Disfans

Alright, I got the kids back to school, and many other pressing matters have been taken care of. So I may now report on our trip to Disneyland.

We were very excited about the trip, this last minute vacation was just what we needed to escape the Texas heat and relax before the flurry of activity that awaited us when we returned. I tried to put school supplies, book lists, and shopping for school clothes out of my mind.

I had chosen an early morning flight on Frontier Airlines, with a stop in Denver, rather than the more expensive, non-stop late morning flight on American Airlines. I reasoned that the 2 kids I was taking on this trip, are seasoned fliers, and are able to carry their own backpacks and march through an airport with only a little guidance and supervision from me. My husband had volunteered to drive us to the airport, even though the early flight time had us all up at 4:30am.

The kids were excited, and ready to go, springing out of bed, and grabbing their stuff. Ha! Just kidding. They grumbled and fussed a bit, but they were excited about Disneyland and once awake, were easy enough to pursuade to the car.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and my kids were really easy going about checking our bags, and going through security. They know how to peel off their shoes and put their stuff into a gray security tray, and march through the metal detectors, and gather all their stuff again, in what I must say is a record of speed and coordination for them. I have never seen my kids get ready to go with this level of speed, when the starting point is home, and the end target is school.

Our experience with Frontier Airlines was great. The kids loved that they got to have FREE headphones, and they got to watch TV… on the plane. The novelty of watching whatever they wanted on DirectTV programing on the plane, or the map, or the weather channel entertained them all the way to Denver. We hardly noticed the same old cattle car atmosphere, because we could watch our own individual TVs.

For a short flight, such as this was, into Denver, we did not get a meal, and since we left very, very early indeed, we had not procured any provisions at the airport. The kids didn’t understand why the TSA banned liquids in the carry on luggage and why that meant we had no food or beverages with us. Frontier did provide a beverage and a granola bar. Our stopover in Denver was a very brief, 10 minutes, during which we had to virtually sprint across the airport to the next terminal, passing by a very fragrant, and appetizing food court. I didn’t want to take the time to stand in a McDonalds line when I didn’t know where our gate was, so I dragged the kids past all the wonderful food smells to stand in line at our gate.

Once at the gate, it was pretty apparent that we weren’t going to be boarding in the next 30 seconds or even the next 5 minutes, so we darted into a newstand to acquire some small consumables. On board Frontier once again, the children were content to munch on their snacks and watch TV. May the deity of your choice bless the person who came up with this idea, because the whining of a bored child is a curse on an entire airplane. My kids not only didn’t whine for the entire 2 flight trip to Southern California, and they are champion whiners, my friends… I was also able to block the incessant whining of smaller children who were too young to enjoy Direct TV programming (or perhaps their parent was too cheap to pay the $5, who knows?) For $15, I was able to entertain myself and 2 children for 2 hours, and they got free cheap headphones. I used my iPod headphones with zero trouble, but we liked the Frontier cheap headphones for the kids, because they are so cheap, you can bend them to fit a small person’s head if necessary.

My travel tips for this leg of the journey:

• Have your child carry their own backpack, appropriate to the size of your child. They can carry a stuffed animal, small blanket, and travel pillow, and small toys for the plane. Snacks are also a good idea, but with increased security, no beverages.
• Tell your child what to expect at the security checkpoint.  Have them wearing easy to remove shoes, that they can pull on and off themselves.  If they can put their own bag and shoes into that bin themselves and slide it to the conveyor belt, its that much easier for you. Remember you will have to take your camera, phone, computer, and other electronic equipment out of your bag, while taking off your shoes and finding bins for all those items.  If your child can manage his/her own items its so much easier to handle. Even more so on the other side, if they can put on their own shoes and grab their own bag while you are wrangling everything else, its so helpful.
• Bring cheap headphones or grab some freebies from the airline.  If you fly Frontier, you get free headphones for watching TV.  On other airlines, the headphones are still entertaining for the children to listen to music on the plane.  Cheaper headphones are easier to bend and make fit on a smaller child’s head.