We took our twins to Hawaii and did a cruise for a week. The cruise was great as you always had your room within walking distance should accidents happen.
The room within walking distance for some could conceiveably be the root cause of the 'accident' in the first place.
:shock:
We are travelling to Darwin from Melbourne and the back and then Melbourne to Cairns have booked with Qantas interested to know what's the difference between Virgin and Qantas when travelling with a baby and booked a trip to the USA.
Also any tips on where to take a holiday with a baby would be. Appreciated
The minute you've done the international booking ring up res for QF or VA & ask if they can
allocate you the seats in front of the bassinet. Don't just do a request for a bassinet as that means nothing. Too many times you hear parents say at the airport "but we rang up and
requested the bassinet row". If there are only 4 bassinets but 8 infants some people are going to miss out.
If you are flying MEL/DRW/MEL & MEL/CNS/MEL on QF you will be travelling on Boeing 737 aircraft which are not equipped with bassinets. Even if you don't have any frequent flyer status you can still pre-select seats with QF on the flight way before you are able to online checkin (OLCI). If you've already made the bookings go to the QF website now & use the 'manage my booking' feature to access your booking see if you're able to click on the 'seat selection' button.
You could select 27A & 27C then enquire at the airport about blocking off 27B which hopefully will still be unoccupied & provided the flight has enough unsold seats to warrant doing it. If you select 27AB or 27BC there's a higher chance there will already be another passenger in the window or aisle seat & by the time you get to the airport there may not be another block of 3 seats to move you to with the only other spare seats being middle seats scattered throughout the plane.
If travelling domestically with DJ you would need status in order to pre-allocate seats once you have a booking otherwise you'll only be able to do it 24 hours before when doing OLCI, however you still may be able to select an aisle & window then ask the the airport if it's possible to block off the middle seat.
Domestic - DJ win hands down. My wife frequently travels with two kids by herself whilst i am away, including one baby. Virgin hosties happy to lend a hand, QF will never offer.
And DJ put all kids down the back so no stress about annoying the WP businessman next to you (unlike QF, who auto allocates row 4 to mother and 2 kids on packed 737???!!??)
How do you know the mother with 2 kids wasn't Platinum & chose those seats herself??? Do you think QF should put all parents travelling with children down the back of the aircraft even if they are WP's?
When you travel with your offspring do you ask to be seated down the back of the aircraft so your kids don't annoy the WP businessman in row 4 or do you just expect other people to do that for you?
A more likely scenario is that there probably was another WP or couple in row 4 that decided to upgrade on points in the lounge thereby leaving row 4 free so perhaps you should direct your annoyance towards these people. QF do not 'auto allocate' row 4 to people with kids, the lady may have checked in around the same time the seats became vacant & if it was a full flight like you said somebody had to sit in row 4 so the system would have allocated seats from whatever was still unallocated.
I will echo Lindsay Wilson's sentiments regarding QF cabin crew, as I too have seen many cases where F/A's, many of whom are parents themselves, have willingly assisted parents travelling with babies and young children as well as being great with unaccompanied minors who can often be upset when travelling by themselves.
