Most passengers will ride in the second-row bucket seats, which can slide together to form a bench seat. The seats are a bit flat and low, but there’s plenty of legroom and foot space under the front chairs is generous. Buyers of the EX and EX-L receive the handy PlusOne removable seat that can be placed between the second-row buckets to accommodate an extra passenger, can be folded in half to serve as a center tray between the seats, or removed and stored in the underfloor compartment when not in use. This lightweight PlusOne seat, installed with the second-row seats moved all the way forward, is also a great place to put an infant – in the center of the vehicle and within easy reach of Mom and Dad in the front seats. Instead of the PlusOne seat, the Odyssey Touring is equipped with a gigantic center console that can be removed to create a flat load floor when necessary.

Automatic locking retractor (ALR) seatbelts are installed in both rear rows to make child seat installation more secure, and the tether strap anchors on the second-row seats are mounted to the seat base for easy fore/aft movement. All Odysseys except the LX come equipped with handy window screens that can be pulled up to shield children from Mr. Sun. But because a small quarter window is necessitated by the installation of standard roll-down windows in the sliding doors, the shades will still allow some of Mr. Golden Sun’s rays to shine down on Junior. Bottle holders are molded into the door panels, and handles on the front seatbacks make getting out of the new Honda Odyssey easier. One interesting feature that we think is going to come in quite handy for many families: zippered mesh storage pockets on the front seatbacks.

We have one main complaint about front seat comfort, and that’s the hard plastic upper door panels where many people like to rest elbows during longer drives. This area should be soft and pliable, especially inside a vehicle so obviously suited to cross-country travel as the 2005 Honda Odyssey. We also can’t figure out why the Odyssey EX-L has a urethane steering wheel rim. One might reasonably expect that the volume-selling model with leather seats would have a leather-wrapped steering wheel. Only the Touring gets cowhide stretched around the tiller, and that’s far more pleasing to grip than what the EX-L offers. That said, we couldn’t otherwise fault front seat comfort based upon our brief drive in Alabama. The leather on both samples we drove was heavily grained and a bit stiff, but nonetheless comfortable. We did ride in a standard EX and found the cloth upholstery plush and pleasing to the touch.