Flying to Barbados with BA - Infants seats & thingd to do

[supamum1]

Totally new to this but hope someone can help. I will be flying with my partner and infant who will be 18mths at the time of travel to Barbados with BA, they offer a bassinet and britax seat both free of charge - has anyone ever use this britax seat which attaches to the bassinet space, and can anyone tell me the pros and cons of each as the staff at BA are useless !! HELP!!

Also any tips on where to go with an infant, i have been before but that was when I was footloose and fancy free!!!

The britax seat is very basic and is similar to the rock-a-tot Britax seats. The bassinet will probably be too small. The last time we've flown our child was 13 months and she used the seat (it was a 12 hour flight and the bassinet was too small for her). I would recommend the seat, our child slept quite comfortably. Remember to take toys etc. to keep your infant busy....books, toys and one thing we've found work really well is the Tomy Sketcher...the pen is attached to the pad with a string, (crayons, pens fall on the floor). Good luck !

Hi SanetJvv

Thanks for that I thought that the bassinet would be too small as he outgrew his carryvot ages ago. Just dissappointed that BA cant really help mand there is no way and I guarantee the seat as its first come first served. The tip on the tomy sketcher wss brill. really nervous as DD hates staying still!!

We always book our seats online and phone them as well to confirm the seats and that they have reserved a bassinet or seat for us. Maybe with first come first serve they mean first reserved get the seats, not when you book in. Maybe youve spoken to the wrong person.

They will have both on the flight so you should not have to choose in advance. In any case the bassinet will be too small for an 18 month old. The best part really is that they will reserve the bulkhead for you (they always save it for people traveling with infants) and your little one will therefore have extra space on the floor in front of you to play quite comfortably. I have always found BA the best airline to travel on with little children.

Its good to hear that you have had good experiences with BA hope I do. Any tips on things to take for the journey

Just to let you know my experience of flying with BA last Dec to Barbados was that you need to book the bulkhead seats online as soon as the online booking opens - you cannot tell which seats take the skycots etc so you will need to speak to BA in advance to know which seat nos to reserve. The BA staff are powerless to do anything at the airport so if you haven't prebooked the correct seats you will find you're flying for 10 hours with a toddler on your lap!!! (Can you tell that we didn't reserve the correct seats?!) I had phoned and reserved but didn't confirm online cos couldn't tell which were the seats with the skycots - when we got to the airport we were told we couldn't have those seats cos people had already booked them online. There were six seats which could have had skycots on our flight and 8 under 2s on the flight - none of whom got a skycot or bassinet because other passengers had beaten them to it on the online booking.

Mind you we had a lovely holiday and DD (16 months at the time) loved it. Ostins was fine with toddler (Friday night fish market) and the wildlife park with the monkeys (sorry, can't remember what it's called) was perfect for her too.

We flew BA longhaul several times last year with a 1 yr old, and they were really good to us. You do need to request the bulkhead seat and the Brittax seat. My son is a large child and had outgrown it by 18 mths I'm afraid, but up until then it was a lifesaver. It attaches to the bulkhead table and can recline back to lying position, too. Not all aircraft carry them, though, so worth checking.