the turner family

Hello again!

We are looking at flights. London to Auckland.

We are a family of four with our kids being aged 5 (just) and 3 (4 in December). Is it worth us taking a stop-over in Singapore or should we just go for the shortest stop possible and get it all out of the way?

How cheap is a stop-over once you pay the hotel and food etc?

We have been warned off the LA route and it seems much more expensive too.

Any advice is appreciated.

If Kiwi jet pilot wants to pull some strings and get us a free upgrade that would be fine too............

Bye for now.

The Turner Family.

Biddy

Never done the trip before myself but have 2 trips planned.

1st on my own. Lon - Singapore - Akl as quick as poss
2nd with family Lon - Orlando for a nice long break - LAX - AKL - Welly

If you're going to have a break then I'd suggest more than just a few hours - make a holiday of it!

davepoole

a break stopover would be kewl for the kids, its a long flight if you go all the way with only a two hour stopover. look at ebookers.com

they seem cheap im going for 5 days in singapore, 3 or 4 star hotel should only gost 20 pounds a night, dead cheap

its a holiday and splits up the flight

good luck

Pootle

Hi,
We flew to Melbourne from London with no stopover. Our kids were 5 and 2 at the time. We wanted to get the flights over with as soon as possible and only had about 1 1/2 hours at Singapore to wait. We didn't want the hassle of dragging the kids to a hotel, unloading all the luggage, car seats etc. They slept fairly well on both legs of the flight and we are glad we went the whole way without stopping over.
Ruth

uk+kiwi

Hi there,

We're going down in December when the girls will be 5 1/2 and just 4. We're opting for the 'get it all over in one go' approach - flying through Singapore AND Melbourne unfortunately. If they were a bit older and/or we had more time (just over 3 weeks in NZ) we would go for a stopover (4+ nights) but as we've just got so much to do in NZ we want to get adjusted onto Kiwi timezone asap!

If we were emigrating, we would definately holiday on the way - either in the US (Florida, San Fran to see family & Hawaii or Fiji 'caus they're so great) or more likely Thailand and possibly Australia or Fiji, although as these are the most popular and cost effective holiday destinations from NZ we may think otherwise. It doesn't cost much more to stopover generally (destination dependent though) and it is a good opportunity to have a holiday, not just a couple of nights stopover, on the way.

Singapore is a good place to visit with young children. It's generally very clean, friendly and safe with a fair bit to see and do. Yummy food too. If you want minimum hassle (I know the way it is with young children) I think Singapore is good. You can even go to the cinema and see English films, McDonalds and Haagen-Dazs if you wish.

As for upgrades with young children, you'd be very very lucky! Do you know they tend to place all passengers with young children together on the plane? Or so BA told me when we booked. I'll have to see if I can do something about that!

Good luck with the trip.

Joshlin

when we did the holiday trip we had our son who was just 1 at the time and went for the getting it over and done with approach.

when we go again in October (for good this time, yipee) I think we'll do the same - the children will be 3 and 1 and I just feel that the quicker we can get settled the better for them - and after all the first few weeks will have all the adventure of a holiday anyway