Long haul flight results
13h constrained in economy, together with hundreds of people on a 747-400 from Qantas in an overbooked flight and with a teething 1 year old, wasn’t a recipe for success. We have memories (Danielle and I) of long, painful flights between Europe and Australia, so we were ready for the worst.
We had packed 10 nappies, baby food, change of cloths for us and for Zeek (multiple ones for him), Panadol ™, Brauer Calm ™, toys, etc. We had 5 bags on the plane, of which 2 where for our own gear (cameras, laptops) and the rest were all for Zeek and our trip.
When we arrived to the airport, 3h early, so that we could book the bassinet seats, Zeek was already starting to complain. He didn’t want to wait in the queue for the check-in, we had to take turns in walking with him around. We were tired, of course, as we had a terrible night sleep (heat, mosquitos, stress of the trips ahead…) and we had to wake up quite early to catch our flight. We got to the counter and we found out that the flight had been oversold so we couldn’t get our seats changed… however we didn’t have time to complain about it because we had been preallocated the bassinet seats 
phew, that was close to a bad start. We also got to keep the pram and so we didn’t have to carry Zeek until we got to the gate door (which we didn’t know we could do). Danielle and Zeek fell asleep while waiting to board the plane, I wish I’d taken a picture of her sleeping on the floor and Zeek asleep on the pram next to her.
We boarded first, which gave us time to unpack some of the stuff we needed, we also got a full overhead compartment for us. The only downside to that is that we had to wait what seemed to be an eternity for everyone else to board, take their seats, for the plane to start the taxi to the furthest runway, etc
Once in the air, Zeek was finally able to get off our laps and play on the floor, in between the galley area and our seats. He quickly found the remotes that control the entertainment units and the overhead reading lights, oh! what a joys. Several hours of turning the lights on and off and pressing all the buttons. I am not sure the people on the seats behind us appreciated that as much as we did, but between that and a screaming 1 year old, I choose the lights!!!
We walked up and down the aisles, looked through the door windows to the ocean down below, went into the toilets and flushed them just for the fun of it. Walked up and down a lot more. Then Danielle took over and she did pretty much the same, walking up and down the aisles. Zeek was holding hands of people as he walked past, making friends. He also managed to play a bit on the floor with trucks, books, teddies.
As long as we kept on walking with him, he was happy. Of course, we needed to get some sleep so he did too. Not without some complaining first but, I think we must have got a good 4h of sleep (not all at once).
The couple next to us (both South Americans who had been living in Melbourne for over 25 years) also had a 1 year old. He slept a lot more than Zeek. We were envious, a little bit. However he didn’t seem to be so happy when awake and they didn’t seem to enjoy walking with him up and down the aisles, so I think that we didn’t have it so bad after all.
The staff of QF-17 were extremely helpful and, in particular the hostess that was looking after our section, was very kind to Zeek. She even know that Zeek meant Ezequiel and she could pronounce the name without any hesitation! She immediately was in our good books.
When we finally got to EZE, we had to circle around for 20 min until we got clearance. It was starting to become a little bit long. Finally, touched down and waited until everyone left the plane (I knew that we had no choice but I also knew that waiting until everyone was off the plane meant at least 1h queuing up for the passport control at Ezeiza). We had to pack everything and when we finally managed to get all our stuff and were leaving the plane, half the crew had already left the plane, they didn’t even know that some passengers were still on the plane 
When we reached the passport control, since we had Zeek and 5 bags, we were escorted with other parents of young children, to the diplomatic line! Yay! no queue! What a relief! We got down, started collecting our luggage however … our pram was the last piece of luggage to come out of the plane! By the time we got it, we really wanted to get out of there.
When we got out of the airport, my family was nowhere to be seen. We walked back and forth, looked at every sign that people were holding just in case they had sent someone to pick us up but didn’t tell us. No, nothing. Our iPhones didn’t pick any signals, despite the fact that both our providers have roaming agreements with providers here in Argentina. We didn’t have any coins or local currency and we couldn’t use our credit cards to call because we needed to spend more than $10. After 30 min or so, I thought that they might have got confused and gone to the other terminal so I took Zeek and we walked there. However, we were already the last ones to come out, we had been around for 30 min waiting, so it seemed like if they were there, they should have checked the boards and seen that they were in the wrong terminal. After wondering around a lot around the other terminal, I started queuing up for the ATM (you can see a pattern here, a lot of queuing up was done) and finally saw my mother and sister! They had indeed been waiting at the wrong terminal for almost 1.5h and only then checked the signs to realise that they were in the wrong terminal!
Finally, we all got together, jumped in the cars, spent 35m in a traffic jam at the exit toll points of the airport and we were finally headed out to Buenos Aires!
All and all, it was a long trip and it was a good trip! Zeek was very good, we didn’t have hours on end of screams, we didn’t have tantrums!
Long haul with a 1 year old
We’ve started packing for our flight to the land of the asados and empanadas with our little boy. It seems that there’s not enough space in any bag that we will be taking with us.
I was looking for some tips for traveling on a long haul flight with a 1 year old, and a short phrase stuck: “take more nappies than you think you’ll need as there are shops to get more nappies at 30,000 ft”, so true! I also read that 12 or 13 months is the worst age for long haul flights. When is it a good age though?
Since Zeek is teething, we’ve also got a Brauer Calm bottle for Zeek donated to us by friends who have done the long haul with a toddler, we sure will use it if things get out of control.
I now understand why parents can’t travel light anymore, and we only have one child!
I am not sure what our trip will be like, Zeek has been a good traveler so far. We’ve travelled a lot between Sydney and Coffs Harbour and between Sydney and Adelaide. Those were very short flights in comparison with what awaits us. We shall see, we will tell you when we get there.