West coast fliers

[JanJan324]

Do you have a preference for red-eye flights to MCO or the crazy early flights? I'm trying to decide what we should do for our flight in September, and its either a 9 or 11pm flight out on a Tuesday night or a 5 or 7am flight on Wednesday morning. Neither sounds fun, but the options for mid-day flights out of Seattle all land later than I'd like.

 

[anonymousegirl]

I prefer the red eye. Taking the early morning flights out of San Jose or SFO, mean getting up at 3 or 4am. I like sleeping a little on the plane, then having a full day at Disney. Even if I have to have a nap when my room is ready, it beats getting up so early, and only having the evening. By the time a day flight lands and I get to the hotel it is 730 or 8pm.

I just wish my preferred airline, Southwest, did red eyes. If I want to use my miles, I have to fly that 6am flight.

 

[ImDMous]

We've done the red eye both times we've flown from San Diego. Shuttle from the airport, stop by the hotel to check-in and hit a park for opening. Come back to the hotel around 12-ish or whenever the room is ready, take a nap and unpack then back to another park for dinner and night-time fun. I think we landed around 7 and were at Animal Kingdom by 9 with a stop at POFQ.

 

[JanJan324]

The red eye definitely sounds better to me, we live about 2.5 hours drive from Seattle so we'd either have to stay the night or leave reeeeeeeally early.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I would never willingly select a red eye.

 

[teacherlisa1978]

We always do the red eye from SEA. A short nap on the plane if we are lucky, then we get to stop at the MCO Starbucks before DME. Off to the resort for breakfast and changing clothes then we can hit a park for rope drop. The first day adrenaline gets us through and we head back around lunch time for a swim or if the rooms ready-and in 3 trips it has been by 1:30, we can nap before DTD for dinner and then bedtime. With this schedule we always adapt to the time change easily.

 

[bluefunnel]

I have to do early mornings from SFO. Unfortunately, my wife can't sleep on planes and I'm supposed to use a CPAP. This last trip and my next trip we've been getting in between 5:30 and 7:00.

I would love to use a red-eye if I thought it would work for us.

 

[Karebear]

We always do the early morning flight. We tried the red-eye once and nobody slept and our bodies still felt like we were on west coast time. If we do the early morning flight, yes we are up crazy early but by the time we get to WDW we are ready for dinner and bed and that helps us get on east coast time much quicker!

 

[jdb in AZ]

It depends on whether your family can sleep on a plane. I can't, and all-night flights wipe me out. We definitely travel during the day whenever possible.

 

[bumbershoot]

I've done the 9+pm flight on Delta twice now. One solo for Princess and once with the family (in what they call first class) for a cruise.

Misery.

The benefit of the solo trip was that I watched The Martian, and that has been wonderful (great movie). But I got almost no sleep. I was the walking dead when I got there. Changed clothes, freshened up, hit Starbucks, waited for my cousin who took a bus shuttle out from Daytona. So so tired.

For some reason I thought the big seats in First would be nice. I didn't realize that there would be a big huge chunk of plastic in between the seats, making it impossible to snuggle with my son and help him feel better about sleeping on a plane. DH sat in front of us and chatted loudly with his seatmate well after we were all supposed to be passed out. (grr) He slept, because he sleeps wherever he chooses to. DS and I tried so hard to get to sleep...taking our Tranquil Sleep tablets, we had blankets, etc etc...but it was awful. At around 2am eastern time I woke him up fully, told him to put on a movie, and just stay awake and quiet, because he was kicking and groaning and being super obnoxious (the kid has NEVER done well with fractured sleep, and with him being 11 and tall and strong, his twilight sleep was getting dangerous for me LOL). He watched the third Chipmunks movie and was amused the whole time.

That trip was for a cruise, and when we got our stateroom that day, we took a nap. Not my fave way to start a cruise, traditionally.


Those are my experiences with the red eye. I'm not 18 anymore, that's for sure.


Now the nice thing about it is that you do get in nice and early. You can change clothes when you get there (stock your carryon with what you'll need) and try to feel human. Adults can generally "fake it til you make it" in terms of being bright and chipper. Kids, though, not always. Not all kids. I was hoping against hope my kid could do it, and he rallied once we landed, but that midnight thing was rough.

And the nice thing about the Delta (and Alaska probably codeshares?) flight is that there are no stops at all. Of course, if I'd known the sleep trouble we would have, I might have gotten one that changes, just for the change in scenery.


Best of luck making that decision!

And remember, if you're looking at the Delta flight, there's no real food served (not even in first), so plan accordingly.

 

[Firepath]

We've done the Alaska SEA to MCO red eye and also their early morning flights both several times. I'm the only one in my family that can get by on just a few hours sleep so everyone else is pretty much exhausted when we arrive. Our experience has been that our room has never been ready that early. The last time we did the red eye I paid to have a room the night before so it was ready when we arrived which was very nice. We napped 2-3 hrs. then hit the parks. Definitely depends on your family though.

 

[Mmk1997]

My wife is not a big flying fan, so we (I) selected the red eye from Vancouver to LA on Westjet then a 3 hour delay in LA before Delta will take us to Orlando (MCO). We arrive at 6:00am EST so 3:00 PST. She will be able to sleep and so will the kids. I'll nap when required or watch movies. Once we land in Orlando take the shuttle to the car rental place, head out for breakfast and check out Orlando before allowing to get to our VRBO. We'll drop off our stuff, go shoppping for groceries, exchange our vouchers for tickets then back to the VRBO and the pool. Sometime later that night, we need to pick up the parents and in laws from the airport, have supper then into bed as we hit Disney in the morning for rope drop.

At least this is the plan. Is that how it will work out, only 120 days before we know.

 

[usagibuffy]

We've done red eyes from LAX all 4 times I've been. I think it depends on you and your family. Our last trip was me and DH, 5yo, 2yo, and 3mo, and my parents. The kids did fine on the trip out but were cranky that day (may have been cranky anyway, what with the changes to their schedules). My dad and I were fine and ready to go. DH and my mom were dragging so bad by noon, and of course our rooms weren't ready until actual check-in time. On a previous trip pre-kids, Dad and I left everyone else at the hotel for naps and explored one of the parks together. I would hate to waste the whole day traveling.

 

[nacho113]

Personally, we hate the red eye. Sure you arrive with the whole day ahead of you but we never manage to get any meaningful sleep on the plane and we end up wasting the day away because we are tired and cranky.

Don't like the super early flights either, neither of us are early morning people. Sure we arrive with more time at our destination the first day but again we are tired and cranky from getting up at 2am for the 5-6am flight.

We figure travel day is just that -travel day. We don't try to get anything else done other than get to our destination. If we have time for anything else, it's considered a bonus.
Our preference, if it's available, is to take a mid morning flight and arrive suppertime-ish (earlier if we manage to get something with good connections)
Nice easy day with no early mornings or late nights. Get a good nights sleep at resort and we are ready to make the most out of our vacation, after travel day.

Remember: West coast to east adds in 3 hours of time change so although you may arrive at 5-8PM, your body clock is still thinking (2-5pm).
When it's midnight in Florida, your California body clock will be telling you it's only 9pm (and it's still looking for something to do, maybe a late supper or evening snack or a stroll around the resort)

 

[SarahInMN]

We've done both on Delta - first flight in the am (around 6 am, up by 330am) and arrive MCO around 4pm or the red eye leaving PDX around 10pm arriving between 5am-10am (depending on layovers).

They have plusses/minuses. We will always fly first on these flights and generally go with the best arrival time/cost effective arrival. The key on the red eye is don't nap after arrival if you intend on getting back up: so we'll arrive, have breakfast, go do stuff, unpack when the room is ready, and have an early dinner. Then crash. I know some people nap at the pool but we'd never get back up. Also no alcohol after a redeye: then things just get weird.

The redeye is easier when visiting family in the midwest because we can nap immediately upon arrival. For us, being walking Zombies at Disney with a 5 am arrival is preferable to landing at 5pm.