Virgin, buggies at the gate and ignoring the time lag

[GuernseyCow]

Just off to Dubai next week with 16wo DD, and have loads of questions. Firstly, has anyone flown with Virgin with a baby, and if so were they any good? Secondly, we've been told by a Virgin Call Centre that we can't take our buggy to the gate at Heathrow; surely this can't be so??? Finally, what should we do about jetlag; I don't want our new-found sleep routines to be thrown off-kilter by the time difference, so wondered whether anyone else had tried to keep their baby on the home-time-zone schedule whilst away for a few days? Sorry to be so demanding!

I have flown with Virgin, though not with a baby - DS is 2.5 yrs old. They were fine. At Gatwick and returning from Miami you could take buggies right up to the gate and at Miami people with children under 5 got priority boarding. Don't know why you can't do this at Heathrow?

Can't help with the time zones bit I'm afraid!

i hopevirgin has made a mistake as we are going on holiday on the 27th have not found any info on web site infact it says that babys have to come out of pushchair and that buggie then has to be xrayed. think that virgin made a boo boo there singapore airlines told me that i could have pushchair all the way to the gate and if there is room they will put it on the aircraft and not in the hold

haven't flown with virgin, but with both Thai and Emirates we didn't get the buggy back until baggage reclaim at the Dubai end and it's a hell of a long walk there. You might want to take a baby bjorn with you in case this happens to you.

We flew to LA from Heathrow with Virgin (and a six month old baby) in December. We were allowed to take the buggy to the gate. They weren't that great at being helpful but I heard the staff saying they were down a crew member. On the return flight I was on my own with DD and they were useless - I do think it was just the flight we were on though cause I have heard some alright reports about them.

I flew with a 7 mo 6 weeks ago from Heathrow with Virgin, and we were allowed to take the buggy all the way to the gate... they were fine. They have these "skycots" which attach to the wall in front of you for the baby to sleep in, a bit difficult to manouvre in and out of your seat but it was also fine! We flew in the same time zone so all ok for that, but I think you can get jet lag calculator type things which suggest when to sleep to avoid jet lag and get into the new time zone etc. It is for adults but you might pck up some ideas for your LO? Just google it, I think BA does one on their website

yes, I remember now, the buggy did have to be x-rayed, then we put DS back in it once through security. Can imagine that would be a pain if your baby was sleeping but security is so much tighter these days.

There are buggies at the airport in Dubai - you can just pick one up when you get into the terminal and leave it again when you retrieve your own.

Thanks for all the feedback on Virgin. I'll certainly take the BabyBjorn in case, but will keep my fingers crossed we can keep the buggy. I'll post when we come back with an update!

If you take the buggy to the gate - you don't actually keep it - they just put it in the hold at the last minute.

For most airlines you pick it up again at baggage reclaim (so do be prepared for the long walk!)

Some smaller airlines to smaller airports put the buggy on the runway to pick up when you get off the plane (bliss!) But this will not be the situation with Virgin.

Forgot to say

I flew to Barbados with DS1 at 20 weeks & to be honest I got the impression that at that young age they haven't really got body clocks sorted in their own head. So it doesn't trouble them - they will happily keep to their own time(it will only be you that suffers!)

We flew with Virgin from Gatwick to Florida and we were allowed to keep the buggy up to the gate.

We also had to take dd2 out of the buggy so that it could be folded up and x-rayed. She was 16 months old at the time. The airline were fantastic, the best we've ever flown with. They couldn't do enough for us and everyone was really nice and friendly.

sorry can't help with sleeping schedules.

I'm assuming from your name that you live in Guernsey. Do you have an internal flight to Heathrow? This might be your problem.

We flew from Manchester-Heathrow-Hong Kong- Sydney in January.

The problem with the pushchair was not the airline (we flew BA) it was heathrow airport itself and their policies. We kept the buggy until we got onto the flight at Manchester, it had to go through the xray machine etc and we had to fold it up, which was a bit of a pain because it had to go through an extra large machine, not the one we were standing at.

When we arrived at Heathrow, the pushchair was nowhere to be seen. It was on the baggage carousel. I had to exit security to reclaim it, then go back through the security queues with it. When I came out the other end, I was in the international terminal and couldn't get back to my husband, who was waiting with our (grumpy) toddler, baggage, carseat etc.

In the end I had to go to the helpdesk and put out a call and they had to send staff to help him.

My advice would be, even though it seems easier for one person to go off and reclaim the pushchair, just don't split up.

also, agree that the skycots are great. We used the table under ours because our daughter was in her carseat on her own chair. All the babies on the flight seemed to sleep fine.