Heathrow’s family-friendly facilities

Living around half an hour from Heathrow, it’s always been my default airport to fly out of – if I could manage it (although that usually entails flying national carriers rather than low-cost budget airlines).

But by coincidence, most of my travel post-baby has been out of Gatwick. I’m getting quite adept at navigating the South Terminal, from the family security lane to the soft play area and baby changing tucked away down an enormously long corridor.

This weekend, though, we’re back to the delights of Hounslow once more. At which point I realised, I had no idea what Heathrow’s family-friendly facilities include. Baby changing is pretty much a given – if service stations can manage it (mostly), one of the world’s busiest airports is going to have a change table or two. But what else could I look forward to?

Play areas

There are free Stay & Play areas at all terminals, with separate baby and junior zones including soft play and slides – all unsupervised except for Terminal 3. Most are suitable for up to nine years and are open from 6am to 9pm.

Terminal 2 has two separate airport soft play areas, so you’ll have a choice if you’re flying from this part of Heathrow.

For more details and maps, click here.

For more details of soft play at UK airports, click here

Family security lanes

The airport opens fast track family lanes as required at busy times – in my experience, family lanes aren’t always any faster, but as you wrestle with 3,000 pieces of paraphernalia, it’s less stressful when everyone else is doing the same (rather than being in front of a group of tetchy businessmen with  lightweight briefcases and limited patience).

Free charge points

With European and UK plugs as well as USB cables, they’ll charge multiple devices at once – find them on the map. Useful if you’re planning to rely on apps or devices on a long-haul flight…

Family toilets

There are bigger cubicles in all toilets (if you’re wrangling a buggy and hand luggage) as well as separate accessible toilets and baby changing.

Children’s menus

Kids eat for free during school holidays in some restaurants such as Giraffe, although Terminal 3 doesn’t have the best choice of free options – you can see the full list. There are plenty of cafe chains, from Costa to Pret a Manger as well though.

Special activities

There are also special activities from ‘Mr Adventure’ – a game aimed at ages 2-12 which you can download via a QR code, while last summer saw them hand out free Mr Men colouring packs and stickers to families as well.

You can also ook out for the passenger ambassadors in their eye-catching purple uniforms for more information.

Image courtesy of Depositphotos