyofmonkeys]

We have LOADS of toys...our kids were 4, 2, and 3 months when we moved. We bought them a mini rucksac each from millets and let them choose a few small special toys for the journey. We bought them a few pocket sized books as well....great as they not only occupied them on the journey, but as they were new it kept them amused our first few days in hotel too. The kids mini rucksacs fit inside larger handluggage so we just stuffed them in bottom and packed as much as we could around them. We got them out on the plane once they got bored. Everything else got shipped with household stuff. We told them about how the 'big boat' was coming with all of our stuff, and how the 'packing men' would deliver it when the boat arrived.

When we arrived we went to the Warehouse on the second day and bought them a big tub of lego....good as they could share it and could be played with alongside their own lego in container when it arrived. We also bought some more books in Whitcoulls that were on special offer, plus some colouring pens and paper. We got them to draw pictures of all the new stuff we saw...good game and lasted for weeks!

While we were driving round, we came across a garage sale and bought a baby gym and bunch of battered old toy cars all for $5....did the job until their own stuff arrived. There seem to be garage sales everywhere, so it's worth looking to get stuff. I saw loads of good quality toys for older children really cheap and alot of outdoor toys and trikes...shame we were stuck in hotel at the time or I would have got the climbing frame we saw!

[Bernadette]

Thanks everyone for your replies - they were most helpful. I will probably go down the route of putting a box together and sending it over once we know where we are staying!

berni

[snailandthewhale]

Whilst in the UK, we had no idea where in Auckland we would end up, so we sent a couple of boxes with sevenseas, using a forum members address ( you know who you are and thanks again! ) and then just phoned the company up when we landed here and gave them our new NZ address and had the stuff delivered here.
K