Our Family's Jetstar Experience with Kids (How We Survived 8 Hours Without iPads)

Our Family's Jetstar Experience with Kids (How We Survived 8 Hours Without iPads)

travel with kids
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reiko
Reiko
August 27, 2024
Recently, we flew with Jetstar, accompanied by our 1-year-old and 2-year-old children. Being a low-cost carrier, we had some concerns about the service, seat space, and stroller handling. However, our worries turned out to be unfounded, and we had a very comfortable journey. I'm sharing our experience to help other families planning to travel with Jetstar.

Table of Contents

  • Checking in the Stroller: Process and Tips
  • Our Jetstar In-flight Experience (Without Tablets)
  • Two Important Points to Remember

Checking in the Stroller: Process and Tips

At Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport, you can take your stroller all the way to the boarding gate. Just remember, it needs to go through the security scanner, so make sure it's foldable. However, at Melbourne and Sydney International Airports, you can't take the stroller to the gate. Instead, you'll need to check it in at the "Oversized Baggage" counter, separate from your regular luggage.
When checking in the stroller, ask the staff at the counter to issue a check-in tag for it.
Be careful when collecting your stroller too. In Melbourne and Sydney airports (I'm not sure about other countries), strollers come out from the "Oversized Baggage" area, not with the regular luggage. We learned this the hard way and spent ages waiting at the wrong place, so keep this in mind to save yourself some trouble!
In Ho Chi Minh City airport, though, the stroller came out with the regular luggage.

Our Jetstar In-flight Experience (Without Tablets)

Baby carriers are not allowed during takeoff and landing.

It was a bit frustrating when we were asked to remove our peacefully sleeping child from the carrier and use the child seatbelt instead. I understand it's for safety, but it resulted in about 20 minutes of crying that we couldn't soothe because we had to stay seated. If your child is asleep in a carrier, plan ahead for how you'll transition them to the seatbelt.

How we kept the kids entertained:

Our children spent the 8-hour flight:
  • Drawing
  • Placing stickers
  • Snacking
  • Looking out the window
  • Napping
We brought a tablet with downloaded videos as a backup but didn't use it. The first two hours were filled with stickers, drawing, and window-gazing. Thanks to tiring them out before the flight, they napped for the next three hours. After their refreshing nap, we repeated the same activities for the remaining three hours.

Two Important Points to Remember

The most crucial thing is to tire the kids out before the flight.

If they've used up some energy, the plane's motion often helps them take a longer nap than usual. After the nap, the same toys and activities feel fresh again, keeping them entertained.

The real star of our flight

was these non-fried sweet potato chips we bought in Vietnam (similar snacks should be available in Japan too). Here's why they're great:
NOn-fried sweet potato chips
NOn-fried sweet potato chips
  • They're healthy, being non-fried.
  • They're slightly hard, so it takes time for kids to chew them. This keeps them occupied longer than easily consumable snacks – our kids munched on them for about an hour!
  • They don't create much mess, and any dropped pieces are easy to pick up.
  • Sweet potatoes are filling and good for digestion, so our kids had no tummy troubles the next day.
These wonder chips turned out to be more noteworthy than Jetstar itself! I hope this information helps anyone planning a flight with young children, whether it's with Jetstar or any other airline. Happy travels!
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