Sorry I have been M.I.A. the past week or so, I have been in such a funk and honestly didn’t really want to do much of anything. But with moving creeping closer and closer, I’ve run out of time to procrastinate and have kicked it into high gear and now I’m doing what seems like everything. So now that I am back from my mini hiatus, I wanted to share how William’s first trip on an airplane turned out. FYI this is a very wordy post 🙂
As most of you know our most recent vacation was William’s first time flying on an airplane. I knew from the beginning that I would need wanted to buy him his own seat for his car-seat because he is too big to sit in my lap the entire time. Plus he (and I) would be more comfortable in our own seats.
I think most car seats are rated for air travel, and to find out if yours is just check the safety stickers on the sides and back. If your car seat is rated for flying there will be a sticker stating so. The sticker on ours was on the back of the car seat near the tether strap.
We flew on Southwest and their base child fare is around $300 give or take, but I called Southwest directly and they told me that the online Wanna Get Away fares are often much cheaper and can be purchased for a child. Hooray! $425 later William and I had tickets to Disney World!
Since my grandma is going to be 90 this year, she was able to get priority boarding for herself and my mom. But they wouldn’t let William and I board with them 🙁 so we had to wait and it was pretty much a fiasco. As soon as my mom and grandma were out of sight William freaked out and started screaming for them, and then preceded to through a typical almost 2 year old tantrum. Not exactly fun.**
**Side note: the entire time we were waiting to board there was this asshole standing right next to us talking to his buddy about how stupid it is to take kids to Disney when they are so young. (William was wearing his I’m going to Disney shirt at this time). No lie, he was close enough that I could have reached out and smacked him across the face. I really wanted to think of something clever to say, but I was so concentrated on getting William clam that I just ignored the jerk. Plus part of me wanted William to keep screaming to annoy him.** ok rant over 🙂
Once it was our turn to board, I got William strapped into his car seat and wheeled him down the ramp with the Brica Roll ‘n Go Car Seat Transporter (BTW that thing is amazing!) and this is where we had the issue. I pulled William out of the car seat so we could get to the back of the plane where my mom and grandma were sitting and he freaked out. He wanted me to carry him while I was trying to carry the car seat down the isle. Thank goodness there was a nice man sitting up front that carried the car seat for me so that I could carry William.
Once we got seated, it was smooth sailing. His car seat fit perfectly right next to the window, he didn‘t seem to have issues with his ears during take off, and we scheduled our flight during William’s nap time, so he was asleep not even 15 minutes after takeoff. And he slept the entire night, which gave me a chance to get some reading done.
So in a nutshell here are my tips for flying with a toddler:
- fly at nap time or bed time
- bring snacks (William ate most of his while at the airport)
- bring toys for if they don’t fall asleep right away
- have an extra set of hands or make friends if you need help carrying things
- buy a Brica Roll’n Go Transporter (seriously we would have never made it without this thing)
Well that is all I can think of right now. I didn’t take a single picture on the plane because I was so concentrated on making sure William was ok that I didn’t even think about it. But I got my camera back so there’s definitely going to be a Disney post in the near future 🙂
