Are you taking a baby to the Olympics? Post Reply

[Annabel (admin)]

Hi All,
Just been contacted by ITV London Tonight. They are wanting to know if anyone is thinking of taking a baby to the Olympics - for those of you who haven't heard, it would appear that even babes in arms now need tickets....pretty difficult if you bought your tickets first time round and wouldn't have even conceived

Do let us know,

Annabel x

[shaneleone]

We have tickets to the Para-olympics, and found this under the FAQs on the website under babies...

"Where available, tickets would be at the special price of £5. You would need a full price ticket for the session in order for any children to accompany you on the day. If you wish to add a special price ticket to your existing account, which should already have at least one adult ticket in it, you would need to call the Ticketing team on 0844 847 2012 when tickets go on sale. Unfortunately you will not be able to do this online."

It has to be the credit card holder to call, and although the person on the Ticketing team didn't initially know how to add a baby to our account, she did work it out in the end. So we were able to add him for only £5. Not sure if this will be the same for the other Olympics as we weren't lucky enough to be allocated tickets in the lottery!

[juliantenniscoach]

£5 for a baby? outrageous. shame on the london organisers. as if you didn't pay enough for the tickets in the first place.

[juliantenniscoach]

funnily enough it seems as if there's a double take on this -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16707993

[Georgie_LikeMinders]

Funny you should mention this Annabel! Here at Like Minders we have been dealing with the organisers at 2012 as we are providing ad hoc babysitting and childcare to many of the Athletes and Press who are coming to London with their families. As we specilise in ad hoc childcare we can happily provide families with trustworthy childcarers day or night so everyone with tickets can enjoy the Olympics while their little ones are safe at home. Lots of people are already making bookings so contact us if you have a date in mind! http://www.likeminders.co.uk

[shaneleone]

I agree - £5 does seem unfair when the baby doesn't even get a seat, but I was pleased that I didn't have to purchase another full price ticket. To be honest, I've been less than thrilled with the ticketing for the Olympics so far. I hardly know anyone who managed to get tickets in the lottery and they've made a mess of the resales so far. It's hard to be excited about something that is going to take over the city you live in, when you can't get a ticket to see a single event!

[ellta]

We were lucky enough to get tickets for some athletics at Olympics in main stadium (no medals). We bought tickets for both children even though one was not born yet! There just didn't seem to be a way round it! Absolutely crazy and won't tell you how much we spent- figured it was a once in a lifetime thing.

[brihoney]

There was an article in the evening standard about this a few nights ago, and your £5 is pretty reasonable, they had someone having to pay £95 for a babe in a sling for an equestrian event I think it was...
(although maybe you can't trust all you read in the newspapers

[twice_as_nice]

I hadn't even considered taking my young children or the baby that I will have had when it comes around...are people really going to take young children? I think the baby would be much happier at home with a baby sitter (fortunately I have one that I can trust, I guess it might be different for those without a trusted babysitter?)....though now just realising maybe as I'll hopefully be breast feeding it might be an issue....mmmm

[cubed]

We've got tickets for the Archery at Lords and are planning to take our little one who will be nearly two. I'll have a new baby by then and am going to try and get an additional ticket for them too. We're going with my Dad and brother and are looking forward to a family day out even if it means we all have to take turns to see any of the event!

We know Lords as a venue well (big cricket fans) so I know how baby friendly it is with great space to move about and good changing facilities etc. To be honest the tickets weren't that expensive (my little one goes for £1 as a 1 year old) and I just want to say 'we were all there' and to have the tickets/photos for their baby books. I don't suppose the Olympics will come to their home town in their lifetime again so I want to be able to say we did it together.

[juliantenniscoach]

made the beeb - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16758568

[littlechicken]

I am taking my then 2 year old to see handball. It was really cheap to get him a ticket, I think 2 quid. It will be just me and him. Why not?

[KiwiAmanda]

My husband and I have tickets to rowing and assumed at the time we could take our 2 year old for free if she sat on our knee. We have been trying for months now to find the appropriate people to confirm this with but have had no luck. Now we'll also have a 5 month old and I'm still none the wiser on who I should contact about kids tickets for rowing . Can anyone help?

[momormum]

Hi All - I spoke to the London 2012 tickets customer service team, and sometime in the Spring (you will get an email if you secured full priced tickets to any event) they will open sales for baby tickets which I think will be one pound and they will try to seat you together. The only issue is there is no guarantee and I imagine it will be nearly impossible to get through to their phone line! (No online booking will be available). Pretty annoying for those of us who weren't even pregnant when we applied for tickets! I hope they rethink this silly policy (what are people breastfeeding supposed to do!?) but the people I spoke to seemed to think that wasn't going to happen. Perhaps a larger BBC campaign will do the trick!
xx

[lanmum]

I know I am not going to be popular with this reply... But when the application process was happening, it was quite clear which events were family friendly, and you could apply for a ticket which cost the age of the child, so I paid £4 and £1 respectively as that's how old my children would be. I was lucky enough to get one of my many choices. Like with everything, when you have children, sometimes we just have to accept that there are something's we just can't do! My passion is the theatre and I missed out on several plays with each child that I would've loved to see, but that is just part of being a parent. I was also a breast feeding mum and I used to go with my other half to the theatre (matinee) and feed the baby until just before curtain up and they would go off for a walk and i knew they could last till the interval where I met them, fed again if they wanted it, or knew they would be ok for the 2.5 hours. I know the Olympics is a very emotive issue but sometimes we just can't do everything we want to.