A delayed flight put us into a frenzy before we even left. The delay meant we would miss our connection, so we were furiously working with American Airlines to find an alternate route and ended up switching from Phx-Chicago-Manchester on American to Phx-Heathrow-Manchester on British Airways. Although I liked the routing better, I have to say British Airways Business paled in comparison to American. But, we all got a few hours of sleep and arrived in Manchester in decent spirits.
Our girls are great on trips, and this one was no different. The real secret to keeping them happy is to limit screen time leading up to the flight (easy for us because we rarely let them watch TV) and download movies and TV shows they haven’t seen and want to see. Luckily, I downloaded a bunch of movies and shows they hadn’t seen. Kora got a lot of Super Why and Juliet picked out the ones she wanted. It was lucky I had learned my lesson on not relying on the in-flight entertainment for the girls, because British Airways entertainment for kids was abysmal. The small selection and the old fuzzy screens that were hard to see did not impress my girls, and they didn’t watch any of the movies offered on the flight to London. They both opted for my fully loaded devices. Because they slept for part of the way, I didn’t need to charge the devices–but I had my extra battery with me just in case.
For the layover, the girls had a snack and played in the kid area of the British Airways lounge at Heathrow. But I also packed on-the-go scratch art, like this Melissa & Doug Fairy Tales scratch art, and Crayola Color Wonder markers and coloring pages. Juliet packed her own books.
Although we were supposed to arrive early in the morning and have a full day of sightseeing, we had to skip the first two stops on the itinerary because of our delayed flight (arriving in the afternoon instead of in the morning). Originally, we were going to stop at Cannon Hall and then Nostell Priory and Parkland, but we couldn’t make it in time and will have to try them on another trip.
From the Manchester airport, we picked up our car and drove straight to Sheffield. The drive was uneventful.