mancfamily

But when is the best time of the day to begin the journey?

We will fly from Manchester via Singapore, and will stop off at the Transit Hotel to try and get some rest before the 2nd leg.
We'll be travelling with 2 kids aged 2 and 9, and I'm wondering if there's a better time to travel i.e. first thing in the morning or a night flight for the 1st leg?

For anyone that can advise, I would appreciate it

dazah

my heart goes out to you with a 2 year old that is mighty hell of a flight
i came over b4 my wife and she did it with a 2 year old and calls it the flight from hell

ok best time i would say with a 2 year old is night time as they will be tired and sleep most of the way its about a 12hr flight to singapore from the uk

then 9 hrs from singapore to melbourne but i dont know where your flying to

mancfamily

Tell me about it, it's not something I'm looking forward to! I want to get the longest leg done first.

We're going to Florida in June (9hrs) so that will be a bit of a taster of things to come with our flight to Oz!

We'll be going to Melbourne.

dazah

ok melbourne

every time i fly back to the uk i split my flights

i do melbourne singapore then singapore to dubi then london

its grate as there shorter flights and you can streach your legs and have a smoke in the 2 stops on the way hehehehe

thats flying emraites

i cant see why going in transit hotel id rather just get it over with

mancfamily

I did consider splitting the flights further, but when I costed it it was quite a bit more in cost.

Hubby flew direct via Hong Kong and he said there's no way we can do that with the kids!

I myself hate flying, and the thought of doing it direct fills me with dread.

dazah

my wife just said she hope your not doing it alone as if she had over would of made me fly back to help lol

oh and i hope your not useing one of them companys that send your money over for you

best to wait till you moved over and opened a bank account and then ring your uk bank and ship it via them save a lot of cash doing it that way

saveme

If you have not already booked your flights, factor in a few nights' stopover in Singapore to break the journey. It really does make a difference.

quoll

I'm a straight through-er. Even when I flew with the kids (usually on my own) I went straight through. My preference is a late night start from whichever way. I work all day (or sightsee, all depending on whichever end) and then head off after work. Most of the time I am asleep before wheels up and I usually wake up in time for the pre-landing meal. I then walk quite vigorously the length of the airport and back, do a few stretches and take the next leg as it comes. I like arriving early in the morning and then making it as far as possible through the day before I have an early night.

My kids never had an issue with jetlag they just went along with me - only time I did have a bit of a problem was when DS2 was 12 weeks old and he took a bit longer to get settled when we went home, otherwise they just slept a lot and bounced right back. I could forgive him at 12 weeks

travelbug

I'd agree with the other posters - definitely go for an evening departure if you can....then once you've taken off - with a bit of luck the kids will start to feel tired around about their normal bedtime...

gazclaire

Agree with the others but just to add that i saw a previous post i think it was titled something like "flying with children" maybe do a search, it had some good information like making sure that the kids had there favourite PJ's and getting them changed on the plane so that they will be familiar with that routine.
Best of luck,we will be doing it with a 6 and 2 year old.

RenShen

Hi.

We flew Manchester to Brisbane via Singapore in August and just had 3 hours at Changi airport in between. My kids are 8 & 13. On the way back we had 3 nights in Singapore.

To be honest, I would not stop over when we emigrate. Its more of a hassle unpacking things for a night or two then repacking and doing all the transfer/check in malarkey again. We used Singapore Airlines and there was loads of room to walk about the plane, the movies were good, food and drink ok and plentiful. The time went quite quickly really and the kids didn't complain.

I suppose it depends on how well your kids travel. I would just get it over with as soon as possible, especially when you know its only one way!!

Grayling

As far as I know there is no night flight from Manchester.

There is only one per day and that leaves at 09.50 in the morning.

Only Singapore airlines flies non stop to Singapore from Manchester......others route via a connection to Heathrow.

G

MUST LEAVE UK

Layovers ?

So how do you book these. We will be flying to Melbourne, would prefer to fly with SA.

But when looking at flights on the usual internet discount sites, they do not offer the option of a lengthy stopover. If you try and book 2 seperate flights they cost a fortune.

So do I have to ring the airline direct ?

Grayling

http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_U...index_2008.jsp

I have never had a problem arranging it through Airline network

www.airline-network.co.uk

G

munch

We flew from Manchester to Dubai then straight onto Perth with Emirates, our children were 1,2 & 9 at the time. On the return, no jet lag as we stayed in Dubai for 2 nights. I worked myself up for months before about the flights but actually it was fine. Staff were fantastic and very used to passengers flying with young children, they gave them a teddy before each take off, we had a collection of 12 in total!
We did the short bit during the day (7 hours) kids loved it - watched t.v, played and had a little nap. Then the next bit (11 hours) we did at night, started off quite stressful as both our youngest screamed, and I mean screamed-even we didn't know how loud they could be, it was all because they both wanted to sit on my knee, in the end a passenger (herself flying with 3 children,1 about 3 months old) gave me some piriton to calm them down and one of the cabin crew gave me a lap belt so our 1 year old could sit on my knee. As soon as the cabin crew could take off their seat belts one came over and said she would fill their milk bottles as it would settle them - within 5 minutes both fell asleep and didn't wake up for over 7 hours-heaven!!! Our 9 year old was quite happy to sit and watch movie after movie with the odd movement from him for food, drink and stretching his legs. My advice, don't worry - try to do the longest leg at night as your children will sleep - if all else fails book yourselves into business class, get very drunk and pretend you don't know them!! Good luck-it's all worth it, we do it all again in September this time one way!