10pm flight to Istanbul and we left our house at 745pm on a Hyundai i40 cab that had problems fitting 2×28″ luggage. Thankfully traffic was smooth, much contributed to the 1 week school holidays and we arrived at 820pm. There weren’t any queues and we checked in quickly.
We found out that for the flight, there weren’t any baby meals because I didn’t call in to arrange for it (which I thought I did when I call in for seats allocation and I thought I made the same mistake in the previous flight ). Made arrangements for the return flights at the service counter and took the sky train to T1 NTUC (took forever to get to this ulu NTUC) to get some cereals for baby K before heading back to T2 to go through the departure.
We had only 15 mins left and made the necessary toilet trips and diapers change out before heading to the gate. Upon arriving, we found that we were the last passengers to board. So we boarded the plane and settled down rather quickly. The flight took off only slightly after 10pm. Baby K ate some bread and was feeling tired. Soon after taking off, he fell asleep in Mommy’s arms without drinking milk. Bassinet was set up and we put him into it, and found that this 22month old toddler couldn’t fit and had his legs sticking out. How fast our baby had grown. We try to get some sleep whenever we can.
There was definitely a certain space advantage in having the bassinet seats, where we could stretch our legs in comfort comparing to the other economy seats. Furthermore, these were located near the doorway to the airport allowing for quick exit to the immigrations upon arrival. The con however was the inflight pantry where the food carts were stored and where the air service staff do some work was just there, separated by a thin curtain blocking the view, not the noise. And for some reason, it was particularly noisy as supper was prepared, too much clanging of porcelain. Luckily enough K just slept through it all.
Food was served finally and I was liked the visual presentation of the its dish and utensils, thought it looked classy. We had our first western dish Ratatouille and Kung Bai chicken which was ok. As sleep memory hit, we soon fell asleep (as a parent, normal sleeping time became 10pm instead of the usual 12midnight pre-baby!). Normally the food trays were be cleared a short time after everyone was done with their food but in this long flight, it took unusually long to do so. I was locked in that space between the tray table and the seat for some time which made sleeping uncomfortable. Didn’t realized when it was done though, only so when I woke to find 2 packs of inflight amenities Chopard pouches with sitting on it. Tiredness got the better of interest and I went back to sleep.
K awoke but didn’t cry uncontrollably as we thought it would thankfully. Brought down the haversack placed at the overhead compartment some rows behind and prepare the milk using sample packs that we got from the PD visits. He happily drank his milk and with the total lack of activity (as his parents were also not moving much), he slowly returned to dreamland.
It was rather uncomfortable to be sleeping on this flight even with the extra leg space. There was this huge screen placed on the wall just above the bassinet that showed the flight route and some other information. It shone bright as day right in our faces. The occasional loud snoring from sleeping passengers also added to the annoyance. Encountered a slight period of turbulence but overall a smooth journey. Then baby K decided that I was a better bed than mom and had to sleep on me. We constantly made adjustments to get more comfortable and I couldn’t get a good sleep.
Early breakfast was served at around 7am and again it was challenging to have breakfast as baby K was laying across the seat with his legs across the armrest where the folded tables were hidden. We had to move him slowly and have the 2 trays placed on one table and I had to eat with one hand. The food was nice but the tray return took eternity.
Almost 2-3hrs before landing, baby K woke up. We had to start the entertainment for fear that he would become a nightmare. Thankfully he was well behaved once he got past the grumpiness of waking up from a sleep. With the free inflight kid’s book and entertainment system, the flight landed without crying, much to our relief (and some pride that our toddler was well behaved and grown up!). We had to wait for most passengers to disembark first since our overhead luggage were spread all over the plane having no space since we were late to board 12hrs ago. It’s ok we weren’t in a rush.