I don't know why we do it.
I don't know why any parent with young kids does. It never turns out great in the end, but we
all try it at least once: The Family
Trip.
Our kids are generally pretty good. They can eat at restaurants without making a
scene or forcing us to bust out tablets.
They can ride in cars without much complaining or frequent needing pit stops.
In light of this, we
decided plane travel would be fun. If
you've never had the pleasure or flying with kids, I urge you to keep it that
way. It's not, and never will be, a good
idea.
They really should just ban kids under 10 from non-emergency
plane travel altogether. Nobody wants to
be around your kids on a plane. They
fidget. They whine and cry. They require
frequent trips to that tiny, disgusting airplane bathroom. If you've never had to help a kid with their
pants or wipe their ass in a vertical coffin before, trust me, you aren't
missing a thing. Travelling with two
kids? Double the fun.
Think flying in the middle of the night makes sense because
they'll just sleep the whole time? Dead
f-ing wrong. In fact it's about a
million times worse because they're overtired and you're tired and no one gets
any rest of sleep. New colouring books
last about 3 minutes on a five hour flight.
The in-flight movie is almost never worthy of a 5 year old's
attention. Especially if you're on a
crappy Sunwing flight where the tiny screen flops down every 3 rows and the one
in front of your seats is out of order.
In summary, the flight makes you need the impending vacation
more than anything else in the world.
Oh, and if you kids happen to have a dairy allergy, bring
enough snacks for a three week trek through the jungle. Everything on a plane but the saltine
crackers has bloody cheese in it.
For our trip, we landed at about 8pm in Punta Cana. It was raining. It was another hour to the resort via
shuttle. The kids thought it was a riot
to fly down the highway in only big person seatbelts. It scared the living shit out of me.
Fun fact: When you get to a resort after 9pm, there's no
welcome cocktail.
God I needed that cocktail.
They somehow lost a wheel
on our stroller while in transit.
If you have never tried pushing a 30 pound kid in a stroller with a
missing wheel, I don't recommend adding
it to you bucket list.
We thought we booked a 5 star hotel. This hotel was actually a 4 on the sign. I wouldn't have given it a 3. Our room smelled like pee pee. The beds were at least as old as me and had
definite bows to them. The room faced
the bar area where the party was happening.
We were all miserable. And
starving.
Food options at a shitty resort at 10pm? Cold french fries and cheese pizza. Fries it was.
After a fitful night of "sleep" in our oh-so-comfy
beds and soothing bass-thump, I headed down to the front desk the next morning and moved us the hell out of
there and to the five-star next door.
Adios amigos.
After that the trip was pretty great.
By the way, if you do ever happen to want to take a voyage
into hell's half acre with your kids, use the covered airport parking lot. Best $200 bucks we ever spent. When you get back into Toronto in the middle
of January at 2am, you want that minivan of awesomeness close by and not buried
in snow in some park 'n' fly lot you have to take a shuttle to. Trust me on that one.
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