Review: JuJuBe Be Prepared in Royal Envy

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During Thanksgiving, a popular bag company did a ‘thankful’ giveaway. I saw it on Facebook, put in my entry and promptly forgot about it. I was very surprised that out of all the entries (there were thousands) that I was the lucky one chosen. After much deliberation, I decided to get the largest bag, BE PREPARED, in the Royal Envy print (suggested as a nod to the birth of the new Prince). Shortly after I sent in the request, the bag came, and it is HUGE. The adverts on their website say that it holds everything and they are not kidding. Now that baby sister has joined, there’s a new print dedicated to royalty, available here. It’s really on trend with black and white, while being completely timeless. Love!

My husband said: Wow you can tell that moms created this bag, they’ve thought of everything. For him, that’s VERY high praise!

Here are some features like I like, in a rough list…a separate pocket for mom-your keys don’t fall to the very bottom of your bag anymore. Snap closures and zippers, not Velcro that makes noise and wears out. Metal hardware, adorned with a sparkle or two. Feminine without being over the top and girly. Perfect. There are 2 options for carrying the bag, a set of tote bag style handles that tuck out of the way into the snap pockets, and a large over the shoulder strap with padded memory foam that can be snapped off and left at home. The zipper pockets zip ALL the way open- the main pocket even goes basically ‘flat’ so that you can really dig in there are see what is inside, instead of coming up empty looking for a specific thing inside a top-zip only pocket. Light colored on the inside, again, you can SEE in there. Also there are tabs on the inside with 2 colors, so you can separate small items if you have twins or 2 in diapers. These pictures are everything that went in for our Easter trip. Even with all this, the bag was not full.

The front flap is called the ‘mommy pocket.’ The outer side (not shown) has clear plastic slots for pictures. I have used them to stash coupons and reward cards on a big shopping trip. The inner side has one zipper pocket that you can use to stash small items that might become lost or dislodged and roll around (I have pain medicine, a hair tie, and lip balm in there for emergencies). The patterned pocket is for your cell phone, and the next one over is a ‘sunglasses’ pocket which is very silky and doubles as a cleaner. Excellent if you trade between glasses and sunglasses. You can also use it to hold a pen or just about anything else! The lower mesh pockets are open at the top and I used them to hold my wallet/checkbook and tissues for easy access. It’s a pretty tight mesh, so it would probably hold smaller items with ease, as well. What you can BARELY see is right in front of the turquoise wallet there’s a green elastic key holder. It has an ease to use carabiner/key chain on it. Since it’s springy, you can easily grab it and have your keys in a flash!

The next pocket behind the mommy pocket (there’s a glimpse of the key chain there!) is the snap closure pocket that they suggest you could use for magazines. I put some slim books and kid items in there. We’ve also used it for a computer tablet. It would be great for either on an airplane or car trip.

The back/outside snap-closure pocket is a great feature. Our little friend Cookie and a wetbag (for wet cloth diapers) was stash in there for easy access if needed during the trip. The bag comes with a matching changing pad that would typically fit in this pocket.

I’m sure those that read here because they are interested in cloth diapers are interested on how big the inside pocket is. It’s huge. There are EIGHT! Cloth diapers inside, plus a large blanket folded up just in the middle. I’m positive that I could have gotten more in there if I’d tried, and there was also about 2-3 inches HEIGHT left, so if needed you could probably get 12 large/one-size diapers minimum in there! There are also 2 short side mesh pockets (I stashed crayons, toys or wipe spray in those) and 2 tabbed mesh pockets on either side of the main compartment of which 2 are blue and 2 are green to match the print. I have six wipes in one side, and baby legs in the other. The other side held little hopping eggs toys and other kid stuff. One thing I did not use this time around, but have in the past was 2 magnetic closure sippy cup pockets on the outside.

Other awesome features: there are metallic feet on the bottom to keep the ‘bag’ itself off the ground. No dirty bottom or worrying about bathroom floors. It also features an anti-microbial coating and is MACHINE WASHABLE. So if something catastrophic did happen, you can just toss it in the machine and let it drip dry!

If I can think of one con, it’s that when we had the tablet in the 2nd pocket (magazine pocket), it was so heavy that the bag tipped a bit, it didn’t fall over, but it did tip. Obviously, it’s what we chose to put in there, not any fault of the bag. This is a LARGE bag. It’s meant to hold a lot, and not to be for a quick trip to the store. They have other bags for that. It’s well made, and it’s heavy to begin with-over 3 lbs. I wouldn’t suggest walking for miles carrying it! However, if you  have 2 in diapers (especially cloth diapers), and you want a solid bag that you can wash and makes your life a bit easier, this is a fantastic option.

Disclosure: This is my own review of an item I won in a random giveaway in 2012. I wrote the review to share fun mommy items with my friends! As always, this is my blog and I tell you the truth. My humble way of saying, the opinions are my own, and may differ from yours, so use your best judgement in every purchase decision you make–wise in these economic times, right? This post was updated in April 2016 with affiliate links. If you have any questions or want any more information, please let me know in the comments and I will get back to you ASAP! Thanks for reading!