As anyone who has been travelling with children before will know, it can be a blissful vacation experience with your whole family once at your destination. However, the trip to your destination is quite another story – if you have long car rides, plane flights and worst of all, lay overs in an airport, your journey can quickly deteriorate from a magical experience with the whole family, to a nightmare of screaming kids and angry parents.
Kids Facilities at Heathrow Terminal 2 – Important when Travelling with Kids!
Luckily, many travel destinations are aware of the needs of desperate parents travelling with little ones, and most offer a multitude of children’s facilities to make your journey that little bit easier. Heathrow Airport in London is no exception. In all terminals at Heathrow, you will find a range of facilities aimed at children, from play areas to changing rooms. If you have a long lay-over these Kids Facilities at Heathrow Terminal 2 will be available to you.
An Overview of the Kids Facilities at Heathrow Terminal 2
1) Play Areas
The easiest way to keep children occupied while travelling is simply to allow them to be kids, and to play. Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport has a number of well-supplied, soft play areas. These play areas are not supervised, so you will still need to keep an eye on your kids, but there are a multitude of toys, soft climbing structures and other children to keep them occupied. These play areas are suitable for children between the ages of 2 years and 8 years. All play areas are found in the departures area, near the boarding gates. You will therefore need to cross passport control to gain access to them.
As well as the general Heathrow play areas, there are also a range of activities to keep children busy at various stores and restaurants. Many of these have computer games and arcade machines available that will keep the kids busy while you shop or have a meal. Most of these play areas have some sort of supervision, meaning that you can really sit back and enjoy yourself, knowing that your child is happy and being taken care of.
The BAA information desk at Heathrow provides colouring in books and crayons free of charge, so if your child enjoys colouring in and drawing pictures, then this is a great option. Alternatively, you could choose to purchase a colouring-in book, comic or activity book from one of the book shops in the terminal, of which there are many to choose from.
2) Child Friendly Airport Lounges
There are now a number of airport lounges in terminal 2 that are child friendly, so you can relax in comfort with the whole family. No. 1 Traveller recently opened their flagship relaxation lounge in the terminal. The lounge has a brightly coloured kids room and screens children’s movies and TV shows 24 hours a day. While your kids are enjoying the movie, you can make use of the complimentary snacks and free Wi-fi. There is a small cost of £25 per adult and £12.50 per child to use this facility.
Many of the individual airlines also provide executive lounges with similar facilities for those flying in business class, and some allow economy class passengers to spend time in the lounge for a small fee. Contact your airline directly to find out if they have these facilities available.
3) Baby Changing Facilities
There are a number of baby changing facilities located throughout terminal 2, next to each toilet block, both before and after the security check points. There are also specialised rooms for feeding babies. These rooms can be recognized by a baby bottle sign or a baby care symbol on the door. In total, there are 6 dedicated baby care units found in Terminal 2, as well as fold down changing tables in all of the female toilet blocks.
4) Restaurants
There are many restaurants in Terminal 2 that cater to children, with kids dining tables and chairs, high chairs for babies and special children’s menus. Garfunkels is one such example – it provides a full children’s menu as well as a colouring in and activity pack.
With all these fantastic Kids Facilities at Heathrow Terminal 2 to keep the kids occupied, you can rest assured that your time in Heathrow terminal 2 will be a pleasant one, and that you will arrive at your destination relaxed and refreshed.