Tag Archives: flights

Our Virgin Atlantic Experience

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There’s been a lot of criticism across social media over the last few months about the attitude of Virgin Atlantic towards passengers with food allergies on their flights, in particular relating to those travelling with nut allergies. Now, I can’t comment on how they perform in those situations as we are fortunate to have no known nut allergies, though truthfully M hasn’t had a peanut in years, so we wouldn’t know if he is allergic or not. However, I was interested to see how they would do when it came to the allergy requirements of G and M, especially given our amazing experience when we flew with them to Florida in 2014.

Our first challenge was having some safe milk for M to drink for breakfast in the Heathrow airport lounge. Unlike the fantastic V-room at Gatwick, who stocked B-free bread for toast and brought in 2 cartons of rice milk just for M and G, the Heathrow lounge was less able to help and seemingly less willing to try, simply saying that their staff wouldn’t be able to bring the rice milk through security, so it was up to us to provide it if we could. I was extremely frustrated by this response when I received it, but rather than sit and moan about their inability to be as helpful as I would have liked, instead decided to contact M’s consultant at our local hospital to ask if he would write an updated medical letter stating that we needed to carry a number of safe food items through security for M. Less than 2 weeks after my request, 2 copies of that letter landed through our door and we were easily able to walk through security with the carton of rice milk in our hand luggage without issue once the letter had been seen. I always recommend carrying medical letters and copies of prescriptions when you travel and this experience proved once again, just how valuable that can be.

Despite that rocky start, I hoped things could only improve and as we had booked our complete holiday through Virgin, I had already asked that notes be added to our booking to state that both children had food allergies. I also updated our booking confirmation online with a request that G and M had the gluten-free meals and followed that up with an email noting that both also needed to be dairy-free if possible. I mentioned that M ideally needed to avoid egg and soya if it was at all possible, but knew this was a lot to ask and simply leaned on the truism that you never know what’s possible until you ask.

The meals that arrived with us for both flights were both gluten- and dairy-free, but included a couple of items for M that contained a small amount of egg. This time there was no mix up with meals going to the wrong seats and whilst the meals offered were not exactly what G would have chosen, M tucked in wherever he could. As always both of their backpacks, and mine, were well-stocked with some safe snacks to supplement what was provided and so we were able to muddle through quite successfully.

 

Our Virgin Atlantic experience is one that I would definitely count as a success and neither child, M in particular, suffered any fallout from what they ate on the flights. Not only were the cabin crew diligent with what snacks and drinks they offered to them, but they were also fantastic in helping us celebrate G’s 16th birthday for just a little bit longer and in great style, with a visit to the cockpit for both children on our flight to New York and a birthday present of some “lounge wear” (pyjamas to you and me) and some chocolate on the way home.

Finishing the summer in style

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With Christmas now just 6 weeks away – eek, where has this year gone?! – it’s hard to believe that I still haven’t finished telling the tales of our busy summer. You’d have thought our fairly last-minute plans to fly out to Canada for 2 weeks would have been more than enough to keep us all occupied, but we had even more adventures squeezed in to the final 10 days of the summer holidays before school started back.

We had the return journey from hell with a disrupted flight thanks to a group of rowdy French exchange students, who got into arguments and near fist fights with both the airline crew and other passengers, just rows away from the seats we were sitting in. I have never been so upset on a flight and am just grateful that the children were more entertained by the films they chose to watch, than scared by the events going on around them. This behaviour continued in the Dublin airport terminal and didn’t help the stress of a delayed flight back, which meant we missed our onward flight home by mere minutes. Mike and I were tired, grumpy and so fed up by all we experienced, that we complained long and hard, which fortunately secured us a later flight home, though it was 12 hours later than originally planned, and a hotel room for the day, which gave us the chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep, something that had been impossible on the plane.

We were both back at work the following day, whilst G and M went to my Mum’s for the last 2 days of the week. We rushed through the washing and then found ourselves packing once again for a weekend in Liverpool to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibition that we had missed when we visited back in April and what was, perhaps, the highlight of M’s summer holiday – a week at Over The Wall. Our weekend in Liverpool was a great success, especially as we managed a return trip to both of the fabulous freefrom restaurants we had discovered on our previous visit, something both children were desperate to do. The morning spent at the World Museum was well worth it and we all enjoyed seeing the amazing Terracotta Warriors that were on display. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 17 years since Mike and I first saw them in Xi’an, China and fantastic to introduce G and M to this incredible ancient tribute to China’s first emperor. They also insisted we explored every other part of the museum we could and given the rather miserable weather, it was a great way to entertain them whilst away from home.

From Liverpool, we headed back South, dropping M off at the Midlands OTW Health Challenges camp for what we had no doubt would be an amazing week for him again. I cannot begin to describe the incredible benefits that M gets from OTW and why this charity deserves all the support and praise we can possibly give it. Once again the camp chefs outdid our expectations and created meals for M that went beyond our wildest dreams – and yet again apparently put my attempts to shame. This year, however, I can take great solace in the fact that M shared with the chef that I put my recipes on this blog and he not only took a look at them, but also used them to help cook treats for M whilst he was at camp. Just as with his stay at the South HC camp 2 years ago, M was exhausted after a week of unbelievable fun and challenge and just about managed to survive the very final bit of our seemingly endless summer adventures.

OTW’s Midlands camp is based just minutes away from the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire and it seemed a shame to be so close and not stop there for a relatively quick visit. The NMA is somewhere I’ve long considered visiting and we chose a beautiful day to make the trip. Both children were about studying the World Wars at school and with 2018 marking the centenary of the Armistice, it seemed fitting to spend some time walking the grounds and exploring the many memorials that are found here. It was a remarkable and moving place to visit and I’m glad we made the effort to, despite M’s reluctance and overwhelming tiredness from a week away from home.

Virgin Fantastic!

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The time had finally come and the night before we flew, I sent tweets to both Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic to issue my challenge to meet my holiday expectations and both accepted it immediately.

https://twitter.com/VirginHolidays/status/494057894611267585

First up was Virgin Holidays and their Gatwick V-room.  As I wrote back at the end of July, I had been promised a supply of rice milk for M as well as some suitable options for his breakfast and I was keen to see just what would be waiting when we got there.  Upon arrival, we met the fantastic Dominic, who knew all about M and our request for rice milk.  As soon as we found a table for breakfast, he brought the milk over and then spent some time discussing all of M’s allergies and what food they had on offer that might suit him.  I was impressed to learn that they stock B-free bread and although it contains egg and therefore isn’t suitable for M,  G snapped up the opportunity to have 2 slices of toast as part of her breakfast.  Both children also had some cereal with the rice milk and there was fresh fruit and smoothies available for them too.  I was hugely impressed with Dominic’s attitude throughout our time there and at no point felt that we were an inconvenience to any of the V-room staff.  Even better, we were able to take the remainder of the carton onto our flight with us, which meant we could go on our holiday knowing M had a limited supply of safe milk to hand.

It was then on to our plane and it all started well.  The check-in staff had confirmed that the special request meal had been noted on our booking and the cabin crew provided us with a ready supply of ice to keep the cool-bag of medicines cold for the 9+hours we’d be in the air.  I was equally impressed that they offered to place our ice packs in their on-board freezer to ensure that we could keep everything cool until we reached our final destination in Orlando.  Eventually it was time for the meal and here we hit our first rocky point. oops I had requested a gluten-free meal for G which quickly turned up, but there was no sign of the requested meal for M.  The cabin crew searched high and low for it, but couldn’t find it and we were left with the option of whatever fruit they could get their hands on plus the snacks I had packed to keep M’s appetite filled.  Just as I was mentally drafting a letter of complaint to Virgin Atlantic expressing my disappointment at being let down in such dramatic fashion, our air stewardess hurried up with a tray of food and an apology on her lips.  The confusion had arisen for 2 reasons: 1) the meal had been prepared with G’s name on it rather than M’s and 2) it had been assigned to the seat number of another passenger who had also requested a special meal and the names had not been cross-checked to make sure everything was right.

Disaster was averted, but only just.  The meal prepared was exactly what I had asked for – plain grilled chicken with rice and vegetables and a fantastic fresh fruit salad for dessert – and M tucked in with gusto.  We were lucky that the other passenger had not started eating the meal before the mistake was identified and I’m glad to say that our return flight was not plagued with the same problem, although it still appeared that G had 2 meals (both the gluten-free and special request meals being assigned to her name), whilst M had none!  I hadn’t considered that a smaller snack would also be provided on the flight and was delighted Virgin Atlantic had thought further ahead than I had and provided another delicous fresh fruit platter for M to enjoy safely.

Gold stars all round!

Gold stars all round!

I have been really impressed with how well both branches of the Virgin family accommodated our needs and requests on the flights and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone going on holiday with special medical needs.  We didn’t run into any unexpected problems with our travel arrangements and I will definitely consider travelling with them again.