NOW CLOSED Travelled through Heathrow recently with your family? How was it for you? If not, do tell us what you think about families and airports - £500 of vouchers up for grabs

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

Please note we are talking on this thread about experiences in the terminal rather than on flights or regarding holiday reps or tour operators.

Heathrow have been working on the facilities and services they offer families at the airport and would like to find out from you how they are doing and what could still be improved. They say "We want your holiday to start the moment you arrive at Heathrow. Travelling with children can be stressful and we want to try and reduce the stress and make family journeys through Heathrow more enjoyable. So, this summer there are new dedicated family security lanes, children's play areas, kids' meal deals, giveaways and much more.

Even if you haven't been through Heathrow you can still take part...The team at Heathrow are also interested in your impressions of the family facilities at other airports and would like to know about any shining examples of great family friendly facilities or staff (anywhere in the world). In addition please do share your tips for coping with children in airports - your tips will be used by Mumsnet for future work.

So, if you've already experienced the more family friendly Heathrow - that is you've been through the airport with children since 11 July 2011...then please take a look at the website and then answer the following questions (these are just to start you off - please add any other comments you have too):
a) When did you visit the airport? Which terminal did you use? And who did you travel with?
b) How well does what's offered on the website match up with your experience of the airport? Did you use/notice the services and facilities they offer on the website? e.g. play areas and kids eat free offers. What did they do well and what was missing?
c) Was there anything at the airport that you thought was particularly family friendly that isn't mentioned on the website?
d) What do you think could be improved at the airport to make your experience of travelling through as a family easier/better?

If you haven't been to Heathrow Airport with your family since 11 July 2011...they'd still like to hear what you think of the facilities, services and offers on the website as well as your previous experiences at Heathrow and any other airports around the world. Please answer the following questions (and also add any other comments you have):
a) Which (if any) of the things highlighted on the website as being for families do you think you would find useful if you visited the airport? Which (if any) would you be unlikely to use when with your family?
b) What would you say is the most important thing airports could do to make them more family friendly?

In addition, everyone is welcome to tell us about any bad experiences of travelling through any airport with your family or indeed any particularly brilliant family friendly experiences. Please also share any tips you have for travelling through airports with children - how do you cope with the queues, security, etc?

Everyone who adds comments to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win one of five £100 vouchers - winners can choose between a £100 Heathrow and a £100 Amazon voucher. The Heathrow voucher can be spent in any Heathrow shop or restaurant within the next year (if you're not planning to fly, you're welcome to pass them onto a friend/relation with your shopping list!)

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw
MNHQ

a) Which (if any) of the things highlighted on the website as being for families do you think you would find useful if you visited the airport? Which (if any) would you be unlikely to use when with your family?

Most important are the play areas and family lanes. I would use family lanes and probably play areas (but I don't know, because there are no pictures so I can't tell if they'd be suitable). I would be more likely to choose food on the basis of whether the food looked good than whether they offered free child meals.

The character thing and the "journey team" makes me . That sort of sporadic thing is nice when you happen on it, but it's not really the basis of a family friendly place. And if your kids are expecting it and don't get it, it can make a fraught experience even worse.

b) What would you say is the most important thing airports could do to make them more family friendly?

Helpful staff who are friendly, good with kids and can use a bit of initiative to ease families through. I've found staff at Heathrow (prior to this family friendly initiative) to be semi-good on this front. Some of the more practical things, like helping parents struggling with bags and children, were lacking but generally their manner talking directly with kids was great and they made me feel like they didn't think of kids as a nuisance (a benchmark many businesses sadly fail). That has to be the foundation for a family friendly place I think, but it's not sufficient. Less queuing would make everyone's experience better. Water post security. Family bathrooms. Somewhere to let kids burn off steam that has facilities for families with kids of different ages. Thought given to how families are supposed to negotiate the systems in place (like getting to the gate on time, getting suitcases off carousels, etc.).

I have seen advertising for this family friendly initiative on the tube and on MN and I was a bit hopeful that things might be looking up. Now I've seen some of the reviews here I am less confident . Things like putting in play areas without departure boards being visible just makes it seem like they haven't thought things through at all. It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder about the ratio of money spent on the initiative v. money spent on advertising it.

Overall Heathrow hasn't felt family friendly to me, and I have avoided flying through there with my kids for a couple of years. While there's nothing wrong with the things they are trying to do, and it's definitely moving in the right direction, it seems like baby steps.

We travelled through LHR in May, with our 6mo DS. We were treated well by all the staff, and fasttracked straight through passport control when we arrived so we didn't have to queue.

When we were heading back to Oz we flew from T3. The family facilities there did seem pretty basic. I had to make use of the BFing room as DS was too excited by everything else going on to feed anywhere else. I could only find one room in the main part of the departure lounge, and I had to queue to use it. When I did eventually get in I was pretty disappointed to discover it consisted of one very uncomfortable plastic chair. The same happened with baby change facilities - 2 change tables and a massive queue.

I think the airport could be more family friendly by offering:

• pushchairs

-more baby change and nursing mothers facilities -family friendly toilets - Sydney airport has cubicles in the ladies which have a normal toilet for parents and a small one for children and cubicles with a child seat in. These come in handy when I've flown alone with DS - I can just strap him into the child seat rather than having to juggle him, my bags and trying to use the toilet all at the same time

Its been a few months since I last flew with all 3 dcs but main, generic, comments are:

a) Trollies all the way to the gate please. The 6 pieces of hand-luggage, plus changing bag, plus assorted soft toys, plus screaming baby, don't miraculously become simple to transport the moment we're through security. And if we can't take the trolley through the scanner, then why not have 'airside' trolleys available on the other side of the check?

b) Trollies by the gate when we disembark. See a) above plus add 2 additional overtired/screaming/disgusting children who are all probably busting for the toilet...at least one of whom has suddenly ceased to be able to walk. Why can't I have a trolley to load everything into AS SOON AS I GET OFF THE PLANE???!!! Especially since I will be touting screaming teething baby at this point given the lack of buggy until baggage reclaim (see point c) below). And walking about 600 miles to passport control.

c) Buggies on the plane. Please don't claim that this is a carrier issue. The same airplanes/carriers that miraculously produce buggies the instant the plane disembarks, and hand them over to waiting families, to enable them to get through the rest of the airport with relative ease (for example, Easyjet and BA both do this in other countries) are apparently not allowed to do this in UK airports. Why not make this so much easier for families?

d) More Changing rooms/stations. And please keep them cleaner. ?Nuff said

e) Children?s play areas with small fixed toys (as at Heathrow) are a nice idea, but what would be more useful would be:

i) A proper indoor play area, even a small one, with a slide/climbing frame/whatever ? something to allow kids to burn off a bit of nervous energy before they get on the plane and have to sit still for 5 hours.
ii) More seats, with tables, at the gate. If there was somewhere comfortable we could sit and wait for boarding with the dcs, we?d be much more likely to get to the gate a bit early, and hang out there.

Okay, as said previously we flew again on Friday and I would really look for kid friendly things.

T5, had 4yo and 11mo.
I didn't see one play area even though I was particularly looking for them.
Baby change rooms were very large, but did not have a toilet in there as well which I find useful, saves doing the change then having to go to the women's as well. Also it contained the nursing area with only one seat. It would be better if these things are completely separate, and the nursing bit more comfortable.
What my 4yo liked were the slippery floors (!), at one point he was on his belly, swimming along the floor.

There was a kind of art installation between the escalators near the sushi place which had changing discs, he enjoyed watching this.

In duty free he liked the black sparkly tiles.

One of the jewelry stores had a big fish tank in, he dragged me in to have a look.
I've noticed at other airports that he likes watching fountains and other watery installatiOns too.
Visual stimulation without it being TV (Save this for the flight) would be a great idea.
If there are family friendly initiatives in T5, they should be well signposted and in a different colour to the yellow so they stand out.

I'd also like to see some disembarking assistance for adult passengers traveling single handedly with 2 or more children. A woman was getting off our flight last night witha toddler being carried and her young son crying his eyes out as probably like mine, he'd only had a little sleep, but had to wakeup and walk as his mum couldn't carry him. He was so upset I wanted to pick him up and help, but we had our 2 to get off sleeping as well.

Heathrow needs much better signs from the long stay car parks to the M25. The road layout keeps changing and my satnav is not up to date. The signs are too late to get into the right lane at some junctions and at others there are no signs at all. VERY ANNOYING especially when you are tired after a flight/ baggage reclaim etc. Was there last week

Me again! At Incheon airport (South Korea) they have an area run by the tourist board where you can paint a traditional paper fan and other traditional things - great for kids - which you get to keep, and also they have a very regular procession with music of people in traditional dress to entertain and promote the country. I'm not quite sure if the procession it would work at Heathrow - urban rappers with morris dancing might not meet with universal joy, but the craft centre idea was fantastic IMHO. Also they had a free internet area with loads of computers with a toggle key Korean/ English, sort of chained to the desks in a supervised zone, sponsored by the computer manufacturer.
Worst place is at Gatwick where the noise from the arcade games area is like a constant migraine and gets everywhere

A) we travelled on July 30th thus year from terminal 3 and flew with Thai Air
B) it was pretty dismal actually. T3 was rammed and there was nothing obvious that was child-friendly. We ate at a bagel place and we had no idea there were restaurants with free food for children. Ive only just read that on the website and didnt recognise the names anyway from the ones we saw at the time. We waited ages for a seat to eat Then the kids sat with dh in large (packed) seating area while i got the last-minute shopping.

I'd remembered reading on MN that there was a pop-up play area but
couldn't remember where it was. I asked some staff in the duty free area and they confessed they'd never heard of it. It wasn't til I went right back to the entrance that I saw a very discreet sign saying where it was. We went along and dd2 aged 5 played for a bit. The staff were very friendly even tho a couple were having a right go at them as their toddler wanted to play but was below the age limit.

The play area was fine for dd2 but for dd1 (9) there was nothing of interest for her apart from the stuff we'd bought ourselves. The shops were far too 'exclusive' to have anything in for her to browse and I was pretty disappointed. I am might be a country bumpkin who doesn't travel much but I was expecting loads more like Accessorize or even Claires Accessories: I thought this would be somewhere we could get some fun stuff for both dds before we flew. Wrong!

So overall, not good for kids except the play area and that clearly needs to be better signposted. Shops = crap for families; ditto the eating places.

Sorry missed out:
C) no
D) as per other posters: more areas that families can wait with soft play plus drawing tables; large screen and seating areas to show carrying maybe. I love the idea of a small library area, maybe with range of kids mags & books which dd2 would have loved. Place for adults to buy coffee within sight of kids area.
More appealing shops (at T3 in any case)

a) My folks live in Ireland and unfortunately I have been through twice in the last six months, once in Feb /Mar and again just now in July/August. Travelling through Heathrow with two children under 3 is a very unpleasant experience. We travelled with Aer Lingus, who make the trip itself much more pleasant than travelling with Ryanair who are rather vile (based on my unfortunately extensive experience). Ireland is T1.
b) The only things on the website we actually got were the family lane at security and little Miss Sunshine (though that did make the 2 year olds day, and by extension ours). Fatal flaw with the family lane was that, yet again, the staff tried to stick our double buggy through the scanner, and yet again, we had to explain that it won't fit. However the guy taking photos did make my toddler laugh by pulling faces to get her to look at the camera so they were trying to be kid friendly.

Having looked in the past for the facilities mentioned on the website I did not find any of them when we were there, no play areas, no signs for it, no kids eat free offers either that we saw.

What is missing are enough toilets that take a double buggy and have a changing table. I know of one, but I also know that there is usually a queue of 3 harrassed looking mums outside it. There are none of them in the Ireland pontoon so once we head that way we are really low on options for changing kids and also out of options for feeding them and entertaining them. They get really bored and as with all potty trained kids the cry of I need a wee wee now always coincides with the last call for boarding.

c) Our past experience was that Giraffe was best with kids as they had space for the buggy with the sleeping baby and a high chair for the awake child and had child friendly food that wasn't just sandwiches or sausages. They also did colouring pads and crayon and the staff have always been so kind to our kids.

d) The trek from T1 to the ends of the earth the Ireland pontoon is really long and there is nothing for children there.

Also it is not clear where your buggy will end up if it has gone through in the hold. When there is just one of you, a baby and a toddler and your flight was delayed that really long walk to pick up bags with no pram is not fun. It would be nice if the prams came up as you came in and there was somewhere to change nappies clearly marked as you arrive.

Not been to heathrow lately but have been to Bristol twice. Love the idea of play areas. Bristol had nothing and no time to use it had there been one as the gate was nearly a km from the check in. People should be warned of this on check in as it is a killer running with kids luggage coffee etc! I would be unlikely to pre order but being able to order
Milk 4 younger ones would be handy. Priority check in 4 families and priority security with under 10s would be amazing and take a lot of the stress out of it. And allow us more time to enjoy the facilities!

We travelled through T5 earlier this year.

a) Which (if any) of the things highlighted on the website as being for families do you think you would find useful if you visited the airport? Which (if any) would you be unlikely to use when with your family?
I think family security lanes will be a good idea. Sometimes staff do use their discretion and we have been fast tracked through security several times.

TBH, maybe I'm being a bit thick but I could not find much mention of families on the website.

b) What would you say is the most important thing airports could do to make them more family friendly?
I can't believe I'm saying this but I would like to see a food court or fast food places. We struggled to find anywhere that my kids would eat. The restaurants were all very nice (& very expensive) but we could not get any plain sandwiches or chicken nuggets / chips anywhere. The food choice is great for adults but not good for families at all.
Although we are past the pushchair stage, I think it would be great to have them available.
I think staff should be trained to be less scary when kids are going through the security checks. It's pretty scary going through the body scan - a sticker at the end would be a nice touch. Also although we tried to arrange it so my dp went through first then the kids then me, a security guy called my kids over & made them go though the adjacent security bit. As me & dp both took ages getting through, my 2 kids were left at the other side not knowing what to do & scared that mummy & daddy were not going to get through.

I forgot to say that 11 years on I am still in love with the security guy at Perth airport. We were the last people off the plane and were dreading the queue as DS3 had finally fallen asleep (after being awake for most of the previous 24hrs, so had to be carried). We must have looked tired because as soon as we joined the queue the guy whisked us straight through the staff queue. It was the kindest introduction I have ever had to a country & it's people.

A couple of tips (might not be much good for Mumsnet children as they seem so well travelled).

1. We had a great Usbourne toddlers book which explained all the different stages of air travel, my kids loved it when they were little.
2. Don't get kids so excited about going on holiday, that they expect the fun to start the moment they leave the house. Manage their expectations a bit, explain that the airport can be boring, as you have to keep waiting around etc.

We travelled through Heathrow terminal 1 on August 4th. It was pretty quiet so the FF security lane didn't make much difference, I'd be interested to see how it works when it's busy.

We were delighted when we saw the play area in the departure area, my friend had travelled through a few weeks before (different terminal, not sure which one) and raved about the play area.

But, when we went over, we were asked how old DS was. We told them 22 months, and were then told he was too young and that the insurance wouldn't cover him. This we found ridiculous. It made it clear on the info that a guardian had to stay with them so the responsibility is all on the parent to ensure the child comes to no harm. All the activities in there were perfectly safe for a child of 18mo, maybe younger. There is nothing on the website about the areas being for over twos. And my friend was allowed into the play area in the other terminal after telling them her son was 21 mo. It actually made it harder for us, seeing there was a play area but then not being allowed to use it!

So, not that family friendly really. We didn't buy any food so can't comment on that. I was with my husband so didn't need an extra pair of hands to help me, is one available if needed? For us, having someone for children to play and let off steam / stave off boredom is vital. The rules seemed illogical, and drawn up by someone who doesn't really understand the needs of young toddlers, and thier parents!

When planning a recent trip from Australia to Ireland recently my main criteria in choosing an airline was being able to avoid Heathrow. It's quite common amongst my expat friends here. A lot of people will try and fly in and out of Gatwick if they want to arrive in London or transit through a country that allows them to then fly directly to a regional airport. Heathrow for me means huge queues and rude staff. I really don't understand why it is so difficult to be polite to people who might have been on a plane with three kids for 24 hours.

Thanks to everyone who added comments to this thread - here's a thank you message from Heathrow:

"Dear Mumsnetters

We would like to thank you for your feedback on the family friendly improvements we are making at Heathrow. As travelling parents only you can provide the valuable insight we need to understand how to make your journeys better. We will be reporting back on exactly how we intend to do that so please follow our progress via Mumsnet.

Thank you (and good luck with the prize draw)

Nick Adderley
Marketing & Insight Director
Heathrow"

Who won the prize draw?

p.s. did post on here but namechanged since.

Sorry for the delay - the winners of the prize draw are...

magicmummy1
CMOTdibbler
UsingMainlySpoons
acatcalledfelix
lagrandissima

Congratulations! You have won a £100 voucher each and you can choose between a Heathrow shopping voucher and an Amazon voucher - I'll email you to get your addresses and choices!

Sorry - I meant I'll PM you, not email you!

Sooo excited!!! I never ever win anything normally! Hurrah! :)

Hi all - Heathrow wanted us to let you know about a few changes they've implemented as a result of your comments on this thread, and their membership of the Mumsnet Family Friendly Programme!

BABY CHANGE AREAS AND CHILDREN?S PLAY AREA

• Maps have been amended to make the baby change areas more clearly signposted suggestions they weren?t obvious enough.
• Children?s play areas are going in again for Christmas but with better signage (as per your suggestions)
• They will be in from 5th Dec to 8th Jan but T5?s will be going in 17th October until 8th Jan

NEW PARENT AND CHILD PARKING

• The 16 newly designated extra-wide bays - which were opened to coincide with the October half term holiday - are clearly signposted, painted blue and white to increase their visibility and all within close proximity to the bus stops and customer service offices within each car park