Tough Looking Travellers & Their Untamed Kids

March 31, 2014

in Baby & Kid Stories

My husband and I were flying from LHR to CUN for a friend’s wedding. Even though our flight was scheduled to depart around 11am, we were in full holiday mode so we decided to make our way to the gate to sit down with a celebratory drink before boarding.

Our gate was really far out in one of the terminals which only had one cafe to accommodate about 5 gates. We’re sitting there, relaxing with a glass of wine, when we start to notice a very weird scene unfolding. There are about 8 children between the ages of 4-13 who are literally running around like headless chickens. They had found a balloon and were purposely hitting random people with it. One child had taken his shirt off, another was eating some woman’s muffin off her plate, another was hiding under people’s tables trying to get into their hand bags. I had never seen anything like it.

Of course, we’re scanning the cafe looking for the parents who these children belong to and see before us three very tanned, scantily clad, surgically enhanced women downing rose wine, and, at a separate table, three men (their husbands) all wearing track suits, necking cans of Stella. Basically, they were travellers/gypsies. Upon closer inspection, we could see that all of the men had a variation of black eyes, stitches on their faces, bruised knuckles… basically we concluded that these families had planned a holiday together, and these guys were prize fighting the night before to get a bit of extra spending money. Pretty much everyone in the cafe was avoiding eye contact with any of them, including the women because those ladies looked fierce!

We look at the boarding screens and see that there is a flight at the gate next to ours that’s going to Orlando. “Of course!” we tell ourselves, they MUST be going to Orlando. Nope. They get on our flight, one row behind us. The women all pass out almost immediately; the men go into the galleys to get armfuls of free drinks, and soon pass out after the meal is served. The children are running around the plane throughout the ENTIRE duration of the flight (apart from takeoff and landing obviously). There must have been about 5 announcements made specifically saying, “Please remain in your seats, especially if you have small children on board,” etc.

Mid-flight I went into the snack area of the galley (Virgin flight) and made a comment to the air hostess like, “Wow, you’ve certainly got your hands full…” or something, and she just looks at me with this look of despair and says, “I’ve been doing this for over 15 years and have never had it this bad.” They knew that saying anything more forceful to the parents (they had already tried the polite route) would just escalate into a bigger issue, considering the…”nature” of how these people were and how they usually “deal” with things…

Best bit is that we landed, get to our 5 star resort thinking we’re in the clear, and we see them checking in. Luckily we were out of there after the wedding and on to paradise.

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

CloisterBelle April 1, 2014 at 6:31 am

It must be so wonderful to be so classist and all-around entitled asshole. Well done on sounding like an absolute jerk.

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obvance June 30, 2014 at 11:21 am

yOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE KIDS PARENTS, RIGHT?

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Gina April 1, 2014 at 9:01 am

Yeah the writing sounds a bit classist but the author is spot on – ive been on flights where the entire plane was terrorized by children and rude/drunk parents and it sucks. Cabin crew are not babysitters.

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Long-time reader April 1, 2014 at 9:15 am

Too funny, when I read the description my first thought was "travellers." It's too bad that flight crews don't have the authority they used to, to clamp down on passenger behavior. In the US I'd say it was fear of being sued by some litigious nutcase who won't take responsiblity for his own actions.

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Untamed April 1, 2014 at 8:28 pm

Check out "Irish Travellers" online. You'll see that they're truly a different breed.

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CloisterBelle April 15, 2014 at 7:50 am

Rude travelers are one thing, but I’ve seen plenty of rich and entitled assholes who can’t corral their kids.

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Joe June 5, 2014 at 8:56 pm

The writing may be classist but the author described gypsies perfectly; pretty much incompatible with civilized society. Horrible people. Most Americans view them with rose-tinted glasses, thinking there's something romantic about them and their style of living. Most Europeans will tell you otherwise.

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Bridget June 14, 2018 at 10:06 am

I don't think the writer is being a classist jerk. He just wants to relax before the wedding and these awful people are ruining it for him!

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