Long haul arrival food / catering with young DC

[flymetothemoo]

I am travelling with my husband and our 4yo long haul over half term. The time difference means when we arrive it will be mid afternoon their time but about 10pm UK time. No doubt our child will fall asleep on the transfer which is a bus journey of an hour to our hotel.

Once at the hotel we will try to keep DC awake until local time early evening and try to reset our timings.

It's complicated but the hotel doesn't have a restaurant (it's not a holiday destination). The following day we will be moving to stay in a family home but we need to stay overnight in the hotel until then.

What would you do about food / eating for our child (and ourselves) in the meantime? Bearing in mind it's a standard hotel room with no cooking facilities. Do you think there's anything we can bring in our suitcase to tide us over? Alternative is when we arrive at hotel we venture out to find a grocery shop or restaurant but I'm aware our child will be beyond knackered by then.

Has anyone got any tips as it's the first long haul travel we have done since before DC was born.

It will depends on the country because there will be customs rules about what you can take in. How big is the airport you’re arriving into? If it’s large enough to have food places I would just plan to eat there before going to the hotel. It’ll also keep DC awake for a bit longer to help with the time difference!

Could you take a loaf of bread and fresh/sealed jar of strawberry jam to your destination? Just do rounds of jam sandwiches to take the edge off. I'd also see if you could eat something substantial at the airport when exiting. They have pub-type places at Heathrow so you could get a burger or pasta somewhere like that and just snack at the hotel

Does the hotel room have a kettle? I’d pack a couple of Pot Noodle/pasta in a mug type packets to tide you over for the first night. And cereal bars for the morning.

Pot noodles/packs of flavoured cous cous, some rolls/flatbreads (easy to pack) a couple of apples, some carrot sticks? If there isn't a kettle in your room the hotel will likely lend you one.

I think you'll need to go out and get something to eat.

You could pack something like long life croissants and jam, pringles, and biscuits for a room picnic but you might be hungry for something more substantial after a day of travelling.

If it's only mid-afternoon when you land then one of you can go out and buy food while the other stays in the room with DC.

As a PP has said, it partly depends on the country as they will have different rules on what you can or can't take it.
If you can take food in, take a mix of substantial snacks based around what your son eats (sandwiches, cold pasta). Alternatively, buy stuff at the departure airport. There will probably be some places at arrivals but it depends how much time you have before you need to get the transfer bus. After a delayed flight once with young DC when we had a hire car, we looked at the queues for the hire car place and went and had a meal in the arrivals hall and then sorted out the car

Try and take them out with you ti get food - the sunlight will help with resetting the body clock.