RED EYE flights. How do you cope?

[twotime]

Im' both excited and worry about my commimng DisneyWorld trip in March. I'll be travelling with 2kids 7yr old and 9yr old and there grandparents. Because we are flying with points our first leg will be a RED EYE flight. Im looking for any advise to keep this travel day as tireless as possible.

Were leaving Edmonton at 00:30 AM flying EAST (through 2 time zones) to Toronto. This is a 3 1/2 hr flight.
We have a 4 hr layover in Toronto before our 2nd flight to Orlando which is a 3hr flight. (same time zone). We land in Orlando around 1:30 PM

Im worry about getting everyone to sleep on the first leg. I know we will be interupted by the 4 hr layover where we will clear customes in Toronto.

I have no problem wasting the rest of the afternoon, evening and/or night in Orlando trying to sleep or get adjusted.

I just want everyone to have lots of energy and go full tilt the next day which I plan to be a full Park day.

No one of us has every flown this time of day before. Any advise would be helpfull. Thanks.

 

[Nik's Mom]

We flew a red-eye with our 2 year old. He did get some sleep after about an hour. I actually preferred the red eye flight, since he slept most of the way. The excitement of the trip might keep your kids up for a while, but they will eventually knock out.

 

[pnelson]

We've flown red-eye the last two trips to Disney World. My son was 7 on the 1st trip and 8 on the next. Since we are coming from California, the first leg of our trip is usually 3 1/2 hours. he has always slept, but I've never given him the option of anything else. Several months before the trip, whenever we would talk about it, I would say "We're flying at night and everyone has to sleep on the plane. We all wore sweats and he brought his own pillow. I didn't let him do his GameBoy or anything stimulating. While we were waiting for the plane to take off, I read him a story. On the second leg of the plane, he never slept, but it was usually morning by then because of the time change.

The best part of flying red-eye is that you don't waste an entire day traveling (especially us because we are coming from California.) Even though we were very tired that day, at least we were there. We use that day as a relaxing day, hang out at the hotel, go to bed early, and then we are ready to go the next day.