How did you cope with the time change in Hawaii and the jet lag

[marcyjane]

Just wondering how everyone handled the time difference in Hawaii. Ours will be 5 hours difference from Central Standard Time.

Did you adjust right away and make it fine while on vacation. Then did you have a hard time re-adjusting once you were home.

Thanks,

Marcy

[Coolcruise02]

Lots of naps on the first few sea days! :)

 

It really wasn't that bad. We arrived one day pre-cruise from Ohio and tried to stay up later than normal, but we were still up around 4am their time. On the ship I was up wandering the decks before daylight the first 2 days.

[jmo1]

Plan to go to bed early the first night at Hawaii. Your body will be telling you to. You will likely wake up early the first few mornings, because your body will be telling you its much later. After a few days you will adjust. Coming home is harder. The best plan is to sleep-off the first day home, or at least take a couple hour nap, and then go to bed early at night. Sleep is the only real cure for jet-lag.

[Umbarger]

I would suggest to go in a couple days early if you can. The jet lag wasnt really bad getting there. It was the return that wiped me out. :eek: I am central as well.

[marcyjane]

Thanks everyone,

We are flying in on Friday arrival 4:00 pm for Sunday sailing so we will be able to get some rest I hope.

Coming back the flight is at night so hope we can get some sleep and then even with the drive home, I'll be home by noon and can again I hope rest and sleep the rest of the day because next day is a work day. :eek:

Marcy

[DebraDot]

We took the jet lag pills that are sold on Magellans and other travel merchandise sites and drank lots of water (and went to the bathroom a lot, and we didn't have one bit of trouble when we got to Honolulu. Took them because we did not want to lose any time to being tired. We did not go to bed early the evening of our arrival, but woke up early the next morning - we were raring to go anyway.

 

We did nothing on the way back, just tried to sleep (not easy), and it took me weeks to get back on track. I would be absolutely exhausted at bedtime, but could not go to sleep. For weeks. This was not a minor probem, and I usually have no sleep problems.

 

I actually feel that I would have been better off not sleeping on the plane, but the attendants make you feel like you must turn your light out because every one else wants to sleep.

 

Now, I don't know that the pills had anything to do with it, but I'll be taking them this time both ways just in case. And drinking lots of water.

[jmo1]

We took the jet lag pills that are sold on Magellans and other travel merchandise sites and drank lots of water

Sounds like snake oil to me.:rolleyes:

[travel girl23]

We go to Hawaii almost every year (not on a cruise) and I have found the "No Jet Lag" pills to be wonderful, especially coming back to the mainland as going east is always the worse for jet lag. They can be purchased online and at whole foods stores. They are herbal and were originally developed for the Australian soccer team as they had to fly over many time zones. They have always worked for us. Another secret to jet lag is when you get to Hawaii, which is usually in the afternoon for us, to stay in the bright sunlight to adjust to the time change. However, for a few days we always wake up very early - about 3 a.m. - LOL. :eek: TG23

[puablo]

I can't say from Hawaiian experience (yet!) but I have my own plan that has always worked out when going from east coast to west coast at least. For me, I'm flying across a 6 hour time change to Hawaii, I'll have woken up at about 5am to go to the airport and will arrive in Honolulu at 2pm. However we're flying out three days ahead of time to enjoy Oahu, so I plan to hit the beach as soon as I'm settled in at the hotel, and stay out as long as possible, running off of the "I'm in Hawaii!" adrenaline. My wife and I normally sleep in a lot on the weekends (until noon) so I anticipate sleeping in a long time the first night yet still getting up reasonably early the next day to go see the sunrise and hit Hanauma Bay early before it gets crowded. And I pretty much plan to keep to that type of schedule for the remainder of the week - get up early, go to bed early. I figure it shouldn't be much of a problem because usually with beach vacations I find myself uncharacteristically up and down with the sun anyways. Plus, getting into that schedule will make the early disembarking for excursions easier to handle.

 

I'm still completely unprepared for a 2:45am excursion to Haleakala for the bike ride, and going home is going to really mess me up. Leaving at 11pm Hawaiian time, arriving at 6pm eastern time, working the next morning. Yikes! For that I am simply hoping that I'll be able to pass out in bed when I get home and sleep 12hours. And if that fails, the following day will be a Thursday so I'll only have two work days to deal with.

[megessey]

I bought those "No Jet Lag" pills..... you know what one of the ingredients is? Ipecac ... isn't that the stuff they give to induce vomiting?! :eek: Must be a different form or very low dose or something, otherwise, people would be reporting how they were ralphing all over.

 

But I'm worried more about if these pills work like a stimulant to keep you awake.... Is this the case? I'm not sure I'm going to like them if they make me jittery.

 

Any other side-effects or concerns before taking them?

[cmjaffe]

we didn't have a problem "going over".. our flight was at 11AM and we were up at around 7:30AM that day after going to be fairly late (JFK). We finally got into KOA at around 8PM and had some difficulties w/rental car and check in at Hilton so didn't get to be until around midnight. Got up around 5AM (to make an important phone call) and managed OK for the week. Coming back had a very late flight out out LIH -- 11:30PM connecting in LA. Got to NYC around 3PM and seemed OK. Rested that evening. BUT the next couple of days just dragged a bit. Seemed to last about a week.

DH travels quite a bit (the other direction though) and usually does a day flight over the "pond" so that he has dinner and gets to sleep at a decent hour. Then has a day of adjustment. Going to Hawaii he had a very hard time on the way back home though.

You'll have a great time.

[DebraDot]

I experienced no effects from the No Jet Lag pills like jitteriness or nausea, and I am very sensitive to medications. Only thing was, with drinking lots of water as you are instructed to do, we had lots of trips to the bathroom. But, it worked in allowing us to hit the ground running upon our arrival in Hawaii.

[travel girl23]

I agree with DebraDot - we have had no side effects whatsoever. They work great. Do drink lots of water and stay hydrated. On our flight home which is usually overnight, we take a couple of Tylenol PM tablets and try to sleep as much as we can.

[susieh]

We have flown to the US at least once a year since 1992 - it's a 5 hour time difference to the East Coast, 8 hours to the West Coast and will be 11 hours to Hawaii. So I can speak from experience of coping with the time difference on many occasions.

 

Most UK folk will tell you the way to beat the jet lag going West is to stay up until bed time at the place you arrive at. Then you go to bed very tired and sleep in a bit until you wake up which is generally early-ish (like 7am) local time the next morning. We've done this for the past 15 years and although we are a bit tired the first day we don't really have any jet lag.

 

When we travel to Hawaii this June bed time we will be up for nearly 24 hours but we will try and cat nap on the plane and survive until then (we dont get a lot of choice as we dont land until about 9pm local time).

 

Going home for us is harder but again we find the best way is to force yourself to stay up until 'normal' bed time local time and that way you adjust much quicker.

[DebraDot]

travel girl23~~~Good idea about the Tylenol PM. I didn't take anything last year, and what little sleep I got was fitful.

 

susieh~~~Maybe that's the mistake we made. As soon as we got home, we collapsed into bed and didn't wake up until it was time to go to bed. This time I will try what you said and stay awake until bedtime.