Travelling with your dolls: issues/ideas/etc. Part I

just a heads up in lax my dolls came up as a liquid on the scanner. :/

 

Resin dolls........and......liquid? XD That's strange. Comparing the two together is kind of hard to do. Big solid resin doll......something like a bottle of water....nothing really comparable except maybe for the weight, or something to do with the similarites of the things in resin that may be mistaked for a liquid.


I can imagine it being very funny if that happens to me : "No sir, that's not water...it's my resin doll. Not very liquidy..."

 

Liquids, some powders, paper, candles, and plastics (including the explosive kind) are usually the same color on the Xray and can be hard to distinguish, particularly in a cluttered bag. Polyurethane resin, which dolls are made of, is a type of hard, dense plastic. I work in an airport, so I have a pretty good idea of what goes on. I wear a blue shirt, and that's about as much I can say about that.

If you have any specific questions about dolls and airport security, I'll be happy to answer to the best of my ability. Please PM them, as I'd rather not go into it on a public forum.

 

id love to take Aoi with me to Japan in march but my friend is so petrified of BJDs that i have to leave him at home al on his own!!

but i'd deffo take yours on as hand lugguage or carry him on board like others have suggested. or to put it even simpler... dont let him/her out of your sight!!! then nothing can happen!

 

just to post here to comment. When I had to fly I was not allowed to take my carrier on carry on because for the SD sides it exceeded the measurement size for a carry on. Apparently the doll carriers are too long to be considered carry on luggage. So I got a normal carry on size suitcase and he fits in that fine.

 

I'm flying to the UK for Kitacon in April and as there will be a BJD panel I'm hoping to take my puki piki with me in his original book box in my carry-on rucksack. I've read through most of this thread (got just over half way then saw there were 50 pages... -_-; ) and it doesn't seem like there's too much trouble with security but will having the box or the number of magnets in pukis cause I problem? I'd like to hear people's opinions on this!
Also because he's so small, if they do open my bag up and check him I'm worried about 'large' hands hurting tiny faceups...any tips on this?
Thanks!

 

i don't bring them @@cuz i have too many dolls~~i feel unfair to the others if i just bring one~

 

Hmm, I've never been on a plane.
But I would just let them know you have a small fragile doll in your bag and to please be careful.

^^'

 

i took my doll on the plane and wrapped her up real good. But her leg still got broke on the flight

 

Ack, that's terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that!

 

I'll be flying up to MA this May and I can't help but be nervous about flying. Not because I've never been on a plane before. But this is the first time I've had to fly and have my dolls with me I have four MSD one SD and one Yo size dolls. I have a bag that they can all fit in. And I refuse to leave any of them home. I just hope that they let me take my dolls on the plane. My friend did it with her six dolls, but she had a normal doll carrier.

 

I would think that as long as your bag would fit within whatever size/weight restrictions they have that it would be fine. I know you can find out what the allowable sizes/weights are ahead of time.

 

I flew from here in Inuvik to visit my Mom in Manitoba for Christmas, and toted 3 of my tinies in my carry-on. I wrapped them up very well, using doll-box cushions, soft terry, and a large kercheif to hold the whole bundle together; this tucked into my carry-on. In going thru security, I indicated my purse had my electronics and the thing that looked like an overstuffed laptop carrier had 'fragile and valuable' dolls in it.

No problems, no damage. I imagine travelling with larger dolls might be more challenging, though...or in places where aiport security is more aggressive than Canada and the north.

 

I like to carry mine in a carrier that I made for the buggers.
I got a silly look once for taking Emma to Vegas...like they saw the S-hooks and had me take her out, but after they saw it was just a doll I was free to go. And take them as carry-ons. If you leave them with regular luggage, they get jostled and I'd hate for you to be that one suitcase under EVERYONE ELSE'S suitcase. So, unless your suitcase is hard, go for carry-on.

 

I just traveled with my new doll. She is actually a Bada head that I had and a friend had given me a body . To bring her home to Maine, I wrapped her hands and feet separately in bubble wrap, had a faceplate for her face and wrapped the head in bubble. Then I wrapped the whole doll in bubble and sat her in my bag. It is just a simple cloth purse that she fit right in. It has pockets inside where I put my wallet. I just fealt better to just have her with me. I put the bag with her in it under the seat in front of me (carefully). She was just fine.

 

I was reminiscencing about this incident at the customs gate at the airport and got curious whether anyone else has had a similar experience.

Last Christmas, I tried to bring my 45cm girl back to Hong Kong with me to meet my friends (and their dolls) in a hand-carry bag, because I couldn't bear the risk of her being thrown and jolted around in my suitcase.

Well, you know how it goes. I got my boarding pass, heaved my suitcase onto the conveyor belt, passed security... and realised I had to put everything I was carrying into the machine to be x-rayed/infra-red-scanned/whatever. I had a few fleeting thoughts about whether the rays would be harmful to resin, but I wasn't about to go to the back of the kilometre-long queue.

With no choice, I put the bag onto the belt... and the security guy at the computer nearly fell off his chair in shock. It would've been funny if I didn't think I was about to be arrested. And I couldn't blame him - poor Claudia looked like something a voodoo priest would use in rituals.

It all went quite smoothly in the end. He asked me what it was ("A doll"), what it was used for ("um, playing, and taking photos of...?"), and what it was made of ("resin"). And he let a very much relieved little girl catch her plane.

So, my questions are:

Have you ever taken your doll overseas?
If so, did you take him/her in a suitcase or in a hand-carry?
How did airport security take it?

I searched, but did not find any topic identical to this one. If I missed something, feel free to point me in the right direction.

 

I've not gone overseas, but I've sent a doll through the carry on scanner at the airport several times. Most often, no one batted an eyelash. There was one woman, though, who whipped up her head to glare at me as though I'd just kicked her puppy in the teeth. I never did find out why she was so offended...

 

Last summer I had I went on a trip across country. I decided to take my boy Glyph, KD Bory, with me. There had been plans for him to meet his boyfriend for the first time.. but anyway. Leave my small town was easy. I did take him on the plan with me in my carry on. It was the trip back that was a little frightening. It was a larger airport, and a bit more strick with the rules and such.

Anyway, I had no worry with the x-ray and I figured it would be alright since I had brought him the same way after all. The girl looking at the x-ray got this really funny look, and she got really close to the monitor. It was funny. But then they wanted to search my bag..x.x The woman doing the search wasnt gentle at all with yanking my belongings out of my bag. I had told her two times politly to be gentle, and when she ignored me I snapped at her, and explained it was an expensive doll. She gave me a funny look and was very rude, saying I could go ahead and repack my things. Other then that though, no problems what so ever.

 

I bought a hard doll bag so my kids can travel in the cargo bay, they do get really cold though~