DDowning
12-01-2004, 02:13 AM
I just got home this evening from visiting DH's family in New England. For the most part, travel went smoothly. Absolutely no problems going from LAX to Boston - sailed through security, plane actually touched off and landed early. This was before a major holiday. On the way back, it was....interesting. There are a few things that I have learned though:
* A Deluxe Sit & Stroll (stroller/carseat contraption) is too wide for a bulk head seat and has to be moved. The reason being is because the armrests do not move in the bulkhead seats for some reason. A family was moved from this location to the row behind us (16) who had a 19 month old son with them.
* Flight attendants are clueless as to when to reinforce guidelines. We were in row 15, directly behind the exit row. Apparently, you can not have a passenger in a carseat behind the exit row. News to us as we were in the same location heading out and no one said a thing. We were moved to row 16 opposite the family mentioned above.
* There should be a rule limiting how many children in the same age group can be seated near each other. With the shifting of seats, we were left with 3 children all about 17-19 months old. M., a precocious little bug that he was, was not happy at all during the 6.5 hour flight and proceeded to let his parents - and everyone around him know about his distaste of his predicament. My happy little cherub of a child decides that he wants to help M. in his protests and decides to show his support by mimicking the screaming and yelling (but not crying). Of course, little J. sitting behind us couldn't let Carson and M. have all the fun and decides to join in the ruckus. Can you imagine how happy everyone else was around us? The kicker? 30 minutes before we land, all 3 of them fell asleep.
* In a normal world, when you gate-check a stroller and watch it go down the little ramp, on to the jetway, you assume that its on its merry way to the same plane that you are actually traveling on. Nope, not today. Instead of waiting for me when I got off the plane, I found out my Z-street decided to go to Dallas instead. How or why? We have no idea. So now, American gets to spend $100 tomorrow, shuttling the thing to my house.
I told DH when we first landed in Boston with no problems last week, "that was too easy". Based on the experience of the flight back, now I know I should have kept my mouth shut!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
* A Deluxe Sit & Stroll (stroller/carseat contraption) is too wide for a bulk head seat and has to be moved. The reason being is because the armrests do not move in the bulkhead seats for some reason. A family was moved from this location to the row behind us (16) who had a 19 month old son with them.
* Flight attendants are clueless as to when to reinforce guidelines. We were in row 15, directly behind the exit row. Apparently, you can not have a passenger in a carseat behind the exit row. News to us as we were in the same location heading out and no one said a thing. We were moved to row 16 opposite the family mentioned above.
* There should be a rule limiting how many children in the same age group can be seated near each other. With the shifting of seats, we were left with 3 children all about 17-19 months old. M., a precocious little bug that he was, was not happy at all during the 6.5 hour flight and proceeded to let his parents - and everyone around him know about his distaste of his predicament. My happy little cherub of a child decides that he wants to help M. in his protests and decides to show his support by mimicking the screaming and yelling (but not crying). Of course, little J. sitting behind us couldn't let Carson and M. have all the fun and decides to join in the ruckus. Can you imagine how happy everyone else was around us? The kicker? 30 minutes before we land, all 3 of them fell asleep.
* In a normal world, when you gate-check a stroller and watch it go down the little ramp, on to the jetway, you assume that its on its merry way to the same plane that you are actually traveling on. Nope, not today. Instead of waiting for me when I got off the plane, I found out my Z-street decided to go to Dallas instead. How or why? We have no idea. So now, American gets to spend $100 tomorrow, shuttling the thing to my house.
I told DH when we first landed in Boston with no problems last week, "that was too easy". Based on the experience of the flight back, now I know I should have kept my mouth shut!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!