NotUrsula
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 20,036
The business about the awkwardness of extra carryons combined with wrangling small children IS worth mentioning; it can be a royal PITA.
In my family we have what we laughingly call the "hand-rule." That means no more things to carry past security than you have adult-sized hands. A stroller takes two hands, but a small backpack is hands-free, so it's a gimmee. Each kid that is young enough to possibly be a bolting risk counts for a hand, too. By our rule, if you have two small children with you, plus a stroller, plus a carseat in a backpack bag, then the wheeled carryons that you can have with two adults in the party equal zero. (Shoulder bags still count against a hand, because if you are trying to hold a child's hand while carrying one, the odds are about 50-1 that at some point that bag is going to swing down and wallop your kid.) Now I *might* stretch this standard far enough to take one wheeled carryon, but there is no way on this earth that I would stretch it to try to take three of them. We swear by the hand-rule; the times we've decided to ignore it and do the pack-mule thing have been uniformly unpleasant, so we've learned our lesson.
Also, FWIW, I have known legacy carriers that do not normally pre-board families to make an exception for one parent who is installing a carseat. The reason for that is the difficulty of getting that carseat onto the aircraft without hitting someone if you are juggling a child at the same time during general boarding, and they really would prefer that the passengers in F not get whacked as the thing passes down the aisle. Also, getting the carseat out of the aisle before the majority of passengers board tends to speed up boarding a bit.
In my family we have what we laughingly call the "hand-rule." That means no more things to carry past security than you have adult-sized hands. A stroller takes two hands, but a small backpack is hands-free, so it's a gimmee. Each kid that is young enough to possibly be a bolting risk counts for a hand, too. By our rule, if you have two small children with you, plus a stroller, plus a carseat in a backpack bag, then the wheeled carryons that you can have with two adults in the party equal zero. (Shoulder bags still count against a hand, because if you are trying to hold a child's hand while carrying one, the odds are about 50-1 that at some point that bag is going to swing down and wallop your kid.) Now I *might* stretch this standard far enough to take one wheeled carryon, but there is no way on this earth that I would stretch it to try to take three of them. We swear by the hand-rule; the times we've decided to ignore it and do the pack-mule thing have been uniformly unpleasant, so we've learned our lesson.
Also, FWIW, I have known legacy carriers that do not normally pre-board families to make an exception for one parent who is installing a carseat. The reason for that is the difficulty of getting that carseat onto the aircraft without hitting someone if you are juggling a child at the same time during general boarding, and they really would prefer that the passengers in F not get whacked as the thing passes down the aisle. Also, getting the carseat out of the aisle before the majority of passengers board tends to speed up boarding a bit.
