Starting our journey early at Leeds Bradford Airport at the start of the month we embarked on our first ever family holiday. The destination was Spain, the town was Los Alcazares in Murcia if you wanted to know. The outbound flight was estimated to take 2:30 minutes and you would be right to think that I thought that this would be a long flight to go on with a six month old baby.
The great thing about Leeds Bradford airport is that it has fantastic facilities for children. I am not only talking about the baby changing facilities but seating, lifts, adequate assistant and priority queuing when struggling through security and the check-in process.
One thing I don't think we (parents) do enough is sing the phrases of the airlines like jet2.com that let all parents board first, you know ahead of all the mad holiday makers that want to be first in the queue so they can get on board that 60 secs earlier! Boarding first and not having to pay that extra for it was fantastic as it gave us enough time to settle and be seated before the other passengers boarded. We were able (without pressure) to collapse our push chair, remove all the clutter bottles, toys, covers, blankets, etc.....
Whilst on board the lovely air hostesses were more than welcoming and made sure we had everything we needed and fed us additional information like how to "work" the Children's seat belts and the brace positions we needed to adopt should we have to make an emergency landing.
What was over welcoming before, during and after the flight was how everyone was happy to interact with the children. You always imagine that they would be regretting the seats they had booked once they see a baby in front or behind them, however people did genuinely love the kids.
The air hostesses kept on coming over and checking on us and when they did they were more than happy to make Theo giggle and smile. The passengers around us were asking us question and question about the kids and were commenting on how well behaved they had been throughout the flight. They did moan and cry a little when they needed feeding but people didn't mind, it seemed that they had come to expect a few occasional outbursts.
The only pain in the arse was having to hold the baby throughout the flight. Not only does it get boring and uncomfortable quickly but it is a recipe for disasters as it is almost inevitable that a drink or two will be knocked over in your limited seating space. Lucky for us we only had one accident! It was extremely difficult to change a baby on an aeroplane. No baby changing facilities meant that the kids had to be changed on our laps. This is not the easiest and most pleasant thing to do and it is certainly not something that other passengers want or should have to see. Anywas we managed and between the four of us we were all able to make sure the nappy changes were also disaster free and quick... Like an F1 pit-stop!
Landing and taking off didn't really bother or kids. We made sure that they had bottles on the both the take-offs and landings. They didn't scream or cry and even managed to let out an almighty burp for entire row to enjoy!
As we were located at the front of the plane we were one of the first ones off. People again were kind enough to help us unload our bags from the over head luggage compartments. When we walked off the cabin crew waved us off like we were old friends. We walked down the stairs into the blistering 30+ heat and awaited the arrival of out pushchairs. After 5 minutes the kind folks located them and gave us them, we popped them up and we were on our way through the arrivals lounge on-wards in the sun for a week in the sun.
Traveling wasn't a nightmare, it was enjoyable. I think we found it easier than predicted as we had toys and bottles at the ready. Keeping the kids entertained throughout made sure that they were more interested in what was in front of them than the people and noise around them.
If anyway is looking to travel abroad in the next few months please don't be put off and you should even look forward to it I dare say.
If you have any question let me know!
1 comment:
This is such a relief.
I'm taking my 7-month-old boy on a flight for the first time in a couple of weeks and have been dreading it a bit.
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