Flying to US with United & small children?

[kitton]

Has anybody flown to States with United Airlines and small children? We are flying via Washington then to MCO for Easter. Whole package £1500 cheaper than flying direct with BA or Virgin! Just wondered what the facilities would be like - we thought saving that much money we'd take the risk - but curious if anyone has done something similar. Thank you

 

[disneyholic family]

Has anybody flown to States with United Airlines and small children? We are flying via Washington then to MCO for Easter. Whole package £1500 cheaper than flying direct with BA or Virgin! Just wondered what the facilities would be like - we thought saving that much money we'd take the risk - but curious if anyone has done something similar. Thank you

sorry i've never flown United internationally, but i have to agree that £1500 is a HUGE savings and definitely worth the risk...

i assume you're flying into Dulles airport (or maybe BWI?....no probably Dulles)....
do you know how much time you'll have between flights?....this is important since you're going to have to clear immigration and customs in Washington, given that it's your point of entry into the US.....

 

[burt]

Hi Kitton

Like you we are travelling easter 06 with children and like you we booked indirect flights going to washington and then onto orlando, we could not beleive how much we saved booking this way, Sorry i cant answer your questions about united airlines as its our first time flying with them aswell, so will be intrested to see what others have to say.

With regards to immigration and customs, we have about 2 1/2 hours between flights providing everything is on time - is this enough? and also does this mean that when we finally arrive at orlando we wil get out of the airport quicker having done the immigration thing at washington?? over to you disneyholic!!!

thanks in advance

 

[kristieuk]

Hi Kitton

Like you we are travelling easter 06 with children and like you we booked indirect flights going to washington and then onto orlando, we could not beleive how much we saved booking this way, Sorry i cant answer your questions about united airlines as its our first time flying with them aswell, so will be intrested to see what others have to say.

With regards to immigration and customs, we have about 2 1/2 hours between flights providing everything is on time - is this enough? and also does this mean that when we finally arrive at orlando we wil get out of the airport quicker having done the immigration thing at washington?? over to you disneyholic!!!

thanks in advance

Sorry I haven't flown via Washington, so I don't know how long they suggest to leave between flights, but in my experience of flying via hubs such as Chicago and Atlanta, 2 1/2 hours should be plenty.

And yes, you will have cleared customs in Washington, so you get straight out of Orlando, no need to go through immigration again! It will be much faster.

 

[Stella_the_Staff]

Just got back from flying with United (our 2nd time). Although my youngest is 11, I have seen plenty of other children on the planes. They are especially good with kids and very helpful. My kids were given a flight badge each by the captain when we were getting off the plane. However try to make sure that the connecting flights are as close as possible. We spent 4 hrs between flights at Washington Dulles and there is not a lot to do there. Both times we have cleared immigration really quickly and you cannot leave the terminal if you are catching a connecting flight. Needless to say the time went by real slow.

 

[AlanUK]

We flew this route with United in 2002 and from memory we had about 2 hours between flights which turned out to be ample time

Clearing customs in Washington was also a lot less busy than it is in Orlando

 

[tink too]

We flew with United last December - Via Chicago O'Hare, though.

Problems on arrival due to customs computer system being down - the queues could've rivalled Disney's most popular attraction in the highest season - believe me! Just one of those things - really annoying but beyond anyone's control!

Problems with their internal airline - Ted - not enough cabin crew to allow our plane to fly on schedule. Finally arrived in Orlando about 3 hours late.

When we checked in to return, we got terrible seating arrangements for the internal flight (Orlando - Chicago) despite being at the airport well in advance of departure time. DD was 3 at the time and she was seated by herself FOUR rows behind me and DH was FOUR rows in front of me! When I asked if they could help by atleast letting DD sit with ONE of us, I was told "no - but once you board the plane, she's cute - get her to flutter her eyelashes at the folks she'll be sitting with - I'm sure they'll move if you ask them to!" Strangely enough, the couple who checked in after us got the two seats together, next to our little one. Luckily, they were actually in our travel party but this was unbeknown to the ground staff as they didn't even have the same family name!

The long-haul portion was a bit better - our party of 9 was split over 3 rows with 5 seats in each row - atleast we could all see each other and DD got to sit with me!

The good thing about them though was that they let us check the stroller in at the plane door and we got it straight away as we disembarked the aircraft!

Although most of our problems were out of human control - weather and stubborn computer systems - the seating thing really bugged me!

 

[steve_rob]

We flew this route with United in 2002 and from memory we had about 2 hours between flights which turned out to be ample time

Clearing customs in Washington was also a lot less busy than it is in Orlando

Yeah, two hours is plenty of time. As someone said previously, there's not a lot to do at Dulles Airport - maybe that's how it got it's name!

However, the customs and immigration thing is quite interesting there. Everyone on our flight who was staying in Washington and not connecting to another flight, were directed to a completely different customs hall to those of us continuing on elsewhere. Luckily that was about 70% of the people on our plane, plus most of the rest seemed to be US citizens, so the queues at the desks for non-US travellers were some of the smallest I've ever been in -we breezed through passport control in a matter of minutes. In fact, we waited longer for our luggage to come off the belt!

 

[Soprano]

Saved £1500!!!

Who did you book with??

(Question also goes out to you, burt)

 

[Cochise]

An opposed viewpoint

We have just returned after flying with US Airways. All seat assignments were honoured, the pre booked kids meals were first on the table before anyone else. The A330 MAN to PHL had awesome in flight and on the MCO to PHL return we had an A321 that sat a 6ft 5in man from Seattle in comfort, it must have been 35in pitch and then some.

I was impressed despite all their issues in Chapter 11, i will be looking at their prices first.

 

[disneyholic family]

An opposed viewpoint

We have just returned after flying with US Airways. All seat assignments were honoured, the pre booked kids meals were first on the table before anyone else. The A330 MAN to PHL had awesome in flight and on the MCO to PHL return we had an A321 that sat a 6ft 5in man from Seattle in comfort, it must have been 35in pitch and then some.

I was impressed despite all their issues in Chapter 11, i will be looking at their prices first.

chapter 11 is irrelevant.....almost all of the big US airlines are in bankruptcy proceedings (e.g., United, Northwest, Delta)..

as for time changing planes, i see the question has already been answered by others who have flown the same route...

 

[Cochise]

Beth,

I cant see why Chapter 11 is irrelevant. After all it is an airline that have cut costs and have staff that have been ripped for their pension rights. Not all airlines that have filed for C11 support have done the same things. Despite this they were curteous and patient. I am sure US are now coming out/ have come out of Chapter 11 since their merger with American West.

As for changing, i welcomed the chance to have a walk and get a good feed/drink before the connection, despite the stress of getting the luggage on the way out.

 

[disneyholic family]

Beth,

I cant see why Chapter 11 is irrelevant. After all it is an airline that have cut costs and have staff that have been ripped for their pension rights. Not all airlines that have filed for C11 support have done the same things. Despite this they were curteous and patient. I am sure US are now coming out/ have come out of Chapter 11 since their merger with American West.

As for changing, i welcomed the chance to have a walk and get a good feed/drink before the connection, despite the stress of getting the luggage on the way out.

in my experience flying on US airlines in the continental US, of which i unfortunately have way too much, bankruptcy does not seem to affect their service for the good or the bad....

if their service was bad before chapter 11, it continues to be bad, and if it was good before chapter 11, it tends to continue to be good...

but in general, the big US airlines have pretty rotten service within the continental US........some are worse than others......Northworst probably taking the prize...although they all could compete rather well for number 1 in bad service....

as for all of them being in bankruptcy.....as was quoted in the paper recently: a pilot making his arrival and thank you announcement, "we know you have your choice of bankrupt airlines to fly, so we thank you for choosing XYZ airlines today"...

 

[Cochise]

.....as was quoted in the paper recently: a pilot making his arrival and thank you announcement, "we know you have your choice of bankrupt airlines to fly, so we thank you for choosing XYZ airlines today"...

Hehehe

 

[jjpenguin]

We usually fly United throught Washington Dulles and the flight is fine, seatback screens and everything. Dulles is Dull! Bring something for the kids to do. but customs etc. goes ok and in Orlando you can just pick up your luggage and be straight out of the terminal which I find very satisfying...

 

[wilki32]

Kitton
We have just got back flying with United. On the way over we went via Washington and on the way back via Chicago. We booked our flights direct with United about 4 months ago and made sure we reserved our seats. Last year when we went to Australia via America our travel agent failed to do this, luckily we did all sit together.
We were scheduled to have an hour at Washington and the united staff at Heathrow marked our cases with priority stickers, by the time we had got to the carrousel they were off. Its then a short walk to give to US customs.
If you are cutting it fine, as we were they bring you to the front of the queue.
I think it sounds a lot more confusing than it is and on all our flights international and internal the staff have been fantastic.