Discuss it amongst yesselfs...
Caveat: I'm not advocating this at all, I just found it an interesting read on my union's forum:
Caveat: I'm not advocating this at all, I just found it an interesting read on my union's forum:
Where Can I Find a Child-free Airline?
Aug. 28, 2007
Dear Untourist Reader,
You probably saw the recent commotion about the mother and motor-mouth toddler evicted from a Continental flight from Houston to Atlanta. My sympathies were all for the flight attendant.
Finding an airline gate swarming with families and their monstrous regiments of strollers makes my heart sink. Grumpy toddlers. Babies with more lung power than an opera diva. Whining munchkins with mini-backpacks and sugar-pink cases.
Watching some Princess Barbie type hurtle around like a dervish, stress levels start climbing. While her Mom gazes bovinely into space or chatters on a cellphone, Barbie takes the inevitable tumble and batters my calves with that pink case. Yet the real concern is where these families will get seated. Given the choice, I’d rather be wedged in the middle seat between a Norwegian drunk and a Japanese Sumo wrestler. Not beside, behind, or in front of young children.
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Of course, you can’t choose your seat companions. Courtesy of selfish/inept parents and their obnoxious offspring, I often endure the indignities of everything from spilled drinks to pulled hair, curious fingers (invariably sticky) and the stench of unchanged diapers. The endless moans and screams could easily be a soundtrack to Dante’s Inferno.
I’m not saying all families are anti-social. Far from it. But there are enough spoiled brats around to make air travel miserable.
Sure, you've paid the same fare as me, and it’s your civil right to travel. But what about my rights? I don’t want to play peek-a-boo with your malodorous baby. Or trade infantile chat with your toddler. And I’m only mopping up the liquid mess that Jimmy the Troll has made over the seat-back tray to stop it dripping on my clothing.
Frankly, I’m tired of excuses that babies can’t help bawling because the cabin pressure makes their ears hurt. So why subject them to pain and suffering? Seems that regardless of a child’s well-being, some Want-It-All parents are determined to take vacations that involve lengthy flights.
Then there’s the constant seat-back-kicking. You say you can’t prevent little Bethany (thanks to her loudmouth brother, the entire plane knows her name is Bethany) from assaulting the back of my seat. If you try restraining her, she’ll explode into a full-blown tantrum.
Being forced to endure other people’s feral children at close quarters makes me understand the concept of air rage. Truly, I am not psychopathic. Yet on a recent flight to Chicago, I entertained Nurse Ratchet fantasies of stuffing one seat-back-kicker into a straitjacket, covering his mouth with duct tape, then stowing the brat in the overhead bin.
Having flown all over Asia and the Middle East, I’d say allowing kids to annoy strangers seems a mostly western phenomenon. While there have been crying babies aboard at times, I’ve never witnessed Asian children running amok.
Incidentally, I do know what it’s like to rear a child. But if my daughter misbehaved, she got spanked. And going back a generation, so did I. Yes, that was the antique ‘‘Keep still, keep quiet and don’t pester other people’’ age. But is teaching children basic manners now seen as interfering with a freedom to do whatever they choose?
Apart from chartering a private jet, I can’t offer any solution. Happily, your entire vacation doesn’t have to be ruined by half-pint hooligans racing through hotel corridors--or urinating in what the brochure promised was an adults-only pool.
Child-free environments aren’t confined to all-inclusive Caribbean and Mexico resorts targeting honeymooners. Ever considered Costa Rica? If you enjoy beaches, wildlife, forest--and no kids--take a look at www.gaiahr.com. The Hotel Gaia and Reserve recently won the CondeNast/Johansen award for "Most Excellent Hotel." Room rates start at $250 per night.
With views of islands and the Aegean Sea, the upmarket Sun Rocks Hotel on the Greek island of Santorini is also a child-free zone. Depending on season, doubles are from $272-326 per night.
To add balance to this diatribe, www.best-family-beach-vacations.com lists resorts and hotels designed for parents who insist on traveling with babies and toddlers. (Also very useful if you prefer to avoid them.)
Beyond the beaches? Well, one place in Austria I won't be checking into is the Kinder (Children’s) Hotel in the Tyrolean village of St. Zeno. You might call it family-friendly. I’d call it the stuff of nightmares.
Baby swimming and massage, a petting farm, activity clubs for various age groups, a "fun court" with a purpose-built castle to besiege. Open year-round, it has single and double rooms with additional child beds. Full board adult rates (with lots of extras) start at $95. Under-twos are accommodated free. Depending on age, older children pay $23 to $44.
But returning to my original gripe. The day when airlines offer me child-free flights can’t happen soon enough. Until then, I suggest families with young children should be quarantined together in a sound-proofed, smell-proofed section of the plane.
Georgina Adams
The Untourist
