<p>Thanks for the update, fendrock. The uAM was a bit expensive but it looks to have been very helpful!</p>
<p>Sounds reasonable to me. I just put my nephew on a flight from Detroit to San Diego flying UAM. It cost $75. They require you to stay with the child until the airplane takes off.</p>
<p>My son and a friend once flew to Toronto as UAM thirteen year olds. The attendants left them at the luggage carousel and the camp never showed up to pick them up. </p>
<p>So…they went to the airport cafe and got a snack with their emergency money. (Boys)</p>
<p>Somehow, they attracted the notice of a smartly dressed forty something woman who quickly chatted them up and discovered that they were lost campers from the US. Evem more incredulously, she knew the camp owner’s husband ( a well-known lawyer in Toronto). She made a few calls and packed them into a taxi bound for the camp owner’s house.</p>
<p>Needless to say. we reviewed the necessity for PHONE CALLS over SNACKS when he finally returned home a month later.</p>
<p>my Ds have flown and when they do, they ALWAYS have a cell phone and I make sure it works wheverever they go, some $ for peace of mind is well worth it</p>
<p>they text me when through security, when on plane when they land when they have luggage and when they are met</p>
<p>it is short and sweet, and its not that I don’t trust THEM, but stuff happens</p>
<p>remember when the “fluid” scare happened at heathrow last year, well, my D was in the middle of that the same day, thank goodness for cell phones</p>
<p>she was fine, I was not so much, but she handled it, I would always send my UAM with a phone</p>
<p>cheers, that’s a great story!</p>
<p>I think these 13-year olds travel more confidently than I do.</p>
<p>The one time my kids had to travel as UAMs, they thought it was like being in prison. The “UAM waiting area” was a locked, windowless room with a few uncomfortable chairs. They certainly didn’t have any opportunity to escape for food-court adventures, although someone may have given them crackers and juice. They swore “never again”.</p>
<p>Cheers’ camp story is amazing on several levels. I can’t imagine the airline dumping unaccompanied minors in the baggage claim area (they’re supposed to be released only to a specific adult with appropriate identification), and I can’t imagine a summer camp “forgetting” to pick up arriving campers. I have seen the effort that several camps put into handling that problem.</p>
<p>Haha…that’s not even close to my best story about that camp director. To be fair, she put up the intl campers up for the night in her own house and then loaded them onto the bus the following day. It went well for five years–but that one year–she didn’t send anyone for them. That’s why they got snacks. They figured she’d be along. </p>
<ol>
<li> Kinda pre-cell phone time–but they both knew how to use the pay phone.</li>
</ol>
<p>My best story involves my younger son on a remote canoe trip, a random guy with a shotgun who ended up driving my son to the hospital at 100 mph while the camp director called him repeatedly to try to get him to put my son back on the river with his counsellors–all the while calling us with updates. Naturally, the guy with the gun was American.</p>
<p>By the grace of God, one of my closest friends happened to be holidaying near the hospital and son ended up taking an unexpected four day break at their cottage–a luxury break compared to the bare necessities camp and canoe trip.</p>
<p>Hey–send these kids around the world? Expect some major bumps.</p>