Really, how bad is the flight over/back UK/US?

[TZMOM]

I've never been on a flight from US to UK. We're flying Coach so I'm not sure what to expect.

What are your experiences when coming to US from UK to WDW?

 

[mrsv98]

TZMOM, are you going to England or to the US?

I went to university in England and made the trip several times. In my experience, going to England (ie East) is much harder because you loose so much time. When flying out of Chicago, I would take the BA flight that left around 8pm and it would arrive in London about 7am. It is rough to try and sleep and adjust when you have to do it in a plane seat. My advice is to take a short nap when you get there but then try and get up and use the rest of the day and then retire at a fairly normal bedtime, or as laste as you can.

When coming to the US from England, it is much easier because you are gaining time. You can get by with whatever sleep you get on the plane and then go to bed early. The only problem I had was waking up at 3am because my head said it was 9!

The nice thing about flying across the ocean is that the plane is usually pretty large and there is room to move, unlike the smaller planes you get here when you are traveling shorter distances.

Have a great trip, England is wonderful!

 

[TZMOM]

Thanks for the quick advice!! We're heading off to London at the end of August!!

 

[Astrid]

TZMOM - It really isn't that bad ... honest!!

The thing I always do on long distance flights is as soon as I board the plane change the time on my watch to the time where I am travelling and then stick to that time as much as possible. Try not to go to sleep once you land in the UK (unless of course it's nighttime!), try and stick it out until it's bedtime, the quicker you adjust to the local timings the better.

You'll probably feel a bit tired for the first day or so but it wears off quickly and you'll be hopefully having so much fun that you won't have time to think about it!!

Going back home for you is slightly easier but you may find you're waking up really early in the morning the first day or so.

Have a lovely trip!

Astrid

 

[2BoysMum&Dad]

I have travelled between the US and UK three times before and have friends who have also travelled a few times across the big pond.

Travelling from west to east is always much harder than east to west. The advice loads of people give normally is to try fitting in with local time as much as possible.

Zoe

 

[Totally Angelic]

HI
my tip in relation to your question is:
if it is a an overnight flight...just sleep as much as you can. I try and go to sleep as soon as I get on the flight back from the US, I don't bother with the meal or films. At least when you land you feel a bit better than having a sleepless night (although you probably don't look too good!!!!!!!!)
I have never flown in the daytime from US to UK, so I wouldn't know how easy of difficult that is to cope with! By the way...I love this pirate smiley!!!

 

[coppertop]

This year will be our fourth flight back from Us to UK and as I am getting older, it seems to be harder to catch up sleep. I do find jet lag takes a good few days to get over as opposed to just a day or two 13 years ago! Saying that, it would not stop me going to the US every holiday given a chance!

The last time we flew from US was in 2000. We left Orlando on a 5.30pm flight on a Wednesday. We landed in the UK at 5.30am on the Thursday morning. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who cannot sleep on the 'plane, therefore not had any sleep. I managed to stay awake until approx 7.30pm on the Thursday night and slept right through until being woken up at approx 1.30pm on the Friday afternoon. On the Friday evening, we all went to bed about 9.00, but were all sat up at 3.00am drinking tea and eating biscuits only to go back to sleep about 5am and sleep till 1.30 pm again!

Luckily, on the Saturday night, all seemed to get back to normal with bedtime about 8.00 for the children and the vastly late night of 11.00 for the adults, all getting up on the Sunday morning at the usual time of about 7.00am.

This year, we are flying back on a Wednesday evening again and hope that we will be fit for work/school on the Monday morning!

Saying all that, our children's body clocks do seem quite rigidly set and on our first morning in the US last time, we were woken at about 4.30am as their body clocks of course were telling them it was about 9.30am and they had actually overslept a couple of hours!

 

[Dimplenose]

I've always found it much harder flying to the UK but I'm not sure how much this is due to having just spent a fortnight at WDW. Hopefully the excitement of your trip here will help you to stay awake! For most of us it's back to reality when we get here.

Have fun.

Libby

 

[julianrwright]

Definately take a day flight if you can, flying overnight without sleep is not nice. Plus you cant check into most hotels before 2pm so it means you will be mighty tired

 

[DocRafiki]

Funny how everyone's different. I was an overnight flier, and it worked well for me. I am a late-nighter, so maybe that has something to do with it. I didn't sleep much the night before I left (packing, excitement), so I had no problem falling asleep a few hours after I boarded. I was a little groggy when we landed, but not horribly (remember I'm a night person so it was something like 3am back home). I went straight to the Disneyland park (ok, I fess up; I didn't fly into the UK) and went to bed early that night. I wasn't completely energetic that first day, but I didn't have to take a nap or anything.

have fun!

 

[daipp]

Me and my family arrived back from Orlando last Tuesday (06-April-04) and we are still jet-lagged. Last night we went to bed at 04:30 a.m. and got up at 2:30 p.m. This always happens to us so we now take three weeks off work to ensure we've got time to get over a two.week holiday.

As already stated, flying to the States never causes us any problems.

 

[duchy]

West to East always kills me (although part of it may be the end of vacation blues too)
The *only* times I've not had wrecked sleep patterns is when I've taken one of the (rare) day flights US to UK.
I can't sleep on planes so if you are someone who can an overnight flight may not be so bad.

duchy

 

[TZMOM]

Thank you for your replies!! If tired, I can usually fall asleep if I sit on the sofa for more than 5 minutes and DS can sleep just about anywhere. I hope the excitement of our first-ever Euro trip won't result in lack of sleep!! I may even try to put us on the different clock the day before - we can only wait & see!!

Thanks again for your advice

 

[gilld]

I must admit the flights to and from US are horrible. If you fly economy/coach you are very cramped. If you can afford it I'd always say upgrade. Jet lag seems to be worse as I get older and is always much worse flying West to East BUT it's all worth it!