I have a confession...I did not pick this van out. One day, my husband took my old Ford Windstar to "get detailed" - or so he told me - and he came home driving our new 2000 Honda Odyssey. Quelle surprise! He had done any research on it himself, excluding me, and decided what he thought was best for me to drive, and went out and bought it! And I have to say, this is the best van. It has everything I want and need, and then some.

The ride is smooth, though the pick up when I accelerate is felt and heard. This is not a vehicle that you can use to pull out in front of another car and speed up quickly. But that's ok with me. I'm not a speed demon. Unless I'm on the interstate....BUT, I digress....

The dashboard is set up to navigate easily. Only a few minor problems I have noticed. One is that the Bass/Balance and Treble/Fade controls are unable to be seen when the car is in drive because the gearshift is in the way. This may be Honda's way of saying you shouldn't be fiddling with this when you are driving, but it's still hard to get to in any case. The other is that I'm not used to the rear wiper/washer at all, and to have the control on the same stick as the front wipers is disconcerting to me. But that may just be me. All the other controls are easily reachable and readable.

My Odyssey version has almost all the perks: CD player, cruise control, dual air system, tinted windows, rear defogger and wiper, and keyless entry to name a few. But the BEST feature I love is the automatic sliding doors. They are so handy when you have your arms full of kids, groceries, purse and other assorted paraphernalia of motherhood. Just a push of a button and they slide right open for the heat to get out, or to let the kids in, or both! There is also a button for the same function on the dashboard so you can open or close them from there. And it has a safety feature on this as well - the doors will not open if the van is in any other gear except park, and it beeps at you if there is an obstruction in the way of the door to open. (I learned this last bit of information when my gas cap was open and the door wouldn't budge. It kept beeping at me, frustrating me to no end until I figured out why it was doing this.) This feature is especially nice for me since my Windstar only had the one sliding door - two is a treat, two AUTOMATIC SLIDING doors is a bit of Heaven on Earth!

Another great feature is the way the rear seat folds down into the bottom of the van. No more hauling out that "weighs a ton" backseat to make room for large loads. Just take out the headrests, flip the back of the seat forward, then flip the whole seat itself into a well in the back. Easy!

I also like the "captain's chairs" seats in the front and middle rows. Between the front two seat, there is a little tray that can be flipped up to put drinks or other things on. I put this up a few days after I got it, and haven't put it down since! Very handy because it makes two levels to store things. The middle row seats are able to be reconfigured as well. They individually come out, which is nice if you want to leave one side open. You also have a choice whether you want the separation is between the seats or to one side (as it was in my old Windstar),

The only major drawback to the Odyssey was price. Ours cost around $26,000, and though it had all the perks (except for leather seats), it's still a bit expensive. A Windstar or Grand Caravan was cheaper, but I feel we got a better deal because of Honda's reliability record.

The Honda Odyssey is a great mini van, and like all mini vans, is best suited to families. It's to today's world what station wagons were to the seventies. The new Family Truckster!