Traveling to southern Maine? BabyQuip can be your 'Luxury Baby Travel Concierge'

WELLS, Maine — You and your young family arrive at your hotel in Maine late in the evening. After traveling for hours, you and your spouse just want to check into your hotel room, put the kids to bed, and maybe watch a little TV before you both call it a night.

Alas, there are things you need to do first for your children, especially the littlest one. In addition to your luggage, you need to unload toys, pack-and-plays, and more from your car. Then, once you’re in your room, you need to unpack, assemble, and settle in.

You know all this as you trudge, tiredly, into your hotel room, but then ... wait.

You’re all set.

BabyQuip has already done all those things for you.

Stephanie Lamb, of Wells, is the local franchise owner of a nationwide company that specializes in renting out baby gear and other traveling necessities and luxuries to hotel guests, so they do not have to pack them, unpack them, and pack them back up again during their stay.

If you enter your hotel room, and there’s already an assembled crib in there, you have Al Harrison to thank. He’s the muscle behind Lamb’s enterprise, transporting gear from her home to local hotels and setting everything in rooms once he’s there.

Lamb got the idea of equipping local travelers with gear when she was on a trip with friends back in early 2022. They were packing their suitcases and getting ready to check out of their room when they heard a knock on the door. When they answered, they found a deliveryman with all sorts of baby gear in tow – a crib, a stroller, a highchair, safety gates, you name it. He was there to set everything up for the family who had Lamb’s room next.

For Lamb, that was a real “a-ha moment,” as she put it.

“I was obsessed with this concept,” she said. “This was a no-brainer. I thought of how great this business would be in our own area, a seasonal vacation land.”

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Lamb started researching companies that offered such services and set her sights on BabyQuip, which she had seen featured on “Shark Tank,” the TV show about competing entrepreneurs.

“I felt they had the best program,” she said.

Lamb signed on with BabyQuip and started her own local franchise, which allowed her to run her business the way she wanted and to tie it in with the company’s brand.

She soon had her first client: a professional hockey player who was staying at a hotel in York Harbor. Others, of course, have since followed: numerous high-profile hotels, inns and resorts, summer rentals, Airbnbs, and more all seek her services. To these locations, Lamb and Harrison deliver baby gear and other goods ahead of guests’ arrival.

Lamb is even expanding her service from the hotel room to the shores of local beaches.

“I’m partnering up with Brettski’s Beach Buggy to start delivering beach chairs, umbrellas and much more down to people at the beach,” she said, referring to the York-based taxi service.

An average day for her BabyQuip business often “starts with pure chaos,” Lamb joked. She keeps tabs on all her reservations and coordinates the delivery of gear on her calendar. It’s a balancing act of knowing when guests are expected to check in at their hotels and how certain towns operate and handling anything last-minute that gets thrown her way.

Loading up her vehicle with gear for multiple deliveries is a bit like Tetris, the video game in which you make sure all of the falling pieces fit snugly into the limited space provided, according to Lamb. Fitting three or four orders into a single trip on the road cuts down on Lamb and Harrison having to battle the congested traffic on Route 1 during the area’s tourist season, she said.

“Growing up local makes it a bit easier to find all those back roads,” Lamb added.

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Wells BabyQuip treats customers 'like a VIP'

Lamb said she loves her job.

“It’s a great gig,” she said. “It’s a perfect fit for me. I absolutely love meeting and assisting families and making their vacation the most comfortable and event-free as possible. Every family that is satisfied, it makes our job worth it.”

Lamb said her most rented piece of baby gear is the full-sized portable crib, complete with a mattress, a protector, and two sets of sheets. Strollers are a “must,” she added, and so too are toys. She chooses toys based on a questionnaire that parents fill out that share each child’s age, likes, and dislikes.

“I probably put out at least eight to 10 toy packages a week,” she said. “These each include 10 to 12 toys. I also add four to six books for rainy days.”

According to Lamb, charges vary, based on the range of gear that clients rent. A full-size crib, for example, costs $20 per day, with delivery fees added.

Before leaving on their trips, clients can register for what they need at babyquip.com, according to Lamb.

Lamb called BabyQuip’s national and international advertising campaign “brilliant.”

“Having the nationwide advertising and such just elevates my small-town business,” she said. “I’ve received reservations from families from Pakistan, London, and Munich, and many from Canada.”

She said she makes sure to treat every client “like a VIP.”

“I’d like to think of myself as a Luxury Baby Travel Concierge,” she said. “I offer high-end gear, as well as more affordable brands.”

She also provides “so much more,” she said, including travel tips and coupons to local ice cream parlors and shops.

“But the biggest thing I offer is the comfort of knowing I’m here for them for anything,” she said. “I offer grocery pick-ups. I offer Amazon deliveries.”

Before starting her own local BabyQuip business, Lamb served many years in the U.S. Army and handled the marketing for LPM Wealth Management Advisory Group Ameriprise Financial, which her husband, James, owns and operates. Both Lamb and her husband grew up in Wells.

Lamb said she is passionate about traveling, something she has done throughout her life as a member of the Army, as a “Maine-ah,” and as a wife, mother, and grandmother. She added that while she loves to travel, she also can identify with her clients about the stress that is involved with hitting the road.

“Traveling with little ones can be completely exhausting,” Lamb said.

She said she thinks of how much easier her family trips would have been if she had known all along about BabyQuip.

“It is an absolute godsend to arrive to your vacation destination and have all of your baby needs set up and ready to go,” Lamb said. “Having your child sleep through the night on vacation leads to a great vacation.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: BabyQuip makes family travel a breeze in southern, Maine