Hellobee

So, I have a confession that will be shocking to those of you who know of my diaperbagaholic status, as well as my affinity for the Danzo brand. For the rest of you, this will be… normal. Dull. Mundane, even.

So here it comes…

I’ve been carrying around a Danzo Weekender for a few weeks.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Ok, enough with the silly. A while back I reviewed my brand new Danzo Hobo and declared it quite close to my holy grail of diaper bags. I loved it and was so thrilled with it, and I may or may not have convinced quite a few of you to snatch them up for yourselves when they came up on various flash sale websites. My love affair with my Hobo continued for quite some time until something really sad happened.

One of the side zippers of the bag (that zips the bag all the way open on both sides which is one of my favorite features of Danzo bags in general) kept busting open. I was able to force the zipper back down and up to re-close it, but it kept happening, and every time it happened, the zipper weakened more and more. Soon it was happening every time I used the bag. And obviously, it was pretty unusable with the entire side of the bag gaping open. My Danzo was dead.

After an appropriate time period of mourning, I contacted Danzo customer service. Gary, one of the owners of the company personally called me, apologized for the inconvenience and offered to pay for the zipper repair. I could tell that this doesn’t happen to them often, which speaks to the quality of their bags, but I wanted a replacement. I really didn’t want to have to find a local place that repaired zippers and have them cut into my bag. Gary offered to send out a replacement, but my color (black) was not in stock and backordered for months (speaking to the demand as their bags get more and more popular!). After quite a bit of back and forth about other colors they had in stock, as well as other styles, Gary was kind enough to send me a Weekender, which retails for quite a bit more than the Hobo.

Gary assured me that he had spoken with his manufacturer about what had happened with my zipper and asked them to take it into consideration for the future. He also warned me that the Weekender was quite a different bag than the Hobo, and spoke candidly that it’s a HUGE bag, a different material, and that he constantly gets stopped and asked about this bag when he’s out and about with it.

Next to my pump bag, an older Medela PISA tote, for size comparison.

The minute I received and unboxed my Weekender, I understood immediately what he said. First of all, I started out my Hobo review by saying that it was a huge bag. I’ll start this review by saying that THIS, my friends, is a HUGE bag. It’s the size and roughly the shape of a small gym/duffle bag. But I’m an overpacker with two young kids, and I really don’t mind a big bag, so the size did not throw me one bit. I marveled immediately at how lightweight it was compared to my Hobo. The material is a thin canvas, which makes it a lot less structured than the Hobo, but subtracts quite a bit of weight from the bag itself, which is a nice plus.

The material is canvas, so I chose the navy rather than the off-white “natural” color, which I suspected would get quite dingy and dirty very quickly. The leather details are a rich medium brown, the hardware is silver and the duck details are all present as were in the Hobo.

The clear inside pockets with velcro labels are exactly the same number, size, and shape as the Hobo. The big difference here is that since the bag’s sides aren’t structured, it’s not as easy to get into these pockets. You kind of have to pull up the side of the bag to see the bottom pockets. Since I store rarely-used items in these bottom pockets (extra clothes, medicines, etc.), I don’t mind this that much. The bottle pocket is also a little less convenient to get the bottle in and out (again, you have to kind of pull up the side of the bag).

What this lack of structure does for the bag, however, is great for me. The sides of the Hobo are stiff and straight, so it really minimizes the size of the inner cavity of the bag. The sides kind of bulge out and collapse in towards the top, making for a lot of space inside the bag. If you can picture it, the inside space of the Hobo is like a book standing vertically. The inside space of the Weekender is like a big, thick tube. I suspect this is why my side zipper of my Hobo busted open– I was probably overpacking the bag. Also, the Hobo has no sides. The side zipper of the Hobo serves as the seam of the bag, making the zipper the place with the most pressure as the bag got full. With the Weekender, the sides have two leather seams and the side itself is flat, with the zipper in the middle of the flat piece. With this setup, there is very little force on the zipper as the bag gets full because the force gets distributed throughout the entire side, rather than concentrated on the zipper itself.

I just got all physics-ish on you.

Back to the bag. Now, I said that the side zippers get less force applied to them as the bag gets full, but I can only personally vouch for this a little because I can barely get this bag full! In fact, the bag is so spacious that I placed the included changing pad along the bottom of the bag as a liner to protect the bag from spills. Then I placed things on top and they can lie flat (my wallet, my coupon envelope, wipes case, etc.) and I place bulky items like sweatshirts, loveys, etc. on top of those.

The bag is so large that I can carry around a separate diaper changing kit, which holds the diapers and a changing pad and some diaper cream. I carry a separate wipes case because I love the Skip Hop one that you can operate with one hand. Whenever it’s time to change a diaper, we just pull this kit out of the bag. The Hobo had large hidden pockets on the outside of the bag that held my diaper changing materials before, but the Weekender doesn’t have these, which I saw as a huge sacrifice. However, I ended up liking the setup with the Weekender better because instead of pulling several individual items out of the large outside pockets, I just pull out the whole kit and go.

Instead of the large hidden outer pockets, I was happy to find that the Weekender has smaller hidden pockets on the outside of the bag. These pockets are perfect for my cell phone, my keys, and the included stroller clips. The pockets don’t have closures but I haven’t had any problems with things falling out.

The Weekender features the same long, comfortable shoulder strap (made of a different material though), as well as the one-handed magnetic snap closure and metal feet on the bottom.

Now, the short straps. I originally chose the Hobo because I liked the heavy-duty leather straps that fit over my shoulder. However, I ended up never using these because the bag was so bulky, it was uncomfortable to fit under my arm. I did, however, use them sometimes to pick up the bag with one hand or hook over one arm. So the Weekender’s short leather straps serve the same purpose for me.

So now that I’ve written the novella of novellas, about a DIAPER BAG, I think I am done here. This bag has its faults. And it’s HUGE. The biggest bag I’ve carried around on a daily basis, ever. (Yes, I carry it to work! I love it! I get compliments on it all the time, along with “wow, you carry around a lot!”) And I’m incredibly, deliriously happy with it. The best part is that I know I will be using this after Lil Miss Wagon is out of diapers, for sure. Maybe not on an everyday basis, but for all-day excursions and weekend trips. I love it!

Holy grail of diaper bags? This bag isn’t perfect, but I love it enough to be convinced that maybe the Holy grail of diaper bags just doesn’t exist. That’s right… I love this bag so much, it’s made me stop looking for and believing in the Holy grail.

Have you scored your “Holy grail” of diaper bags?