Posts in the category "family travel":

14 hours – give or take an hour or so if the winds are with you – is all it takes to fly from Seattle to Dubai on the new Emirates route that started on March 1, 2012.

First-Class passengers have private suites, Business Class passengers like me (thank-you Emirates) get seats that turn into lie-flat beds and everyone gets to use ice - the in-flight entertainment system that has information channels (including an external camera), phone, text and email service (at a cost) that also allows you to call other passengers on the flight (free), and more than 600 channels of movies and other entertainment.

I haven’t yet had a good tour of the Dubai International Airport but here are a few quick takes from arrival:

For families getting off the flight, Emirates thoughtfully provides strollers right there at the gate.

There are palm trees in baggage claim.

And the location of the prayer rooms are clearly marked.

Stay tuned for more..

Categories: Air Travel, family travel
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A humorous commercial showing kids flying cargo may have been an April Fool’s Day joke by Canadian airline WestJet, but many travelers do harbor hopes for child-free flights.

Now Malaysia Airlines is taking steps to create make that dream come true.

When the airline’s first Airbus A380-800 takes to the skies on July 1, flying the Kuala Lumpur–London route, families with children won’t be welcome in the airplane’s upper deck, which will have 70 economy and 66 business class seats.

Instead, those passengers will be asked to book in the 350-seat economy class zone on the main deck, which the airline has designated as its child-friendly zone.

In a statement, the airline cites the availability of extra family-friendly facilities, including eight toilets for the lower-deck economy section and a dual aerobridge that offers “speedier/faster embarkation and disembarkation for this group of passengers.”

But the policy may have more to do with the comfort of its upper-deck fliers.

“Malaysia Airlines is trying to make its premium product on the A380 more appealing to the high-yielding business passengers,” said Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying, a company specializing in airline branding and customer engagement. “They value their peace and quiet and [this way] can rest assured that they won’t be disturbed by kids on long-haul flights.”

Along with the new Airbus A380-800s, Malaysia Airlines has already reconfigured the first class cabins on the airline’s Boeing 747s to no longer accommodate bassinets, effectively making that section baby-free. Bassinets, however, are available in business or economy class.

Some have called Malaysia Airline’s plan discriminatory to families. But child-free sections on airplanes would be “no different than the ‘quiet cars’ provided by train companies,” said Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, editor-in-chief of WeJustGotBack.com. “My guess is that many parents would opt for kid-free zones on planes when they’re traveling without their children.”

Kelleher said many family-friendly hotels and resorts now have designated spaces, such as spas, adult-only pools, fitness rooms and formal restaurants, where kids are not allowed. And most cruise lines offer adult-only areas such as pool decks and quiet restaurants. “Even Disney Cruise Line does this, much to the delight of adults on board,” said Kelleher.

Joe Brancatelli, publisher of the business-travel website JoeSentMe.com, understands those who would want babies and young children banned from the premium-class cabins. But he suspects that when it comes to other carriers following Malaysia Airlines’ lead, dollars may overrule toddlers.

“I doubt anyone will match, although Asia is a unique market,” said Brancatelli. “But it comes to this: If a parent wants to pay to bring a child in a premium cabin, well, it’s hard to turn away the money.”

He may be right. In a memo clarifying its policy, Malaysia Airlines states, “Where there is overwhelming demand for seats in economy class from families with children and infants, resulting in full load in the main deck, we will still accommodate such demand in the 70-seat upper deck economy class zone of our A380.”

(This story first appeared on Today Travel)

Categories: family travel
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Inspiration strikes when you least expect it, and last summer it hit Julie Melnick on a flight from Los Angeles to Florida.

She struggled onto the plane with a car seat, her 2-year-old son and assorted carry-on bags, and then had a tough time enroute. “My child didn’t want to sit still and he needed to be walked up and down the aisle 5,000 times,” Melnick said. “It was just such a draining experience.”

Melnick knew other moms deal with the same thing, and she thought there had to be a better way. Her solution: Nanny in the Clouds, a website that will match parents seeking in-flight babysitters with a fellow passenger on their flight who has experience caring for children.

Signing up is free, but once a match is made, parents pay $10 for an introduction to a potential babysitter. Then it’s up to the sitter and the parents to work out a fee — and to call the airline and ask to be seated together or request adjoining seats during check in.

“We’re recommending the going rate, which is $10 to $20 an hour,” said Melnick. “But a lot of people are willing to pay a premium when they’re traveling.”

Nannies must provide two references upon signing up, but Nanny in the Clouds does not do background checks. “If they’re a teacher, a college student or a grandma, they are qualified in our eye,” said Melnick. Instead, the site encourages parents to do their homework and have phone conversations and/or an in-person meeting to ensure that the match is right.

Several family travel experts gave Nanny in the Clouds the once over.

“My first reaction was: How lazy are parents that they can’t even watch their own children during a measly flight?” said Colleen Lanin, editor and founder of TravelMamas.com. But after thinking it over, she decided a sitter in the air could be a lifesaver for a mom or dad who is traveling solo with two or more young children. “It would also be a great service for parents who are prone to air sickness or who are nervous/phobic flyers,” said Lanin.

“I would predict more crying, not less,” said Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, editor-in-chief at We Just Got Back. “Most small kids would want to sit with their parents, not a stranger, on a flight.”

Airplane travel “takes the whole family out of their routine” by adding anxiety, excitement, and, usually, sleep deprivation, said travel comfort specialist Anya Clowers of JetwithKids.com. “If the timing and the match were correct, and parents remain in control by using the nanny mostly as an assistant to help, this may be a blessing.”

For those who do hire an in-flight sitter, though, Clowers advises scheduling a get-to-know-you session before boarding. “A photo or Skype session prior to travel is a good idea so the nanny is not a stranger on the day of travel,” she said.

Nanny in the Clouds launched in November 2011, although Melnick said that, so far, no matches for in-flight sitters have been made.

“There are 30,000 flights a day, and right now it’s a long shot that there will be a registered sitter on the flight you’re on,” said Melnick. So within a few weeks the site will add a feature that allows travelers to search by city pairs instead of specific flight numbers. That will expand the options and allow a mom going from Los Angeles to Miami to choose a flight that already has a registered nanny.

While Melnick has high hopes for her service, she’s not the first to create a program that provides in-flight babysitters. One airline, Gulf Air, already offers specially trained Sky Nannies as a complimentary service on its wide-bodied aircraft flying long-haul flights and in its airport lounges.

Still, whether there’s a sitter on board or not, Clowers said, “Parents still need to take responsibility for their children and be prepared to meet their needs at 37,000 feet.”

What do you think? Would you hire a nanny to watch your kids on a flight?

(My story about Nanny in the Clouds originally appeared on Today.com)

Categories: family travel
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Each Friday on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin, I tackle a reader’s travel-related question. This week’s topic was flying with cremated remains.

Dottie Flanagan, an accounting manager from Falmouth, Mass., will be flying to Knoxville, Tenn., in a few months to bury her mother’s cremated remains.

Flanagan isn’t sure yet which airline she’ll fly on or whether she’ll fly out of the airport in Boston or Providence, R.I., but she wrote to Overhead Bin to ask if there might be a problem taking the urn along as a carry-on item.

“The funeral parlor gave me the urn wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in a bag with handles,” said Flanagan. “It is ceramic with pink roses on it, shaped like a ginger gar and about 11 inches high. The lid is glued to the bottom and it cannot be opened. I’m sure I could obtain a letter from the funeral home certifying what was in the container if that would help.”

To help Flanagan with this task, I first reviewed the “Transporting the deceased” section of Transportation Security Administration website. There we learned that while passengers are allowed to carry a crematory container as carry-on luggage, the container must still pass through the X-ray machine. According to the TSA, “If the container is made of a material that generates an opaque image and prevents the Transportation Security Officer from clearly being able to see what is inside, then the container cannot be allowed through the security checkpoint.”

Paperwork from a funeral home about the contents of a container will not exclude it from screening and the TSA states that “out of respect … under no circumstances will an officer open the container even if the passenger requests this be done.”

As a precaution, TSA urges travelers to get a crematory container made of wood or plastic that can be successfully X-rayed. That still left me wondering about Flanagan’s ceramic container and we asked TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez to take a look at a jar similar to the one Flanagan will be carrying.

“Most urns will go through the X-ray machine with no problem,” said Melendez, “and this looks like porcelain, and should be fine. The problems we have are with containers made of lead that are difficult to see through, which is why we ask people to travel with the simplest container possible.”

If an urn is turned away from the security checkpoint, Melendez points out that the TSA does permit urns to be screened and placed in checked luggage. But some airlines specifically prohibit crematory containers from checked baggage.

The bottom line? For the final word on transporting cremated remains to their final resting spot, check with your carrier.

(Photo courtesy Flickr Commons.)

Categories: Air Travel, family travel, Rules
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Photo courtesy Alliance Chamber of Commerce

Carhenge, a classic and kitschy roadside attraction just outside of Alliance, Neb., is up for sale.

Price tag: $300,000.

Created 24 years ago by Jim Reinders during a family reunion, Carhenge is a sculpture made of 38 gray-spray-painted vintage American cars replicating Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. Some of the cars stand upright, while others are welded in place to form arches.

“It’s astronomical what Carhenge means to our community,” said Dixie Nelson, executive director of the Alliance Chamber of Commerce. “More than 87,000 people visit it each year. The people in Omaha said they wished they had it, even though they already have so many attractions there.”

Not long after he built it, Reinders gave Carhenge, and the 10 acres of farmland it sits on, to the nonprofit Friends of Carhenge, a group that has maintained the site and improved it over the years with a building, a parking lot and additional sculptures.

But Marcia Buck, president of Friends of Carhenge, says the group no longer has the money or the staffing to do Carhenge justice. “We do what we do and we do it every summer, but we recognize there’s more that can be done out there. Putting in an RV park or a restaurant or expanding the building, for example, would take a lot of cash that we just don’t have.”

Buck said she’s talked with Reinders, who now lives in Arizona and visits Alliance and the sculpture about once year. “He’s always surprised it’s lasted this long,” said Buck. “And he understands.”

This story first appeared on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin.

Categories: family travel, Fun Stuff
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