Travel to Aussie

Oh we had trouble coming back from Aussie too! I should have mentioned it before you went, but forgot

Book a morning flight back if you can!

We got back at midnight our time, thinking (stupidly) that DD would sleep on the way back.. yeah right.. 3.5 hours with a restless baby on the plane wasn't fun. Next time I'm definately booking a morning flight home just incase!!

There has been some great advice already listed on this thread but for more help I suggest you go to www.travelwithkids.co.nz and see the Travel Tips section.

Hello Mazzy, yes it is an unusual welcome to a forum but I guess I can see where you are coming from. I only just came across OH Baby last week, and wished I'd known about it earlier (my youngest is now 2). However as my oldest daugher is 9 (and I have a 6 year old too) I feel that I've been in touch with the "baby years" for a long time now and therefore can probably still offer some helpful information. With regard to "advertising" the Travel with Kids website, to me that implies that I make money off the website. This is a site that I have set up myself in order to help other parents and I don't earn a single cent off it (that's not to say that I would one day like to but that's wishful thinking). I have a passion for travel but it is expensive and quite a sacrifice to the budget. So I realise what a important decision it is as to where a family stays on holiday. Personally I like to know all the info possible on a hotel before I book and I found that hotel websites do not have the family friendly info that I wanted. So I decided to start a website myself providing that information for myself and other parents. I could have replied with my own travel tips to your question, but I have only just recently put them on my site so it was just quicker and easier to post the link. In future I will cut and paste if you prefer.

One other point, after reading your posts is that Air New Zealand technically do not offer infant or kids packs on their Pacific Island or Australia flights (or offer kids meals - I think its terrible) On your outbound flight which was on a larger aircraft, the plane was either going onwards to a further destination or had been to one recently - regardless it was stocked with baby packs. On the return flight, the smaller aircraft would have been limited to the shorter flights and never gets stocked with baby/kids packs. We had the situation when we went to Fiji a couple of months ago that my in-laws left from AKL the day before us and the kids on their plane got great kids packs, because that plane was bound for LA after Nadi. However our little plane the next day from WLG only flys short flights so our girls got nothing. In a nutshell, on Australia or Pacific flights, go expecting nothing and if you get something its a bonus. Qantas still give out the packs on their flights though.