jet lag from West Coast?

[vic08]

Hi There, we will be traveling from the West Coast of Canada with an 18 month old and an 8 year old. We will be getting up at 4:00am PST and arriving into MCO at 7:15pm EST. Does anyone have advice on how to minimize jet lag for our kids in both directions (on return we leave at 1:00pm EST and arrive home at 10:00pm PST). I am most worried about minimizing the affects of travel/jet lag when we arrive in WDW....don't want to spoil the fun!!

 

[pfalcioni]

Of course, staying up will be easy, it's getting up that can be a problem!

We didn't have much trouble last year in mid January. The parks don't open till 9am (8am for EMH), and close relatively early also. That, paired with dark around 5pm, made it easy to hit they hay by 10:30 or 11pm and get a good night's sleep.

For us, it was actually worse getting back home - I guess the time change plus the letdown after a great vacation was the problem!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi There, we will be traveling from the West Coast of Canada with an 18 month old and an 8 year old. We will be getting up at 4:00am PST and arriving into MCO at 7:15pm EST. Does anyone have advice on how to minimize jet lag for our kids in both directions (on return we leave at 1:00pm EST and arrive home at 10:00pm PST). I am most worried about minimizing the affects of travel/jet lag when we arrive in WDW....don't want to spoil the fun!!

Hi! You are leaving early, but when you get to MCO, it will only be 4:15 PST. So if you can get settled and get the kids to bed early, and have a Mickey Mouse wake up call, they will get on schedule pretty easily. We have found that coming back West is much harder. We leave at 7am, which is 4am PST - the day seems okay, but we feel really off for about 2 or 3 days - with a toddler, it is hard to switch times - you'll probably just have to be really flexible.

I have been flamed for saying this, but we had a toddler who got motion sickness, and our pediatrician told us to give him infant Dramamine just for our plane rides. We learned that it made him mellow for the trip, helped him take a nap, and EVERYONE on the flight appreciated it!!! We ended up giving it to both of our boys, along with gummy bears for their ears, and we all had peaceful flights - it was never something we did on a regular basis.

 

[eeyoregon]

We are from Oregon and the going is easier for us than the coming back.

We pretty much stay on our body-clock while in Florida. We love that we can take advantage of the extra late magic hours while most people are exhausted and in bed because on our body-clocks it's only 8 or 9 at night! My kids are older so it's easier.

Of course we are still sound asleep during early magic hours and most breakfasts

 

[pfalcioni]

We are from Oregon and the going is easier for us than the coming back.

Fellow Oregonian! Still snowy in Salem? Ours is all gone, but 10 miles south is still a mess. We're hoping the weather settles down in the next 2 weeks, since we've got to drive over the mtn's to PDX

 

[MAGICFOR2]

We are being buried alive down here! We had 10 inches last night with more expected tonight and Sat. There was no school on Tues, 2 hr delay today. We don't get much snow, usually - when we do it DUMPS!!!

 

[Disney 'Ohana]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much going. There's only a 3 hours difference.

Going back home you'll probably be a little jet lagged.

 

[Puget Peach]

Traveling from Seattle to Orlando is only a 3 hour time difference and I don't notice a problem except in the mornings. Wow, getting to that rope drop on morning EMH is like getting to the park at 5 AM! I'm working my schedule to earlier mornings and evenings by 10 minutes per day and by departure day I should be operating on East Coast time. In theory, anyway. Thankfully I only have my roomie and my umbrella cockatoo to coordinate with. My roomie travels alot and keeps irregular hours and the cockatoo is perfectly happy to get up and keep me company in the wee morning hours. I've only got 4 park days and I want to get in that first two hours of touring right at opening! I can always nap away part of the afternoon

 

[jakoky]

hi there, we went to DW in dec of 04...we live on vancouver island...so we left at 4:30 am for seattle the day before our flight...(up at 3 am)...next morning our flight out of seattle was at 6 am ...so that morning up at 2:30 and left for airport at 3:30 am...u can imagine when we got to orlando at 7 pm we were exhausted, but honestly, jet lag probably didnt have anything to do with it...we were just exhausted from lack of sleep...we went to bed at 11, which is 8 our time, and we were up and ready next morning well before park opening and were fine for the whole trip...we did have trouble readusting once we came home to the time change...btw, on the trip, our kids were 13,11 and 9...We would love to go back to DW, except i HATE flying and it is such a long flight...we have been to DL twice since and are headed back to DL in may...have an awesome trip, i am jealous and will one day do the trip again...
sharon

 

[MinnieVanMom]

I was wondering about how to adjust quickly and how hard it will be. We will have to get up at 3 am to drive the 4 hour trip to Salt Lake City for our flight, stop to get food for lunch on the flight and there is the flight. I think we are going to exhausted when we land at 4 pm EST.

How on earth can we get up, have breakfast and be on a bus for Rope Drop? I have planned to set all alarms we can and just force everyone to wake and get going.

Sept 1st!