How long to get rid of jetlag?

[Verfai]

Hello all,

 

We are thinking going on Oasis or Allure next year…We are wondering how many days in advance you all opt to flyover to a different time zone?

 

We are from Belgium so the “time travelling” we will do is -6 hours when flying from the EU to the USA. I’ve been to the states twice, but back then I was a lot younger and it was an action packed visit…and now, I think we might need a bit of recuperation first to fully enjoy a leisurely Caribbean cruise :D

 

BUT, and I know this is contra dictionary ;), we would like to keep the time away from home to a minimum due to the animals we leave behind under somebody else’s care.

 

I know traveling negatively into time is better than adding time for jetlag…But sill it can get you down pretty fast in my experience.

 

Last time in Barcelona on Liberty, I was amazed how many US folks came straight from the plane to the ship…And leaving for the US straight after the cruise….I don’t want to be tired or wornout when I am those mighty ships.

 

Also, is Fort Lauderdale worth a small stay prior to cruise?

 

Any pointers and personal experiences are more the welcome :D …

 

Greets

[Palmetto Pilot]

I'll give you a tip from a pilot! When you board the aircraft set your watch to the local time of your destination. When it's night time or time to sleep at your destination's time then take a sleeping aid or just go to sleep so when you wake up ideally about 8 hours later, you will wake up in the morning at your destination's local time. It will help with the lag and getting used to the new time zone. I hope this makes since to you.

[Verfai]

I'll give you a tip from a pilot! When you board the aircraft set your watch to the local time of your destination. When it's night time or time to sleep at your destination's time then take a sleeping aid or just go to sleep so when you wake up ideally about 8 hours later, you will wake up in the morning at your destination's local time. It will help with the lag and getting used to the new time zone. I hope this makes since to you.

 

Makes perfect sense to me :), would be a great idea, I even did something like that when I was a kid :D.

 

But most connections from Brussels to Ft Lauderdale have a transfer in JFK or ATL, so something of a +9hour flight + another flight of 3 hours, including running around and waiting in airport transits, so the sleeping aid might not be such a good idea (sleep like a rock when I take something) ;)...I still need to do a lot of looking up, all flights on the same day as the cruise, arrive too late to catch the ship, so at least one before embarking is mandatory apparently.

[xxoocruiser]

Used to fly 18 hour flights regularly. This worked for me .

• Eat a high carb dinner for 2 to 3 nights before your flight . Much like runner do preparing for a marathon.
  
• Once on the plan set you watch to your destinations time.
  
• If it's night time at your destination sleep during the flight . Forego the flight snack or meal and tell the flight attendent not to wake you for the meal. It's more important that you keep sleeping. Unless of course you have any special dietary needs.
  
• Do not drink any alcohol on the flight as this only dehydrates you and makes jet lag worse.
  
• Drink only water or fruit juice on the plane.
  

[wcook]

Everybody is different... but when going on vacation, most people I know can recover a 6-hour time zone change with one "bad" day, one "slightly off day" and are then fine. It's fairly easy when going on vacation because you can spend lots of time outdoors in direct sunlight when on vacation.

[AZ Stan (FKA Stan in Chicago)]

Used to fly 18 hour flights regularly. This worked for me .

• Eat a high carb dinner for 2 to 3 nights before your flight . Much like runner do preparing for a marathon.
  
• Once on the plan set you watch to your destinations time.
  
• If it's night time at your destination sleep during the flight . Forego the flight snack or meal and tell the flight attendent not to wake you for the meal. It's more important that you keep sleeping. Unless of course you have any special dietary needs.
  
• Do not drink any alcohol on the flight as this only dehydrates you and makes jet lag worse.
  
• Drink only water or fruit juice on the plane.
  

Everything that xxoocruiser said above is absolutely correct. Let me add to that: Upon arrival at your final destination, stay awake. Do not nap. Stay in the light to help your system get accustomed to the new time zone. Then, go to sleep near normal sleep time in your destination.

 

On the next day, you might be slightly sluggish, but mostly normal.

[Verfai]

Used to fly 18 hour flights regularly. This worked for me .

• Eat a high carb dinner for 2 to 3 nights before your flight . Much like runner do preparing for a marathon.
  
• Once on the plan set you watch to your destinations time.
  
• If it's night time at your destination sleep during the flight . Forego the flight snack or meal and tell the flight attendent not to wake you for the meal. It's more important that you keep sleeping. Unless of course you have any special dietary needs.
  
• Do not drink any alcohol on the flight as this only dehydrates you and makes jet lag worse.
  
• Drink only water or fruit juice on the plane.
  

 

All check, especially skipping on airline food :D.

Except we might have a whiskey and coke on the plane to celebrate the start of a great vacation :D

Also I am a light sleeper, so won’t really be able to sleep unless I take something.

 

 

Everybody is different... but when going on vacation, most people I know can recover a 6-hour time zone change with one "bad" day, one "slightly off day" and are then fine. It's fairly easy when going on vacation because you can spend lots of time outdoors in direct sunlight when on vacation.

 

So that would make Ft Lauderdale two days advance arrival…Most flights out of Brussels arrive in Ft Lauderdale around 7-9pm.

[Verfai]

Everything that xxoocruiser said above is absolutely correct. Let me add to that: Upon arrival at your final destination, stay awake. Do not nap. Stay in the light to help your system get accustomed to the new time zone. Then, go to sleep near normal sleep time in your destination.

 

On the next day, you might be slightly sluggish, but mostly normal.

 

Stay awake, check, part of the light sleeper :)

[blue toffee]

We have sailed from USA the last two years and i find we have no problems when we get there it is when we return home. as has been stated set your watch for local time and if it is night time there get as much sleep as you can on the flight if you arrive in the daylight try and stay awake until your normal bedtime.

[iwingy]

Just back from a cruise out of Baltimore 3 days ago. We are from Russia, so had 10 hour flight to JFK (and it was a daytime flight 10 am - 8 pm Moscow time) and -8 hrs difference. Probably our experience might be useful for you:

Arrived to NYC, dropped of our luggage in the hotel and wend sightseeing from 1 pm till 10 pm local time. No sleep in the destination until the night arrives - this is our rule number one!

Then spent a night in the hotel, took 7 am Amtrak to Baltimore, dropped of luggage in the Penn Station and went sightseeing for another 3 hours... Boarded the ship, survived till dinner and voila! We were sleeping like babies and in normal local hours after so many activities. During next few days of the cruise we took 'after lunch nap' couple of times but this is mostly because we were tired of the activities or sunburned, not because of the jet lag. And our dinner table mates from East Coast turned out to have napped too :)

 

Last year we cruised from FLL and flew with a connection in JFK. We arrived to a hotel in FLL very late in the evening and went to bed irrespective it was an early morning for us. After changing flights, experiencing freezing cold US planes and without proper food for 12+ hours we were soo asleep.

 

One piece of advice: go for late dining seating. On our first cruise we had 6 pm and went to bed immediately thereafter, simply could not resist the sleep, missed all shows. This time we had 8.30 pm seating and it worked perfectly! By 8.30 pm we have already passed the worst time when fighting sleep is the hardest for us. We found ourselves staying up after dinner till midnight, sometimes even 1 am. Probably it will work for you too.

[Sequim88]

Picked up some good tips years ago on trip from West Coast to Australia.

1. Shifted a couple hours on days prior to leaving to get a head start

2. Drank LOTS of water prior to flight

3. First thing at hotel was long warm shower to help re-hydrate

4. After shower even though it was night at home we caught a bus for Bondi Beach and hung out in the bright sunlight until late afternoon.

5. Ate light dinner and went to bed somewhat early for local time

6. Next day ate large breakfast

 

Felt great that day and was ready to go into the office.

 

Since then for time zone changes I've added Melatonin as a sleep aid for the flight. Not so sedative as other things especially antihistamine products. Would be perfect for a flight change. Does not make you sleep but just makes body willing to sleep. Works well at hotel the first night after flight to go to sleep on local time.

 

whiskey and coke

Aside from avoiding alcohol being careful about cafeine (in Coke) is good too. Timing is everything.

[yogimax]

The common wisdom is that it takes one day to fully adjust for each hour in time change.

 

As others have suggested, stay hydrated and try to force yourself to adjust to the new time zone as soon as possible. I find east to west much easier to handle than west to east.

[Barnaby100]

We fly to the USA from tne uk via Amsterdam.

 

We find the timing of the flight matters. We aim to land at about 7 in the evening. We don't often manage to sleep on the plane. We then arrive intime to have a light meal and go to bed.

 

We set the alarm for the normal wake up time. Never had jet lag doing this

 

When we have arrived at lunchtime it hasn't worked as we have been tired and napped- then not slept at nightime etc etc

[Mark_K]

Used to fly 18 hour flights regularly. This worked for me .

• Eat a high carb dinner for 2 to 3 nights before your flight . Much like runner do preparing for a marathon.
  
• Once on the plan set you watch to your destinations time.
  
• If it's night time at your destination sleep during the flight . Forego the flight snack or meal and tell the flight attendent not to wake you for the meal. It's more important that you keep sleeping. Unless of course you have any special dietary needs.
  
• Do not drink any alcohol on the flight as this only dehydrates you and makes jet lag worse.
  
• Drink only water or fruit juice on the plane.
  

That's not very likely to be the case when you're flying from the EU to MIA.

[cb at sea]

I prefer west to east, too...seems easier for me. Going from the E. Coast to Hawaii messed me up for DAYS! Kept waking up at 4:30 am.....and there is NOTHING happening at that early hour! Coming home was a breeze!

[Albert Ross]

Book Business class, drink as much champagne as possible, put the bed down and sleep.:D

[okgirl]

When we flew from Texas to Venice a few years ago we left Texas around 4pm and got to London around 7:30 local time, but had to hang around the airport all day for our continued flight to Venice. My sister napped a bit, but I was up all day and we finally got to Venice around 6pm.

 

I thought it worked out pretty good since we got checked in to the hotel and went to dinner then we went to bed around 8pm, slept the night through and were ready to go the next morning.

 

On the way home we had been in London for several days so our plane followed daylight all the way home. We left London about 11am and got back to Texas around 8pm local time. Got home and went to bed and were ready to go the next morning...

[Verfai]

Thanks all for the replies and tips!

 

Greets

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

It takes us 24hrs

[griffy116]

Our one exception was a flight from ATL to Honolulu to catch a cruise a few years ago. We flew out on the morning of the time change to Daylight Savings. By the time we got up and ready, got to the airport 2 hours before the flight, had a layover in San Francisco and made it to Honolulu, we had been up for more than 24 hours. We tried to take the advice and stay awake, which I now think was a mistake. We should have taken a short rest and then gotten out and about. We drug ourselves around until we could eat an early meal and go to bed. We woke around 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep and by the time we had dinner the first night on the ship we were zombies. We should have just written off day one, slept and then eaten..stayed up later. There were 8 of us and we were all just wasted from jet lag.

[Langley Cruisers]

There are loads of websites which give you tips; just google it. One I ran across was written by a pilot, very informative. No offense but some of the tips here are sarcastic/humorous, so I would not give much weight to them. :o

 

This past trip to Europe/Med cruise wiped me out. I was a mess. But that was me. Someone else may be fabulous - I'm convinced it's unique to all so, having said that, best to you. :)

[sg1phileshipper]

We have sailed from USA the last two years and i find we have no problems when we get there it is when we return home. as has been stated set your watch for local time and if it is night time there get as much sleep as you can on the flight if you arrive in the daylight try and stay awake until your normal bedtime.

 

I totally agree with you. I usually don't suffer from jetlag too much when heading across the pond, just a little tired after the first night. I set my watch to destination time as soon as I'm on the plane. The return is another matter. I can get that jetlag real bad. And after 9 times, I still haven't found a solution to that problem. :eek: Even tried sleeping pills on the plane, but they don't affect me much...

 

Cindy

[Summer35]

Hey,

 

we flew this year from Germany, Frankfurt via Philadelphia to San Juan, had one night in a hotel and then board the cruiseship. I was soooo tired in the afternoon the first days, cant believe it, and it took about 4 day untill we are "in the right time".

 

We slept on board in the late afternoon after the excursions, that helps a little. Next time we have a B2B cruise so i hope we feel better. Unfortunatly we have no time to stay a few more days in San Juan before cruising, i think this would be the better choice.

 

On the way back to Europe we had no problems.

 

I think the jetlag is a personal problem, dont know if other food or so helps.

 

 

have a nice day

 

 

Summer

[Thornbird]

Bear in mind some people can be affected far worse than others. I've told my DH that I will not get on a plane with him again if he doesn't have sleeping tablets. Having had the first week to 12 days of our last 2 big trips ruined by his insomnia due to inability to adjust to new timezone (and one of those was our honeymoon :( ) it just isn't worth it.

Melatonin helped (but is not available in Aus for some reason) but sleeping tablets to force sleep on the first night in the new country seem to be the way to go.

For me, I seem to be good to go after the equivalent of a night's sleep. doesn't seem to matter what time I take it. I'll usually sleep when I need to (often the second I get to my destination whether that's at lunchtime, evening or first thing in the morning) and then be fine to go to bed at nighttime. Works better for me than trying to stay up. And that's after a 24 hour flight with a 10 hour time difference.

 

As far as sleeping on the plane - used to be an impossibility for me until I went for the incredibly attractive look of neck pillow, eye mask and ear plugs. I may have looked extremely goofy but I felt great and that was in cattle class (on another of those 24 hour horrors)