Where are you going with your family for your next vacation? Maybe you're thinking of taking the kids to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida - just the place to make some good family memories. The chances are that you will be flying into Orlando rather than driving in - unless you want to have a road trip as well as a Disney World vacation. Travelling with small children can be trying at the best of times, but air travel has its own peculiar hassles that you don't get when travelling via land.
The hassles of air travel start with the airport itself. You have to get yourself, your family and your luggage to the airport, and if you're going to be away from home for any stretch of time, you probably don't want to have your car in long-term airport parking ($$$) so you're going to have to take a taxi or get a friend to drop you off. If you're wise, you'll keep the baggage to a minimum, as you're going to have to fit yourselves, your luggage and the driver into the taxi. If you have booked a rental stroller instead of taking your own, this will be the first place that you will be grateful you did.
Once you've got yourself to the airport, the hassles continue - or just consider them part of the adventure. You have to check in. The process of checking in is a lot easier than it used to be with modern electronic ticketing systems. However, you have to sort out your luggage. Make the most of what you can carry on in your hand luggage so you have plenty to entertain your children and yourself when you're in the air, and don't forget that you have pockets to put things in. Bear the new security regulations brought in post-911 in mind. You can have bottles of 90 mL or smaller (that's 3 ounces), which includes bottles of baby formula as well as regular drinks of water and one zip-lock bag with a one-quart capacity holding these bottles. Each person can have one of these bottle-containing zip-lock bags, which must be clearly displayed in the hand luggage. Exceptions are made for infant formula and breast milk, but you must declare these. You can have scissors if the blades are shorter than four inches (so small nail scissors are OK) and small tools (if you need to take tools in your hand luggage when you're going on vacation). You can't have aerosol deodorant or any other aerosols - if something happens to the airplane cabin pressure, aerosol cans can explode messily and dangerously. Check the Transportation Security Administration for more details about what you can and can't take on the plane.
Once you have sorted out your hand luggage (and the stuff in your pockets), it's time to hand over your other baggage so it can be put in the hold of the plane. Again, you will save yourself a world of bother if you book Disney stroller rentals instead of taking your own baby stroller, as a decent stroller can put you over the weight limit, making you pay excess baggage fees. Within the weight limits with your own stroller? Don't forget the trip back from Walt Disney World - that stroller can put you over the limit if you have bought some souvenirs for the friends and relatives back home. One tip for making things a bit easier at the other end of the trip, whether you have booked Disney stroller rentals or not, is to put a matching strip of bright or patterned material on each bit of checked in luggage and to have a matching strip in your hand luggage. At the other end, if you're getting assistance, you just ask the porter to look out for everything with a bit of that mat erial on it.
After this, if you're lucky, you will have some form of security check so you can get on the plane. If you aren't lucky, a connecting flight (or your flight) will be delayed - it happens, weather being what it is. Children must be taken out of a stroller before going through the metal detectors, so this is another area where booking Disney stroller rentals rather than taking your own stroller can save you a bit of bother - the fiddle of taking kids in and out of the stroller as you go through the metal detector is a nuisance, and you can't hand the child to another person - and this other person includes the security guard. A toddler who can walk alone has to go through the metal detectors solo - make this into a game if you can.
During the security check, the authorities will do their utmost to prevent parents being separated from their children, even if your child draws the short straw for more intense random searches. Your hand luggage will have to go through the X-ray machine. Never, ever put anything that a child is riding in through the X-ray machine without taking the child out first. If an item is too big to fit through the X-ray machine, the security officers will have to take their time inspecting it manually, so if you have taken your own stroller rather than booking Disney stroller rentals, you will slow everything down. The more things that you can leave at home and rent at your destination, the better - cribs, car seats and baby strollers.
At some point during your time in an airport, you will have to wait around. Fortunately, the novelty of airport surroundings will help entertain small children for a good chunk of this time, and you should be able to watch planes taking off, which is something that most kids of all ages can find fun. If a delayed departure gives you a long wait, then have storybooks and toys handy. And don't forget that unusual toilets are also interesting to small children. At least one parent has found that a long airplane trip has been a good opportunity to introduce a small child to toilet training - after all, this is one activity that takes up time in a departure lounge and in the air. In the departure lounge, let your kids run around a bit and burn off some energy, as long as they don't annoy strangers. They'll be in their seats in the air for a long time.
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