Emirates- things for children?

swizzle_2

Have booked for our family to go to Nz at the end of the year with Emirates.

Know that there inflight entertaniment is supposed to be good-25 Disney movies, plus already booked childrens meals.

But do they give children an activity back pack like some of the others do?

If not will have to start looking in the £ shop- it`s a long flight and they can`t watch movies all the way-plus what if there a prob with it!

Thanks

Looking forward to the hol, but not the flight with 2 children aged 7 and 3- I must be mad.

fatboyonadiet

I'm sure they will, have you looked on their website or asked them? One of the best airlines going so I'm sure they will cater well for kids.

swizzle_2

I have emailed them and am awaiting a reply. Looked on website-can`t find anything.

have emailed them before and got a reply straight away- maybe they don`t know who to send it to?

Will give it a week then ring them-but that will cost me money!

fatboyonadiet

Not if you use www.saynoto0870.com! A few numbers on there but reckon the best one would be 0207 8080033 which is for customer services.

LesD

Note also that there are different facilities on their different planes. When we flew to Australia with them (Dec 2004) the newer Airbuses had full seat-back entertainment, including 'Nintendo-style' games, but the older ones didn't.

However, I assume your routing will be via Dubai, Singapore and Melbourne/Brisbane, so each sector will be c8 hours. Much better than a 13 hour 'hop'!

cigar_2

We flew on Emirates from Manchester to Auckland via Dubai, Singapore and Brisbane last November, stayed a week, then across to Sydney for a weeks, then up to Cairns (Virgin Blue) for a few days, back to Sydney (Virgin Blue again), then back to Manchester via Bangkok and Dubai.

We travelled with 2 young kids - aged 3 and 18 months - 10 flights in total!

Our 3 year old slept for some part of the jouurney on every flight segment - we flew out of Manchester in the evening (bedtime) which I think helped. Most other segments ended up flying at night or in the dark for a large part, which made it easier for the kids to sleep.

The entertainment system on the newer planes is fantastic - 500 channels of Films, TV, Kids programs, games, email, SMS.... plus virtually every disney film you can think of. We had this system on the majority of the flights, although the first flight "only" had the older style with "just" 20 channels or so I think - although this still had kids films on. You should be able to look at Emirates website to see what the actual plane you will be flying on is (Airbus A320 or Boeing 777 etc.) and nearer the time you can see what entertainment is avialbale on each flight/plane.

The format of each flight was:
Board the plane (families with young children usually board first)
Crew come round with hot towels & menus
Kids also get soft toys (to keep) and on some flights they also got sticker books
Take off
Crew come round with drinks
Meals serverd almost immediately after drinks (again kids first if you've booked the kids meals - they get plastic lunchboxes you can keep with bread, crackers, carton of juice, toy, watch etc. and a hot dish too)
There are then subsequent drinks and meals (depending on duration and time of flight).

The biggest problem we had was not having a seat for our youngest (under 2) - on some flights we were able to swap or move around to get the extra seat, but trying to have a 4 meals in 3 seats is not easy!

The crew on Emirates were brilliant on all but one of our flights (where they just didn't seem bothered and would push past, bang trolleys into your knees etc.). Our 3 year old was ill on the 2nd flight and they arranged for a doctor to come on board at 2am in Singapore (at a cost to us), then supplied pillows for him from business class and a constant supply of ice cubes, offers of alternative meals, etc!

The worst segment was the last - the flight was totally daytime from Dubai to Manchester. The kids were a nightmare and we couldn't wait to get off the plane and get home! I think by this time they were bored of watching TV and just wanted to run around!

Overall I would thoroughly recommend Emirates to fly with (especially with young kids). We booked through Trailfinders who were also excellent. My wife also phoned Emirates a week beforehand to check our details and they confirmed that our seats had already been reserved - this was an 0870 number but the 30 minute call was well worth it as we got some seats changed to better positions (bulkhead seats).

As for car hire, we booked a 4x4 for 5 days in Cairns through Trailfinders - this was an excellent deal (about half the cost if we'd booked out there, about £30 per day I think) and came from Avis. We also hired a car in Sydney for 2 seperate days (to get to/from the airport) - a Toyota Camry - this was done spontaneously by phoning Hertz (they asked if I had any discount codes or belonged to any motoring organizations, I said the AA in the UK). The cost was about £35 per day including 2 car seats and a petrol top-up costs (because I couldn't be bothered to try and find a petrol station without getting lost).