dylanks

We were up late celebrating the Deutschland world cup victory.



We then drove from Augsburg to Firenze. We took a slightly back route, passing near Füssen, rather than taking a route passing around München. The 7 hour drive took us 12 hours because our baby boy started teething. That was by far the most challenging day of our trip. We stopped for lunch in Innsbruck. The drive was incredibly scenic, I wish we had a month to see it all.









Austria and Italy have very modern toll roads. Overall I believe this drive has around 600 tunnels. I note this because our baby doesn't current like being in the car at night, so every time we passed through a tunnel, he thought it was nighttime again. There are an amazing number of castles and other notable buildings high in the mountains along this drive.









We arrived at our apartment in Firenze. We found a place that was either a 30 minute walk or 10 minute bus ride from the city center. When possible, we prefer staying in less touristy areas, especially in Firenze where the main areas can be rather loud at night.

Our first day we went to Fiesole before we returned our car. It was a clear day, providing nice views of Firenze.









We spent the week using the bus system and walking. It was somewhat tricky finding week long bus passes. They sell them in a single counter at the Santa Maria Novella train station, to the left of all of the train ticket counters. Children are free if they are under 1m tall.

The kids really enjoyed seeing David and the pizza and gelato cooking class. We had some great meals and met up with friends of ours one day while we were there. The Boboli Gardens were a mistake as it was stifling hot (about 35C/96F). You are now allowed to take photos inside the Accademia, which is a nice change from my previous visit.















As with almost everything in Italy, if possible, buy your tickets in advance, as you will avoid hours of queues.

Firenze is such a beautiful city, we had a great time enjoying the local cuisine, seeing some tourist sites, and finding the better, fresh gelato sites (Grom is a particularly good one). I took over 1000 photos, I'll share just a few.







































Up next: Train to Rome

offerendum

Very nice Were in Firenze a few month ago and believe, I´m the only one who cared about the "no photo" sign in front of David

dylanks

I think the icon was meant to mean no flash photography. I know when I was there 7 years ago, it was as strict as the sistine chapel still is, where they would make you delete any photos you might try to take, or arrest you if you did not comply.

cas_de

Very nice TR, and I think this is the first TR (that I am aware of) that features both my hometown (Augsburg) and my current residence (Munich)! Too bad that you had less than optimal whether while being here...

dylanks

We then took the train to Roma. We were smart to reserve a car service to get us to and from the train stations with our luggage. Firenze SMN train station was very crowded due to some delayed trains.



The train service was quick and the journey was scenic. We arrived at our place in Roma in the Pantheon area. We only had a few days in Roma, so the first afternoon we walked around and saw the Pantheon and had an excellent trattoria dinner.













On the second day he toured the Colosseum, easily avoiding a 2+ hour queue with our preordered tickets online. The combined Colosseum/Forums ticket is valid for 2 days, though it was so warm we ended up skipping the forums and palatine hill as our youngest daugther was tired of walking.





















The third day was our Vatican tour, which was a bad idea with a 6 year old daughter. We later learned there was a children-friendly tour that we should have booked. The kids really enjoyed learning that the architecture from St. Peter's Basilica out to the square is shaped like a man giving a hug. Photos were strictly forbidden in the Sistine Chapel, and we saw the guards requesting people to immediately remove the photo they tried to take, or face being arrested. The guards in general are very militant, though they were nice to us because we had a baby that was smiling at them.















We also had a few amazing meals, mostly at places recommended by the Rick Steves Italy guide. While people in most country are generally nice to babies, Italians absolutely love babies. The number of restaurants where the people wanted to hold our baby, and the number of people that wanted to talk to him was near nonstop throughout our time in Italy.



Up next: FCO-LHR

dylanks

BA0571 - FCO-LHR (CE A3xx, I think it was an ex-BMI plane)
CE, Seats 1ACDF

On Saturday, July 26th, the real adventure began. We woke up very early and arrived at FCO at 5am for our 7am flight. We quickly retrieved our boarding passes and checked our luggage. We were told that "London did not send down any priority tags for luggage."

After clearing fast track security and immigration, we found the lounge, which was open earlier than advertised. The lounge itself is very mediocre, with a weird registration mechanism for wifi, and surprisingly bad food (this is Italy after all).

After an hour or so in the boarding area, we headed to our gate, which involves a short train ride to a remote terminal. After a short delay, we were first onboard. We had a short delay departing as a small boy was afraid to fly because of the recent air crashes. They were kind in offloading him (they said he ended up on the next flight once he calmed down).

It was an uneventful flight, and the kids received some very nice BA Sky Flyers amenity kits on both this flight and the next. I would say these are nicer and more useful than the adult CW kits! Included is a fun activity book with four color pen or crayons, and some excellent travel trivia. I was able to astonish my family with my obscure travel knowledge.





The seats were fine, and the bulkhead space was again helpful with the baby.

Up next: LHR T5 arrivals and south lounges

dylanks

Given the very early departure, we all slept the majority of the flight, and arrived at LHR on time at T5A at around 9am. Because of the enhanced security to the US (all electronic devices must have power), the transfer security was packed. Given the advice on FlyerTalk, we entered the UK border, which took all of 5 minutes. Things got a bit strange however when we tried to take the lift to security.

We were told that security was closed unless your flight was boarding within 2 hours. This was probably a mistake given that we were in CW, but we instead went to the arrivals lounge. I explained the situation, and they allowed us into the arrivals lounge because we were in transit on a long-haul, even though the first flight was shorthaul. They didn't have to do this, but the lounge was pretty empty and we appreciated their discretion.

The arrivals lounge had decent bacon and sausage, better that what seems to be on offer in the south lounge. We booked massages which were excellent, and we only had to wait 5 minutes. We staggered them so one of us could watch the kids and baby. Our kids were surprisingly well behaved, using their "library voices". Most other people around us in the lounge were sleeping.

After our massages, we inquired about security and the lounge agents told us to go upstairs as the security guard should not have blocked CW passengers to begin with.

At the conformance scan, we got a beep and were told to return to the BA counter. I was hoping that this meant an opup as the flight was full except in F, but alas, they just wanted to check out passports since we had entered the UK. My streak of 0 op-ups ever is unbroken (other than when being moved from CW to F during the 2010 Heathrow Snowpocalypse).

We then cleared security pretty quickly, and did a small amount of shopping before heading to the south lounge. That said, the rounded edge scissors that were the cause of a bag search earlier were confiscated, as they were allegedly 0.5cm too long. We explained that they were kids scissors and had passed through security with them previously, but they took them away anyway.

After a quick purchase in boots, we returned to a still crammed full south galleries lounge. We found seats right outside the kids zone and the kids played for a few hours. The food selection was limited. We took showers, and then took the transit train to B to board.



Up Next: BA 289 LHR-PHX (twice)

dylanks

26 (27, due to delay) July
BA0289 - LHR-PHX (CW 747, G-CIVN replaced with G-CIVT)
Seats 20DEFG

This is where the fun begins, as some of you may already have read: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...1-5-hours.html .

After watching BA 289 (LHR to PHX) delayed by 6 hours each of the past two days, I was hoping for better with our flight today. Sadly, that was not in the cards.

Our flight began with a comedy of errors:

* 20 min delay due to a catering truck not being able to load the plane
* 30 min delay mid-way through boarding as someone closed a door to the terminal and they could not open it to let the remaining passengers onboard. During this delay, the cabin crew had no idea why more passengers were not boarding.

Meanwhile, the temperature onboard was at least 32C. The flight crew was sweating. Once everyone was onboard, we had another delay: a passenger wanted off the plane and they has to offload their luggage.

90 minutes after the scheduled departure, we pushed back from the stand and after another 30 minutes, we had moved a distance of two gates. The promised air conditioning still hadn't kicked in, and the pilots communicated that we would have to return to the stand, as they couldn't get an engineer to come out to the plane.

The comedy of errors continued. We returned to the stand, and it was a stand that was unable to provide air conditioning to the plane. So then we waited a while longer for buses to arrive. We were provided some water, and I received some sliced apples for my kids. We were all drenched in sweat. My kids did fairly well (ages 9, 6, and 6 months old) as they were tired enough to sleep through most of it. At one point they woke up thinking that we were already in Phoenix.

We then disembarked 3 hours after the scheduled departure. We took a bus to the terminal, but there was no agent from BA telling us where to go. After a while waiting at flight connections, they announced over the PA that our flight had been night stopped, and we would need to get our bags and go to the disruption desk. Knowing how long this can take, I went upstairs to get hotel vouchers, while my wife fetched our checked luggage along with some other kind passengers.

We were provided vouchers to the Hilton T5 (we asked for the Sofitel, but were told those rooms were for first only). I didn't really care, other than not wanting to schlep on a bus to a hotel. The vouchers were provided quickly, but the luggage didn't arrive until 1.75 hours after we we offloaded.

We then waited for the bus. After 20 min, a bus arrived, with about 100 people waiting for it. We gave up and took a taxi, as it was now past 8pm. We arrived at the hotel, waited 15 more minutes for the queue from the bus to clear, and then ate a makeshift buffet dinner. This was truly an awful buffet dinner just for stranded passengers, likely because BA and the Hilton wanted to make this as cheap as possible.

We slept for a few hours, though with five of us, we were split across two hotel rooms, neither of which had reliable wifi.

We woke up early (6am) and decided to head to the airport early and eat breakfast in the lounge, as the Hilton food from the night before was not appetizing.

We checked in at the fairly crowded FIRST area, with about a 5 minute wait. All of the agents today were up to speed, as everyone had a printed paper explaining why there was a second flight 289. We were also told our gate six hours in advance, a C gate.

We dropped our baby car seat off at the oversized luggage area, and then quickly proceeded through fast track security. We made our way to a less crowded T5A Galleries Club south lounge, and again found seats just outside the kids zone.

We got massages again at the Elemis spa, though they were not as excellent as the day before. I popped into the Galleries First lounge to see if the food options were better. I really miss the old food provider.

One thing we learned on this trip is that to keep kids calm, it always helps to make things entertaining for the kids. So, rather than taking the crowded train, we were inspired to try the transit tunnel as outlined by corporate-wage-slave at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...assengers.html .

The kids really enjoyed it. After everyone else exited the lift, we had 10 minutes of serenity in an otherwise crowded airport.










We enjoyed the Starbucks credit in lieu of the missing lounge, and we learned that some of the economy class passengers were sent by bus to the Hilton near Gatwick, over an hour away!

Boarding was much more efficient this time around, and the crew was mostly the same as the day before, including the same pilots. The plane had the best air conditioning of any BA flight I have ever been on. It was actually cold, and they were not about to make it even slightly warm after the day prior.

The flight itself went by quickly. The cabin crew had fun saying that the food options might seem familiar. We joked back that this would be fine, as long as it wasn't the same food that had been loaded yesterday. For the mains, we again tried ordering one of each, and none of them were stellar. I enjoyed the mozzarella and tomato starter, and cheese plate for dessert. The afternoon tea service was nice, as I really enjoy BA's scones.






We arrived at PHX on time and quickly passed through immigration. While I usually use Global Entry, with the family we passed through normal immigration which now includes similar kiosks for US citizens. This does seem to free up most of the immigration officers for non-US citizens, making the processing faster for everyone.

We received all of our bags quickly, except for the bay car seat. After all bags were delivered, we finally found a BA agent who mentioned that all of the oversized luggage was mistakenly placed on the later 289 flight. Why they couldn't tell us this 20 minutes earlier, I don't know.

We cleared customs, and at the BA luggage counter, they already had a form filled out for us. We were told to go upstairs to the ticket counter to borrow a replacement baby car seat.

The staff in general was very fatigued. The two previous days, the flights were delayed 6 hours, and then today they had two flights with a facility and staff only equipped to handle one flight. We were provided with a loaner car seat for our ride home with Execucar, and we received our car seat back the next morning. They would have delivered it earlier, but we did not want to stay awake until 1am after the flight.

We did receive the fastest crediting of avios ever, with the avios in our account the day after our flight. Perhaps it was credited quickly because the flight was scheduled a day earlier than actually flown.

Some final thoughts

The CW middle seats are really nice when flying with a family, something you could not experience on the Cirrus seats found on CX, US, AA, and others. I compared them in a previous trip report: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...rspective.html

I think BA and CX in business class are pretty comparable. CX probably gets the slight edge when flying solo, whereas BA seems like a better choice for families. They both really don't serve amazing food in J, saving their better food options for F. They both have seats you can get some sleep in, or some work done. I was probably a bit more favorable to BA in my last trip report than I would be now.

Finally, the Sky Flyers kit was fun, and our baby enjoyed playing with the bag:







Thanks for reading!

BHDATC

Great report and pictures. Thank you.

halfcape

Beautiful family and a very enjoyable tr. Thank you for sharing the photos and story.

N830MH

Wow! What a fabulous trip reports! I'm so glad you had a great flight. I'm glad you had a great time in Italy & Switzerland. It was so much more enjoyable trip.

PantsFlyer

Great Trip report, really enjoyed reading from a families point of view.

oneworld82

Beautiful report, beautiful happy family! BA CW is still the best J/C product in Europe IMHO.

drminn

You may want to ask BA for compensation for the flight delay in accordance with the EU 261 regulation. It should get you about $800 per paid ticket.

AhogZ

Absolutely great, you are so happy family it could not get wrong. Thank you very much for sharing!!