Our Toddler’s First Transatlantic Flight: A Delightful Mess

Several months ago, I wrote about how we’d be taking our son, Miles, on his first transatlantic trip, coinciding with his second birthday. While I won’t be writing a full trip report (sorry, it’s hard to document everything when you’re carrying 17 bags and have someone yelling “no no” at everything), I did want to share some general thoughts on our experience. 😉

In this post, I’ll be covering our outbound journey, which was a mess and a half. Yet oddly when we landed at our destination, we let out a sigh of relief, and were actually kind of happy about how the whole thing went.

Basics of our son’s first trip to Europe

Our son turned two back in early August. Prior to that, we had done a fair bit of short haul travel with him, but hadn’t yet taken him on a long haul trip. Ford and I are lucky that we both work from home, so we get to spend way more time with our son than most people who have to go to an office. Then for the situations where we traveled long haul, our family loved being able to spend time with him, as it was very special for everyone.

Frankly up until recently, we didn’t think Miles would actually get anything out of long haul travel. I mean, when you have an infant, they’re more interested in trying to put their fingers in every outlet in a new environment, and won’t take away a whole lot from a trip, in my opinion.

However, as he gets older, we struggle more with being apart from him, so like taking him along. Furthermore, we figured we had to rip the band-aid off, and finally take a long haul trip with him, just to see how it is.

With that in mind, we took Miles to Greece for his first trip, as we were visiting some friends there. The outbound portion was shortly before his second birthday, while the return was just after his second birthday (which is interesting as well, since he could be a lap infant on the way out, but not on the return).

Since we were traveling with family, we ended up needing five seats. As you may have guessed, finding five business class award seats in late July to Greece isn’t super easy. So I ticketed the best thing I could find, which was American business class from Miami to Madrid, for 62,000 AAdvantage miles per person. We ended up booking Miles his own seat, since our hope was that him having a business class seat would allow him to just pass out for the entire flight (“hope” is the operative word here).

There was no award availability from Madrid to Athens, so we ended up booking cash tickets on Iberia in business class, which were reasonably priced. Tickets were $300 per person, only about $75 more than economy. But we could also book just four tickets on this flight, and have Miles travel as a lap infant, since intra-Europe business class consists of economy seats with a blocked middle (so he could sit between us in the blocked middle seat).

Our messy trip from Miami to Madrid to Athens

To be honest, I was dreading the outbound portion of our trip, and was expecting the worst. I was probably in my head a bit too much. I of course get that people on planes don’t love screaming toddlers, and I was determined to do everything possible to prevent that.

Well, what I hadn’t factored in is that we’d just have one of those awful travel days, where most things go wrong, unrelated to our son. Let me explain…

A good start at the Flagship Lounge Miami

Our trip started off on a good note. After checking more bags than I care to admit and heading through security, we visited the American Flagship Lounge, and we were excited. I’ll let Miles’ facial expression speak for itself. Nothing can stop us now… oh, wait…

Uh oh, here comes a rolling delay…

Literally a minute after sitting down in the Flagship Lounge — it was almost comical — I got a push notification from the American app that our flight was delayed by 75 minutes. I thought “okay, great, we have a five hour layover, so this will just make that easier, and Miles will be more likely to sleep onboard.”

At first, Miles enjoyed the plane spotting, and the fabulous American Airlines catering (he highly recommends the cookies and bread).

Then I looked up the reason for the delay, and saw that it was listed as being due to crew availability. Well, I mean, surely it can’t be that hard to find another crew member at a hub, right? I went to speak to a representative in the Flagship Lounge, to get more of a sense of what was going on.

According to her, we were missing a “flight engineer” (that’s how you know she’s an old school employee!), but they were working on finding a replacement.

What followed was the most textbook American delay handling imaginable, where there was simply no information, and the flight just kept getting pushed back by 15 minutes at a time. On multiple occasions we thought we were going to board, based on the information provided in the Flagship Lounge, so we even headed down to the gate. At the gate, the gate agents simply said “they don’t tell us anything” (and they didn’t even make any announcements, but rather that was the response when going up to the podium).

15 minutes at a time, our delay stretched from 75 minutes, to two hours, to three hours, to four hours, and beyond. Grrr! We finally eventually started boarding a little after 7PM, and we ended up departing at 7:40PM, 4hr25min behind schedule (too bad EU261 compensation only applies on US airlines when originating in Europe).

Look, these kinds of delays aren’t fun for anyone. But they’re especially not fun when you’re traveling with a toddler, and they’re even more stress-inducing when you’re booked on two separate tickets in Europe, and you’re going to misconnect. Unlike in the United States, airlines in Europe also generally don’t rebook you on another flight at no cost. Grrr…

A sleepless(ish) flight across the Atlantic

My dream was that five minutes after takeoff, Miles would pass out for the entire eight hour journey, and only wake up shortly before landing. But I knew that wasn’t the likely outcome.

Every kid is different. Miles is an absolutely incredible sleeper at home. He sleeps 12 hours per night without exception, and he literally hasn’t woken us up in over a year with screaming in the middle of the night. Not once.

However, when he’s not in his crib at home, it’s a totally different story. He. Refuses. To. Sleep. Not in his car seat. Not in his stroller. Unfortunately this flight wasn’t really an exception. I had booked him a seat in hopes of him using it, but he absolutely wasn’t interested in sleeping on his own (by the way, reverse herringbone seats are obviously pretty bad for families — I was hoping our flight would get American’s “other” business class seats).

He wasn’t tired at first, so he got some screen time, which kept him entertained, since it’s a novelty for him, and he doesn’t get much of it at home.

Eventually he agreed to sleep, but only if he was in someone’s arms. He did end up sleeping… for maybe a few hours. It was better than nothing, but a far cry from what we had (unrealistically) hoped.

A silver lining during our Madrid layover

We had checked bags on this trip, and American doesn’t let you check bags through on separate tickets, even if you’re traveling on a joint venture partner. So we knew we were going to misconnect, since our flight arrived at 10:15AM, and our connection was at 11AM.

That’s not enough time to clear passport control, pick up bags, check bags in again, and make a connection.

The other thing about Europe is that airlines don’t offer much flexibility if you miss your flight, so you’ll typically be asked to just buy a new ticket if you miss your flight. Of course we were taking some risk with our itinerary, but that’s also why I planned a five hour layover in Madrid, which should’ve greatly limited our risk.

So we arrived at the Iberia check-in counter shortly before 11AM, and the agent said there was nothing he could do, and he directed us to the ticket sale desk. Fair enough, but FML. I had seen that economy on the next flight was sold out, and that business class tickets cost over $1,000 each. I was obviously not thrilled at the prospect of this, and was prepared to try to figure out some other creative plan (which is of course all the more complicated when a toddler is involved).

The two parties at the ticket sales desk in front of us both left without booking tickets, after they heard the cost. I tried to be on my best and nicest behavior — gosh, I don’t remember the last time I’ve approached someone with such over-the-top reverence. I told my best sob story, and after doing some typing, he said “I have good and bad news.”

I was expecting the good news to be that he can rebook us the same day, and the bad news to be that it would cost us thousands of dollars. But nope, our lucky stars aligned, and that’s not how it played out. “The good news is I can rebook you today, but the bad news is that the flight is only at 3PM.”

“That sounds great to us, thank you so much!” I was expecting the next stage of our interaction to be for him to ask for some huge fare difference. But nope, a minute later he printed out our five boarding passes, and said “have a nice flight.” As we walked away from the counter, I almost expected him to still say “wait, I have to charge you.” But nope, we were good to go!

Suffice it to say that this turned around our mood for the better. Sure, we had a really long day, but at least we’d get to our destination without spending an arm and a leg.

A decent layover, and VERY long flight to Athens

We had around three hours in Madrid before our connection to Athens, so we spent that time in the Iberia Lounge, which worked out smoothly. Toddlers are pretty resilient, as long as they’re well fed and entertained. So we took turns entertaining him, from playing games with him, to walking around the terminal with him.

I’ve gotta say, I really appreciate when lounges have high chairs. That was something that was missing in the Flagship Lounge Miami, but that Iberia had, and that made the layover so much easier.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the journey was the last segment, from Madrid to Athens. The flight was around three hours, but honestly, it might as well have been from Singapore to New York, based on how long it felt.

At first we could keep him entertained with some TV shows. But then he started saying “no Cocola!” Oy, you know you’re in trouble when your toddler isn’t interested in Cocomelon anymore.

Miles then decided that he absolutely wasn’t going to just stay seated, and then he sort of became a worm, and tried to wiggle his way out of his seat and our arms. Soon enough he gave in to the temptation to sleep. Even though I imagine this was really uncomfortable for Ford, we were overjoyed at the sight.

We finally landed in Athens nearly 24 hours after we left our home in Miami, and gosh did we breathe a sigh of relief…

A cruel joke to finish off our journey

As we deplaned in Athens I refreshed my email, only to find a message from Iberia, telling us that one of our bags hadn’t arrived on our flight. My first thought was “please don’t let it be the bag with Miles’ stuff.” I referenced the bag tag number, looked it up, and… yes, it was the bag with all of Miles’ stuff.

I started filling out the form while we were standing at baggage claim. Eventually bags came out, and to my surprise, all of our luggage had made it. So our frustration there quickly turned to joy.

Our conclusion from our outbound journey

By the time we arrived at our hotel in Athens for the evening, we were overjoyed. The journey would’ve been exhausting without the delay of over four hours, the misconnect, etc. But we truly walked away from this saying “that actually worked out pretty well.”

I mean, Miles usually sleeps 12 hours per night, and in this case he traveled for nearly 24 hours, and maybe got a few hours of sleep. We were super exhausted by the time we arrived in Athens, so I can only imagine how tired he was. But still, it’s a great reflection of how flexible toddlers are, despite them having such a strong will.

Funny enough, once we were actually on the ground in Europe, the trip couldn’t have gone more smoothly. He had no jet lag, and he definitely took something away from the experience. Of course when you’re two years old, you’re not fully absorbing what you’re seeing, but we noticed changes with him when we returned from the trip, because obviously he was challenged a bit, going so far out of his daily routine.

For that matter, this trip really made him like water for the first time. He had taken swimming lessons at home, but was terrified of water. Meanwhile we rented a house in Greece with a pool that had a gradual entry, and he has had an interest in the water ever since (more on that rental in a separate post, as I booked it through Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy).

Bottom line

Long haul travel can be exhausting under the best of circumstances. So I’ve gotta say, this trip gave me a whole new appreciation for how simple travel is when you’re not traveling with young ones.

Our outbound journey was way more complicated than I was hoping for, thanks to a rolling delay of over four hours and a misconnect. But when we arrived in Athens and Miles was finally asleep, we felt a sense of happiness about the whole thing, and were very happy about our decision.