from somewhere in my imagination

I Love School Holidays

It's true.

I hang out for school holidays.

Sleep ins, movie nights, cooking together, craft projects, walks and bike rides, long role play games, pyjama days and a much more relaxed vibe around the house than we have during term time when the kids (and me) tend to be more tired.

There a no school lunches to pack.

On Saturday the kids and I headed south but turned right instead of left and spent 5 relaxing nights in Port Lincoln.  How's the serenity?

We had a lovely time, despite the weather being more winter than spring.  We went to a proper country show (no carnies, YAY!), I went shopping with my big girls (and we got more than a little bit wet when we got caught in pouring rain), we had had a catch up with Ali and dinner with Ali, Nat and Tiff (5 giggling girls anyone?), I was pretty much completely unplugged from technology (I turned the computer on once) and I didn't have any internet access anyway, I read lots (have you read the Help, most can't put down book I've read in a long time)...lots of time spent with family.

Looking forward to spending the weekend making a start on some packing and sorting.

Today I'll get those sleeves sewn in for you...and get the dress finished over the weekend...how is your dress going?

Right now...I'm going to clean up the kitchen after breakfast and do some painting with the kids while we watch the Yankees take on Detroit in game five of the playoffs.

Later we'll be having oysters for dinner, I came home with 3 dozen coffin bay oysters...1 dozen for me, 1 dozen for Steven and 1 dozen for the kids to share, they love them...better cook something else as well I suppose :)

That's me for now!  How are school holidays going at your place?  Do you love them or not so much?

Tatum xx

Planes, Planes and Planes

Since the beginning of May I have been on more flights and spent more hours in airports than I care to count, but I will anyway ;)

Adelaide - Sydney, Qantas

Sydney - LA, Qantas

LA - Orlando, American Airlines

Orlando - Buffalo, Jet Blue

JFK - Las Vegas, Delta

LA - Melbourne, Qantas

Adelaide - Melbourne, Qantas

Adelaide - Brisbane, Qantas

Brisbane - Adelaide, Virgin

Adelaide - Sydney (Return), Qantas

Adelaide - Sydney (Return), Virgin

Adelaide - Melbourne (Return), Qantas

Probably not a heap of travel for a seasoned business person, but for me that is a mega amount of air travel in 3 months.  The first half was with the kids, the second half (Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne) has been either alone or with another adult.

I thought it would be interesting to talk about some of our experiences with different airlines.  I wrote about flying with kids here and no doubt there will be a couple of points I raise again.

By all accounts we were not expecting to have particularly wonderful experiences flying domestically within the US.  Our expectations for service from both AA and Delta were low.  Jet Blue is a relatively new airline that is being built around the ideals of a positive customer service experience.  It's pretty ironic because Jet Blue were the ones we were least impressed with.

If you book to fly with Jet Blue in the USA make sure you do your seat allocation.  We booked all our airfares and most of our accommodation via Travelocity.  If you book 6 seats on a flight on Delta or AA you get 6 seats allocated together.  That's not how it works with Jet Blue and because we booked through a third party we didn't realise that.

We were allocated 6 separate seats around the plane, the managed to organise 2 lots of 2 seats together and 2 seats separately in the plane.  Still not really appropriate but we managed and ultimately we paid for a seat we couldn't use.

Note to self: We won't be flying Jet Blue again, the fact they give you a packet of chips and a drink doesn't compensate for the fact they don't allocate seats booked together, together. 

That, and the stinky toilets on the Delta flight were the worst we experienced when flying domestically in the US.

Qantas, Qantas, Qantas.  I have such a love/hate relationship with you.

First and foremost the new baggage drop system you have introduced is awesome if you are travelling on your own but it completely sucks when you are travelling with children.

I've flown back and forth with you enough lately and there hasn't been anything bad or particularly great about the service.  Too many of your on board customer service people (that's what they are called these days, no? host/hostess just doesn't cut it anymore) seem to have been around too long and appear jaded and generally grumpy.  I don't love it.

Your staff, generally speaking, could do with a few happy pills.

When we arrived back in Melbourne from LA our plane was late, no biggie, it was late leaving due to a technical issue.  It happens.  What WAS a problem was that there were ZERO Qantas ground staff anywhere to be seen, no one to tell us what was going on with regard to our connecting flight, which we knew we were going to miss.  There were Virgin ground staff assisting their customers at baggage collection.  Qantas fail.

The transition from international to domestic at Tullamarine is kind of painful, especially with a couple of overloaded baggage trolleys and four kids in tow.  Nobody's fault but the airport design.  We were reallocated to the next flight to Adelaide, initially we couldn't get seats anywhere near together but they sorted this out easily at the gate.  Much better than Jet Blue .

Our arrival back in Melbourne was our first experience with the baggage drop.  It is a miracle that we managed to keep it together.  Everything was already tagged through to Adelaide and initially we were told that the system would recognise those tags for the changed flight. Buh Bow, Wrong.  We had to print and retag all of our luggage, 10 checked piece in total, then do the baggage drop thing all whilst managing the 4 extremely tired children and really really tired ourselves.

We had to actually ask someone to assist us.  Thankfully it was late morning on a Thursday so the airport was quiet.  We pretty obviously needed some assistance, we really shouldn't have had to ask for it.  I commented that it wasn't a particularly family friendly system...the customer service person replied 'no I guess not for families as large as yours' somehow I was quick witted enough in my dumbfoundedness to reply 'well I'm sorry our family is too large to fit your system'.  Just plain rude.

To be honest it's not just families of 2 adults and 4 children that it sucks for.  It sucks more for a mum travelling solo with 2 young kids, and I assure you that happens every.single.day.

If I'm shopping with all four kids I don't choose to use the self checkout option that some supermarkets offer, it's not worth my sanity.  What I am saying Qantas, whilst this new system works for you and the dollars you can save by not using actual people, it doesn't actually work for all your customers.  You need to provide options, or more assistance.

If just one or two of the 5 Virgin flights I'd had in the last 9 months had been with Qantas I'd actually have enough status credits to make me shiny silver.  To be honest it's not that important to me.

I only flew on Virgin for the first time last year and I couldn't believe how much more I enjoyed the experience.  The staff are fun and they are friendly.  This is the captain speaking tells it how it is, they explain what is happening or if it's going to be a particularly rough flight.  The check in experience is positive.

There is the whole having to pay for checked luggage thing but for me it's not an issue.  I just make sure I don't go over the limit.  If your bag is too heavy there is no point bitching about having to pay excess.  These days both airlines will give you 23kg but with Virgin you can check multiple pieces, Qantas only allows you one.

When I'm booking flights I'll typically choose the cheapest out of Qantas and Virgin but if the price is similar Virgin gets my vote.  A smiling face and friendly, helpful attitude makes a whole lot of difference in this world.  It really does.  I like being treated like another human being.  I will definitely be considering V Australia for my next international trip, when ever that may be.

So it begs the question, which is your favourite airline and why?  What is important to you when you are flying?  Do you have any horror stories with particularly unhelpful airline staff or times when they have gone above and beyond?

Hope you are enjoying your week.  Charlotte had a fantastic day yesterday celebrating her 9th birthday.  It is making me happy in my heart seeing her happy again.

Tatum xx

 

Flying that far with Four Kids - Were we Crazy?

I still have a few more photo posts from our trip to the USA left to do but I have been flat out this week and editing lots of photos of an evening has not been particularly appealing.  So, for now, I'm getting started on some of the posts I have planned about travelling with kids, place to visit, places to avoid, where we got good service, where we didn't...the list goes on.  This trip will keep me busy blogging for months!

One of the things people seemed to reat to most was the fact we were flying 'that far' with four kids.  I experienced significant wonderment at the fact we would even attempt such a thing.

To be honest, the actual flying part was one of the least stressful aspects of our trip.  I am speaking from our long haul experience with Qantas and domestic (in the USA) with American Airlines, Delta and Jet Blue.

Here are some of the things I learnt:

• Don't believe everything you have heard about the bad service provided by air carriers in the USA, in our experience they were definitely no worse that Qantas.  In terms of general customer service Qantas was the worst of the four airlines we flew with.
• Given the introduction of the new self check baggage systems make sure you have some one extra to watch your kids at the Australian end if you have alot of bags to handle.  When we left the system had not yet been introduced.  We arrived back via Tullamarine, the flight was late, we missed our connection, Qantas has a grand total of zero ground staff to help people and inform them of what was going on.  We found our way to the domestic terminal 4 kids, 8 suitcases + hand luggage in tow where we were reallocated on to a flight and faced with having to retag and handle our luggage.  It took a bit of effort to find someone to give us a hand.  I remarked that the new system wasn't very family friendly...'not for families as large as yours I guess'.  Somehow both Steven and I managed to keep our (very sleep deprived) cool and not rip into her.
• Going through security at any US airport IS a stressful experience.  The amount of clothing/money/watch/goggles that they require you to remove at the security point does vary from one airport to the next.  Being told to hurry up/take your time/don't touch that/move that please whilst trying to remove your shoes/belt/clothes/underwear and keep an eye on four children (any amount of small children really) is a VERY stressful experience...Stressful to the point you are hoping that your husband isn't arrested because he is having a stand up argument with the security guy at LAX (who truly was a tosser).
• For heavens sake make sure you know where your deoderant (they look like hand grenades apparently) and other small liquid containers are.  Make sure you have a stash of zip lock bags to pop them in.  The argument followed even our best attempts at being organised.
• Get to the airport early.  Above is a photo of the check in counters at Tom Bradley (LAX).  We jagged it that we arrived during a check in lull about 3 1/2 hours before departure.
• Plan your flights (with kids) so that they aren't at peak business travel periods.  We arrived at JFK mid morning on a Saturday.  Not a single line to be waited in.  Awesomeness...although the security bit was still a little stressy.
• If you are flying with Jet Blue make sure you do our seat allocation online otherwise the six of you will be allocated seats all over the plane despite it was one booking.  Even the two year old. I'm not kidding.
• If you have the option to fly on an A380 over a 747 take it.  The A380 is lots more comfortable.
• If the small child is crying and the lights are out the airline staff will, most likely, repeatedly ask you if there is anything they can do to help.  Which, in itself, is actually unhelpful because said small child just needs to go to sleep and they are disturbing her.
• They give you plenty of food on long haul flights.  Qantas offer a 'snack on' service on both the A380 and 747.  We didn't need anything extra.  I am fairly tough love about what the kids eat.  They either eat what is put in front of them or go hungry.  The kids meals have plenty of kid friendly things though.  We had no complaints of I'm hungry.
• When you are booking long haul flights give significant consideration to your departure and arrival times.  A 6am departure is probably going to make everything alot harder in the long run than a lunchtime one.  Everyone will start off alot tireder than if you leave a little later.  It also gives you less hours on the flight before your kids equivalent bedtime.
• When you arrive at your destination try and slip into normal bedtimes as quickly as possible.  To be honest we suffered minimal jetlag in both directions.
• You won't need a whole lot of things to entertain your kids.  Unless, bizarrely, they have no interest in their own personal in seat entertainment.  Sebastian stared at the screen sitting relatively motionless for the majority of the flight home (well the bit where he wasn't sleeping for 5 hours).  Why fight something that works.

• We had pencils/textas/crayons, lined notebook and an activity book for each of the kids.  We also had Uno (which did get played on the way over), DS's which weren't required on the plane but were useful in the airports, and reading books (might as well have left them at home or packed them in the suitcase).  Textas (connector pens are probably the best because you can prevent them rolling all over the place) and crayons are better than pencils because there is no sharpening required.
• The activity packs handed out on the long haul flights caused more fights than any useful purpose.
• Put all your hand luggage in one compartment, this way you are far less likely to leave something behind when you are tired, the kids are tired and all you want to do is get off the plae.  We learnt this the hard way when we landed in Orlando (thankfully it was a domestic flight not an international one!) the camera bag had been in a different locker and got left behind.  Thankfully it just meant a bit of tooing and froing for Steven and a wait for the kids and I before it was retrieved and we were on our way.  It was a heart stopping moment when he realised we didn't have it.  I kept calm and it was all good.
• I didn't even consider giving any of the kids anything like Phenergan.  I wouldn't normally unless it had been prescribed so I don't see the sense in doing it for a flight unless a GP has reccomended it (Charlotte is prone to car sickness so we have given it to her).  Some kids get hyper on it instead so I definitely wouldn't be chancing it without a test run.
• The duty free shopping and general retail in all of the airports we went through (with the exception of Orlando) was dismal.  Even finding food can be difficult.
• Match up your boarding passes with your passports, every little thing made simpler makes the whole experience easier.  Oh and make sure you take off your/hour husband's hat at the passport checkpoint.
• Our immigration experience coming into the USA was not a quick one but it was a friendly one.
• If you need to enquire at a ticketing counter in the US don't expect it to be quick.  The staff are slow and will take a pee break whenever they need one, irrespective of the length of the line.
• When all else fails and you really just need to sit and smile for a while ou can find Krispy Kreme donuts in most airports these days.

• Just Breathe.

So, in short, I didn't think that we were crazy flying that far, just the two of us, with our four kidlets.  To be honest I think I probably would have found the flying part more stressful if we had been flying with other family or friends because our expectations of our kids are our own.  We were free to be ourselves with them and them with us.  It is often when other people and other people's different expectations ofan our children (and/or their own) come into play that things can get more difficult.

Have you flown long haul with your children before?  How did your experience compare to mine?  I'd love to hear about other people's experiences travelleing to other countries or with different airlines.  Hook me up with a link to a blog post if you have one :)

Have a sensational weekend.

Tatum xx