Anyone got experience of flying over to Oz?  Is it best to do it all in one or to do a stopover?  How does the jet lag affect your arrival there and return home?

Looking forward to this trip....only struggling with the thought of not being with Jack (GSD) for 3 weeks :-(

My OH is Australian so we go over a fair bit.  If we fly without the children we just have a refuelling stop (off the plane once for about an hour or so) but if we take the kids we try to have 2 stops - somewhere in Europe for a change of planes and again in Asia somewhere.  Both times we'll be on the ground for a couple of hours.  We find it breaks the journey more for them and stops them getting so restless on the flight.  We fly into Sydney so it's anywhere up to 33 hours depending on how long and where you stop.

We go straight into Australian time when we land, the best thing is to land in the evening and just go to bed as normal then up and out early the next day.  Coming back is a different matter and tends to hit me really hard.  I've slept anything from 14 hours straight to 21 hours straight depending on what time we've arrived back!  I try to go straight onto UK time but I don't sleep well on planes and we always manage to land in the morning when we come back so I'm always worn out.

Where abouts are you going?  We're off again at the end of next month for a week (!) and then for the entire sumer break next year.  We're really lucky as we don't have to pay accomodation costs while we're over there and the cost of living is cheaper than here so we can actually save money on a day to day basis.

Enjoy your holiday and try not to worry about the flights - it's really just a couple of days out of the holiday and unlike a car stuck on the M25 there's always a loo handy!!

Hi Debs,

I flew to Oz last February. We had a refuelling stop at Singapore each way which was quite a welcome break after being on the plane all that time. We only stopped for about 45mins and it was just the right amount of time to stop, I thought. I felt very spaced out when I arrived and when I returned - won't tell you about the flight on the way back (it was a nightmare!) I found the best way to get over the jetlag was to carry on as normal and fight the urge to snooze!!

You'll have a fab time though - where in Aus are you going? I only went for two weeks, next time I'd definitely go for longer as two weeks wasn't long enough.

Hi Debs Lucky you!  I flew to Oz a few years ago now, but found the opposite to Bettyonthebus - I was affected MUCH more by jetlag when I arrived in Oz (also Sydney).  I could not keep my eyes open (unusual for me).  Was fine the next day though.  We didn't have a stopover though - just a stop for refuelling.

Hope you have a great holiday!

We're off to Sydney to catch up with family who emigrated there 40yrs ago!

Can't wait! :-)

Thanks for your advice.

As others have said, for jet lag I've found just getting though first day on their time helps. 

But then again it's not unusual for me to stay up all one night, carry on next day, then go sleep as normal following night.  Flying somewhere is not much different. :)

My uncle lives in Melbourne and when i flew over there my flight was broken up into sections...7 hours to Dubai to change planes then roughly 7 hrs to Singapore to re-fuel then roughly another 7hrs to Melbourne.  I didn't feel affected by jetlag on the way but it did get me when I came home!