Strollers on a Plane

In an earlier post, I mentioned about how easy it is to use a stroller at the airport. The good news is that you can bring it all the way up to the plane. What happens at that point is that the stroller is folded up and checked-in by a flight attendant. Then when you arrive at your destination, the stroller is right there waiting for you just outside the plane door. It is much more convenient than you might expect. Now I cannot be sure that every airline handles this the exact same way, but I would imagine that most do. After all, they do allow early boarding for people traveling with small children. I noticed while checking our blog stats that someone found our blog while searching google with "can I bring a double stroller on a plane." What we discovered is that this is totally possible. It would work the same way as mentioned above. Had we known this before our recent trip to the islands, we would have brought our double stroller instead of making our 2 year-old walk all over the airport. Our 10 month old is also much happier in the stroller when he has his big sister sitting next to him. We have a Combi double stroller that is uber-portable and both kids love riding in it. Oh well, live and learn! UPDATE: Apparently, Southwest recently eliminated pre-boarding with small children. To the best of knowledge and research, most all other carriers still allow it. It has also been brought to my attention that this stroller process that I have discussed may not work the same way if your flight has multiple legs. If nothing else, just ask a helpful airline employee.

Overcoming Your Fear of Flying

Psst... I have a secret to confess- although I love to travel and discover new places I find that there is one thing that most always sends me into a panic. It happens the moment that I receive an email with a flight confirmation number or as soon as I get off the phone with an agent. It's that dreaded feeling of knowing that I will have to get on a plane and fly somewhere. I haven't always had this fear, I was able to fly without a care in the world as a child and as a young adult. All was well until just a couple of years ago. The horrific events and scenes from September 11 were engraved in mind and paralyzed me with many fears, including the fear of flying. Weeks before we are set to fly, I will start to have nightmares, tense up whenever someone will bring up vacation plans, and eventually as our vacation approaches I will start to say to my husband - maybe we shouldn't go... What if...? We all know that we are living in the safest era of American aviation. According to the National Safety Council your odds of dying in a plane crash in any particular year are about 1 in 432,484. The odds of dying in a traffic accident are 1 in 6,535!! Air travel is definitely the safest form of transportation. I decided before our last vacation that I needed to overcome this fear because it had started to affect my children. Lauren , my two year old daughter, started to say "oh planes scary mommy." Once I heard her say this I knew that this had to change. As a parent we are supposed to be examples to our children. How could I pass along my irrational fears to my children?? This set me on a mission to overcome my extreme fear. I knew that it was my responsibility to help Lauren understand that flying can be fun and most importantly safe. I researched on the net ways to overcome my fear. I read plenty of articles and books, but nothing seemed to help. That's when I stumbled upon a wonderful site that helped me overcome my fear overnight. It's http://www.fearofflyinghelp.com/ . It's an online course designed specifically for people just like me. It was miraculous, I was able to board a plane and actually enjoy the ride. Ok I'm actually exaggerating a little about the enjoying part- after all I was traveling with an infant and a toddler!! The course was developed by a commercial pilot who has dealt with many nervous and fearful passengers. It took me about two and a half hours to finish the first night I stumbled upon it and then I reviewed it again with my two year old to help ease her fears. I can't recommend this site enough. It's a fantastic course and the best part is that it is absolutely free to enroll in it. If you know someone, perhaps a family member, your child or if that someone is you, do them or yourself a favor and take the online class.