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Published: December 4th 2016
I always thought the Asian airlines like Thai and Malaysian were the best ones to fly with when you have kids as they are so warm and friendly when it comes to children. I now stand corrected. The award for best kid-friendly airline goes to Etihad, out of the United Arab Emirates, hands down. They first caught our attention when we read about their "nanny in the sky" program. While it's not quite as good as you might at first hope for (we discovered that they don't, in fact, take the kids off your hands at all!) it's still pretty good. The way it works is that one of the air hostesses is assigned as the nanny for the flight. They wear a special uniform to make them extra identifiable to stressed out parents and, as well as carrying out the regular flight attendant duties, they are also responsible for helping to keep all of the kids on the flight happy. Lucky them! I couldn't help wonder if they pull straws at the start of each shift! Before take off, the nanny goes around and introduces herself to each child individually and then hands them a bag with crayons etc in
it. She also makes sure the kids meals are brought out in a timely manner (and the kid meals, by the way, look super cute!) She is also supposed to come help to entertain your child if they get fussy, but when Jakey had a giant meltdown for five straight minutes in the middle of the night, she was nowhere to be seen! Pretty sure she wouldn't have been able to help anyway as Jake was just plain exhausted at that point. It was't just the assigned nanny, though. Everyone else was really friendly to the kids, and they even invited the kids into the cockpit to say hi to the pilot (after landing!) I was glad we'd chosen to fly with them. Just kidding -we didn't exactly choose them, we just went with the cheapest way to get from A to B. For $350 each for a total of 14 hours in the air, I'd have been more than happy for them to simply get me there safely, so to have a nice experience was a bonus!
Unfortunately, that's about where the "fun" ended. The hardest thing about these flights was the sheer distance (36 hours
in total door to door) and the crappy timing. The first timing problem was that we had to drag the kids out of bed at 5am to get to Port Elizabeth airport on time. The second difficulty was that jake completely skipped his nap as we had a stop over in the bright Johannesburg airport for 7 1/2 hours. Thankfully there was a very lively group of musicians playing to keep them entertained.
By the time we boarded the flight to Abu Dhabi it was 8pm and night night time. Of course, with all the food service commotion, the kids didn't get to sleep until after 10pm, only to be awoken at 1:30am for breakfast! We then had a three hour layover in Abu Dhabi where Jakey managed to get us to the front of an enormous queue by screaming the building down (nicely done, Jakey!) Luckily there was a playground in the airport so that helped calm things down. Our third and final flight was at 6am (in our Africa time) and Jake fell asleep soon after take off but woke up three hours in. The remaining three hours were pretty much a living hell with
multiple screaming meltdowns. At least Kyla slept through!
Once at Phuket airport we collected our bags and headed to an ATM. We couldn't get any of them to work and suspected that Bank of America had blocked our account due to "suspicious activity" despite the fact that we'd informed them of our travel plans. Let's just say it wouldn't be the first time. We ended up changing US cash in Thai baht and then jumped into a taxi. Jake instantly fell asleep and Kyla had fun watching the night time scenery out of the window -crazy tuk-tuks whizzing by, golden lit up statues, elaborately decorated bridges, and Blackpool-style illuminations (only Brits will understand this part but I don't know how else to describe them!)
An hour later we pulled into our hotel. It was gorgeous and a far cry from anything we have previously stayed in in Thailand. Mind you, it should be for $60 a night. That's what you get for booking ahead online: an upmarket hotel but a high price for Thailand. The only downer was the weather. There was a raging wind and rain storm going on and our taxi driver
had even referred to it as a typhoon. We checked in and just as we were being shown into the elevator, there was a power cut. Luckily a generator powered up to provide for basic electricity needs. We walked up to the third floor and dumped our bags before heading down to the hotel restaurant. Given the weather, we didn't want to venture out. It was so bad that the wind even blew a menu and salt pot off a table! Kyla wanted noodles but refused to eat them when they came. To be honest, the food was pretty bland, your typical hotel food, and way overpriced too. The kids basically ended up eating boiled rice for dinner. By midnight we were back in our room, power working, fast asleep. The kids slept for eleven straight hours and woke up in a much better mood!
It was still pouring with rain when we awoke so we took our time getting ready, venturing out for a late lunch when it died down. The kids ate some egg on toast and we were happy to have Thai food again. Next job was to sort out our ATM card. After
a lot of messing around, we managed to get a SIM card working on our phone, and after being on the phone with Bank of America for over an hour, our account was finally unlocked. Crazy!
That night we finally felt more chilled out. We had some great Thai food and Chang beer, and Jake and Kyla found something they liked: banana milkshakes and mango-sticky-rice. They are truly initiated to Thailand now! We wandered around the busy streets after dinner and the kids had fun looking at all the glow-toys for sale and playing in the laser beams. We finished the night off by taking advantage of the fact that they didn't get out of bed until 11am - another beer and a banana milkshake at a place with live music. The kids loved it. Now we just need the weather to perk up so that we can make use of our gorgeous pool!
*** Please scroll down for more photos ***
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I was born and grew up in Thailand so I'm looking forward to...
reading about your children's experiences adapting to this culture. Mangoes and sticky rice is still my favorite dessert!