My husband has made use of USOs in airports several times in his travels, but I hadn’t had the opportunity until this past summer. I don’t know if I’ve just never taken the time to look for one, or maybe I was never in an airport that had one conveniently located.
At any rate, I was flying with our two kids, ages 7 and 2, from the East Coast where we’d been stationed, to Texas. We were smack in the middle of an OCONUS PCS, taking 30 days leave to visit family in Texas before we headed overseas. My husband drove our car to Texas, stopping to visit some of his family on the way. We decided that my flying with the kids would ultimately be cheaper than driving 1800 miles with them. He could make the trip in two ridiculously long stretches on either side of spending time with his family, whereas we’d have multiple hotel stays with the kids. Flying on Southwest is cheap, financially and emotionally, when compared to a multi-day cross-country trip with two young kids.
When I booked the flight, as I do with all of the other flights I book, I spent most of my time looking at the “total travel time” information, searching for the fastest route. The flight I ultimately ended up booking, apparently in one of my least lucid moments, had a total travel time of four hours and twenty minutes, from Philadelphia, routing through Houston, to Austin.
Ask me how long the layover/plane change was.
Twenty-five minutes.
I had given myself 25 minutes to get three people, three carry-ons, a car seat, a stroller, and a partridge in a pear tree off one plane and onto the next. At lunch time, no less. So make that three hungry people and all their.…
After I realized what I’d done to myself, about a week before the flight, I spent untold minutes – hours, even – trying to determine the best way to climb this particular mountain I’d created. Knowing that I’d done it to myself just made it worse.
Ultimately, Southwest airlines came through for me, and we landed about 30 minutes early. I dragged us all off the plane, casting frantic looks in every direction to find someplace to eat and rest for a spell. I’d resigned myself to McDonald’s – along with what seemed like half of everyone else in the airport – what to my wondering eyes should appear??
The USO.
I heaved a sigh of relief and carted us to the door, praying it would be as nice as Knight had experienced, and reasoning that, if nothing else, I wouldn’t be jockeying for position in a fast food line with a thousand other hungry, cranky travelers.
I stepped inside to discover leather chairs, a huge TV, kitchen stocked with all sorts of food (real food, even, not just airport snacks, and all free of charge), a kids’ play room, and some of the nicest folks I’ve ever met. After signing in, the gentleman who met me at the door helped juggle the kids into the playroom and offered me a drink. (No, not a drink, but at that point I was happy for the ice cold Diet Coke he handed me.)
Three other families shared the area, and my kids played with theirs for a few minutes. They had plenty of room to burn some energy, and I didn’t have to worry about my two-year-old darting off into the airport crowd.
After sitting and breathing for just ten minutes in the calm, cool oasis of the USO, I was ready to tackle the dash to the next plane and the last leg of our flight before finally reaching the haven of my parents’ home.
Have you ever visited a USO? How was your experience?
About Damsel and Family
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Every USO I've been to in an airport has been unbelievable. And you're right, the people working there (I think they're volunteers?) are fantastic. We had an issue with some of our household goods being shipped overseas and one nice man helped me track down a scanner and a fax machine during off-duty hours. Amazing. Glad you were able to get a quick-few minutes of rest and relaxation!
I love, love, love the USO! Spent quite some time at their place in BWI when flying Space A to Germany, and they are ever so kind. My daughter loves it because she gets to play for a while, watch a movie, have a drink and a snack, or just sit in a lounger with me and cuddle. The volunteers are incredible and I can't thank them enough for all they do. Visited the one in Pensacola before, when I was waiting for my mom and sister to arrive and something happened and their plane had to return to Charlotte and the kind USO volunteer made some calls for me to figure out what had happened and when they'd take off again.
Whenever I am at an airport with a USO now, I make a point of stopping by and dropping some dollars into the donation bin because I don't ever want them to go away!
Good point about the donations!
I stopped at the USO at our airport on my way to see my husband on pass before they left for overseas. I had a few hours before my flight and loved being able to spend it in a quiet, clam place. The volunteer was amazing and helped keep track of flight info for me. She offered food, drinks, and a newspaper. I can't say enough good things about it and will definitely plan to visit them (and say thank you!) every time I fly from now on!
Ever since my husbands deployment, which I spent (sanely? insanely? unclear) carting myself and my infant around the country in an effort to introduce him to family far and wide we travel ONLY by USO. If I am flying the kid, we ONLY go through airports where I know there is a USO. It doesnt matter what kind of planned layover we have. … I want to know that if we get stuck there we get stuck in a place where I can at the least dump my stuff so I can chase my kid empty handed. Super nice people, a movie room, toys (sparse in some places but who cares – toys are toys), and FOOD are all a major bonus. More than anything I want to go somewhere that I can relax while my kid burns some energy around friendly (read: not likely to hate on me for having a kid) folks.
I’ve been to many USO locations, and while some of the nicer ones (BWI, for example) are before the security gates, my favorites are easily accessed as soon as I step-off the plane. Here’s a list of the best that I’ve been to:
– Denver. So shiny!
– Philadelphia
– Houston (two locations here if I recall – one not so shiny, one very shiny… both full of great people).
We spend a lot of time going west to see my family … you better believe we fly through Denver when possible.
Nice! Thanks for the list!
Oh I should add — we had a terrible experience with rental car company at Columbus, Ohio airport. While the USO there has limited hours, it was the only place I could’ve run into a sympathetic servicemember. I must’ve reminded him of his wife and kid (or how he imagined them to be during deployment … helpless and exhausted) because he helped me haul our stuff downstairs and make some rental people give me a hand.
The USO did wonders for me on my most recent PCS two months ago. I had to take myself, two small kids, two cats, and eleven pieces of luggage through the airport in RDU. To make the experience somewhat easier, I thought I'd try to check the luggage in early the night before (some airlines let you check-in 24 hours early.) Since I had the cats, I couldn't check the luggage in. And then… there was the USO. Right next to the check-in.
They offered to let me store the 11 pieces of luggage (on 4 luggage trolleys) in the USO overnight. AND they helped push all the carts.
Next morning, the kids got to sit in the USO, get munchies, and the USO helped me push all the carts back to the airline.
A nightmare of logistics was made simpler by their courtesy. Thank you, USO!
Wow, what a mess! So glad the USO came through for you!
Though a little bit out of the way, the USO at LAX is wonderful. The volunteers are friendly and helpful, the food was great, and the facility itself clean and spacious with opportunities for children and adults to relax a bit. It was a very positive experience.
STL USO is wonderful, a hot dog and cold drink never tasted so good!
I LOVE the USO. I can't even remember now which flight I was on (we did 10 in a year!) with my 1 year old, but the people were amazing. I try to get non-stop flights, but didn't for who knows what reason, and during that stop by daughter finally got to take a nap (in a crib with clean sheets!) while I sat on a rocking chair that they brought over for me, just outside her door as I read a book and breathed a sigh of relief that my kid was finally sleeping and would not have to scream her way through the next flight. Then when I was getting ready for our flight, one of the USO staff helped me lug my kid and all of her stuff to the gate. They were so kind and sweet that I will utilize it more often when I fly in the future. Oh and the BWI airport one, although not in the terminal which is a huge negative in my book, has actually been a wonderful place to wait for guests with my kiddo. I love that you can wait for people in them even if you're not traveling.
Oh, I love the USO. This Christmas, I flew home to OK from where we're at in HI, routing through Las Vegas. When I landed in Vegas, I had to change terminals during my insane 3 hour layover in the middle of the night. I can't tell you how relieved I was to see the USO open. There were maybe 2 other people – Soldiers – in there, along with a couple of workers who were extremely nice. I was able to relax, get a soda, clean up in the bathroom and all without worrying about lugging my bags with me. My husband has visited the USOs in DFW and LAX and has very nice things to say about them too.
Seattle USO is a nice place to just sit and chill, too. The staff were so kind and helpful, and a shower after more that 24 hours on the go was so wonderful.
Usually I would agree, most of the USO’s my husband and I have been to have been amazing. But my last experience was the Seattle Airport where I was horribly treated by the volunteers. My sister and I were flying home from a wedding and had taken a shuttle service that insisted on getting us there almost two hours early. So being so hungry early in the morning I went to the USO. First they gave us no Hello when we entered. Then when I was trying to pull my ID out they seemed rushed and when I tried to explain my sister was flying with me I got a rudely stated “and that means what to me” answer where my sister was made to feel so unwelcomed. Then when I tried to explain I just wanted to get a cup of coffee and sit down for a minute they were snappy to claim we had to check our bags because there was no room. Mind you there was a few other people in the USO and while it didn’t seem crowded all of them had bags sitting with them and ours weren’t even big bags to be checked just our carry on. My sister felt so uncomfortable and I was so embarrassed of the way they had treated her after I had talked it up we decided to leave after I grabbed a cup of coffee. The lady then had the audacity to tell my sister she would have to wait in the hallway outside the USO with our bags because we were blocking the passageway. I couldn’t believe the horrible experience, I even tried to contact the manager after returning home since I knew that was not like most USO’s I’d been to, and they wouldn’t even so much as return my email. It definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.
I'm so sorry you had a bad experience. Have you tried calling that USO? I know many of them are staffed by volunteers, and I wonder what the turnover rate is… and that probably affects how well the email accounts are monitored.
I actually didn’t try calling but I had gone on the site and found the email for the Director of the Region which I figured was a staff position since I know the rest are volunteer. I contacted him directly with no response.
I love the USO. I was traveling with my mom and my 3 siblings and it was so nice to stop there.