Have a wonderful, wonderful time. Keep in mind that most flyer talk posters spend far too many hours in the air. I'm sure first class will be an incredible treat for you and your daughter. As a partner of someone who is a terrified flyer, I found that pulling the flight attendant asideand saying this is your daughter's first time flying in first class can work wonders in terms of service and attention.

I could easily imagine a ten year old not wanting to be called a child and given a child's special meal. My guess is that there will at least be some things that will appeal to the daughter on the regular menu, especially for lunch flights.

When it's time to select a meal, you might try ordering the one that daughter doesn't pick so that you can trade items back and forth with each other to give her a broader range of choices, especially since FAs usually offer the choice of the main dish but don't tell you what comes with each choice. I've also had success in asking for things like an extra bag of potato chips after all meals have been served if the chips hadn't been on the tray with my choice.

As a father with two boys under 10 that always flies first based in MSP, my recommendation is to order the kids meal as a special request. From my experience on 20 meal flights this year with the boys we had 10 flights with a grilled cheese or cold cheese sandwich, 5 flights with hamburgers and fries and 5 flights with random kids items like chicken fingers , ect.

Overall if the kids meal isn't appealing I immediately ask and receive a snack box from coach without charge or fuss. My boys like the crackers and goldfish snack box the best. if you decide to order adult meals for both check your flight number and remember that odd ending flights serve back to front and even serves front to back. That is critical to ensure you even get a choice of meals when they come to you - and when you get on ask the purser what the flight number is and gently ask/remind them of the serving rules to ensure they don't go front to back by default on your flight.

As others stated good luck and have fun!

This thread brings back a happy memory for me. I have a daughter who was 4 in 1988. In those days, as my wife and I have separate careers that involve a lot of travel, I often had to take my daughter traveling with me.

Around Thanksgiving time, I took my daughter to visit her grandparents in northern California while I called on some clients in the state. I was able to score a couple of F tickets through the Delta frequent flyer program (in those days, domestic redemptions were fairly cheap and relatively plentiful, although you had to pay $60 per ticket for instant redemption at the airport counter).

We flew IAD-SLC-OAK, on a route that had been flown by Western Airlines until April 1987 when the Delta-Western merger happened. DL had upgraded the route from a 727-200 to a 757. That was also at a time when DL parked their aircraft at a remote stand out near the top of runway 30, and you boarded a mobile lounge (the infamous "moon buggy") at the main terminal which took you out to the plane. We got on and took our seats, and the veteran ex-WA flight attendant looked on with utter horror at my daughter in F, thinking that she was going to have a screaming, bratty kid interrupting her serving the older businessmen sitting up front for 4-1/2 hours.

It turned out that my daughter put on the best behavior of her young life, and charmed the FA so much that toward the end of the flight she took my daughter up front for a tour of the galley. I was able to get a kid's meal for her, which turned out to be a large hamburger with fruit and other trimmings.

Now, my daughter (and her husband) take my two grandsons on airplane trips.

Enjoy your trip; the DL flight crews are great and you'll have a great time.

On odd number flights, having FEBO followed is very hit or miss, and more often "miss" (@ OP - if you don't know "FEBO" means "Front Even, Back Odd" referring to which part of the cabin they will start taking meal orders from). On odd flights, if I care about meal selection, I usually pick a seat in the middle of the cabin that way whether FEBO is followed or not, they should still have my choice if I'm seated in the middle versus being in the back hoping for FEBO and then the FA starts up front.

On the Delta.com, type "meal selections" and you will see information about meal options at "http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/onboard-experience/food-and-beverage/special-meals.html". Look at your child's itinerary on the "MyTrips" page, and scroll down and check the option for meal selection which you can select up to 24 hours in advance.

Thank you for this info; just finished booking the None family's first flights in F* for next summer, and the kids are picky eaters. Wasn't sure if I'd have to call for a special request, or hit up the cart.

Thanks again, I usually ignore those sections and forget they have some use.

* = actually RS/RD, for those keeping score

FYI- traveling with a child, my carry on bag would ALWAYS have multiple snack options.


- Actually, when traveling with my 60 year old wife, we have lots of options to go with our wine. - LOL!

Am I the only one that is wondering what all this crap is about a kid being a picky eater. If they refuse to eat, let the kid go hungry. Unless severe allergies are involved, I doubt they will starve to death, especially on an airplane flight. Of course, who is really responsible for this behavior? A tip in a news article. Put a very small amount of everything on the plate. When it is finished, they can have all of whatever they want.

Oh, I always pack some extras...even just for me on a flight over 3 hours.

Yes, the picky-eater attitude bugs me, as I'd try anything that wasn't nailed down to the table, ambulatory, or on fire; but I'll forgive a cleaned platter over the happiness of the other 30+ passengers in First. While they're not card-carrying FOs, they've had a few trans-con flights under their seatbelts already, and know how to behave in stores, airports, and aircraft.

They're decent about home-cooking and the like, but I'm guessing a 1-in-4 chance they'd like the standard served meals; they'd probably wind up eating too many Biscoff and pretzels if something else wasn't available. If Delta gives us the choices, then why not take advantage of them?

It's all well and good to talk about not letting kids be picky eaters, but honestly, is a flight really the place to pick this battle?

We're also flying domestic first with our 4 year old for the first time shortly. He's 4, but when we traveled to Germany in economy and ordered the kids meals, they weren't so great. He was okay-ish with the chicken nuggets, but the cheese sandwich was just weird (who thinks a roll covered in dried basil or some other green thing and one slice of cheese is an appropriate kids meal?) and he refused to eat it. We brought snacks for that flight, and he was fine, but he would of done better with the adult meal, and having a choice. Your daughter is 10 so this should be easier, but why don't you just ask her what she prefers. I asked my son if he wants to order a kids meal or choose from the limited adult options, and he said he prefers to just choose. If they don't have anything he likes, I'm sure he'll just be happy with some snacks, and we'll make sure he has something decent before we depart.

As an aside, does anyone know if the kids options in first differ at all from those in economy?

Definitely missing more than hitting. I don't think I saw the policy followed on any of the 3-4 odd-numbered flights with meal service I took in 2015. All domestic, and one segment was definitely DL Connection, FWIW.

All this talk about ordering one of each meal in hopes that something will please the child and trying to let the FA know as you board and "ask for a snack box from the back" etc. etc.

Just pre-order the meal online. Super simple.

Many of us wish Delta would implement such a system like AA has. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.