SW...boarding early with small children?

[Katienphil]

Hi everyone,

We're flying Southwest to MCO in October...my question is this...my DD is going to be 20 months...are we going to be allowed to board early no matter what our Boarding Pass "letter" is? Do I don't have to be too concerned with getting an "A" because I'll be allowed on before the As anyway? Also, it will be my DH, Parents and DD...can we all board at the same time, or just me and DD? If so, I guess we can save seats?

 

[goofy4tink]

You and your dd should be able to preboard. But, allowing the entire family to preboard is a touchy subject here. Some gate attendents will allow it, others don't even let those with youngsters preboard..this happens a lot at MCO since it is mostly families with young children that are flying.
I would plan on getting to the gate early. I would suggest that the entire family try to get those much desired A boarding passes. That way they should be able to sit at least close to you.
Since your dd will, hopefully, be in a car seat, that puts her in the window seat. You could try sitting in the aisle seat, thereby saving the middle seat for your dh. But the rest of the family would be on their own. Saving a bunch of seats is frowned upon by most. Otherwise you could have someone saving up to 15 or seats if an extended family were traveling.
This is the type thing we give up when we fly SW..yes, you get some great fares, but you can not be guaranteed the ability to sit together. You should be able to sit with your dd and your dh at least. Or, you may get really lucky, and the gate attendent will let all of you board. It is supposed to be a parent with each under 5 (I think that's the age limit). One child=one parent, but others have had different experiences.

 

[Poorman]

You will be allowed to pre-board, your husband can also.

We are grandparents whose grandchildren and family preboard, we don't. I choose to wait, sometimes they let everyone in the party preboard sometimes they don't. My daughter always puts one each of the granchildren in seperate rows, we sit with one of them ,they the other. So there is really no reason for us to get in the way while they are getting the kids situated.