Flying (one way) from London to NZ in March with 2 DC - where to stop over for a week or so?

[5DollarShake]

We keep going round in circles on this.

We're emigrating to NZ in March (well, I'm returning home; my British-born family are emigrating). After all the stress of selling our house and packing up our life here, we want a nice stop over somewhere on the way there.

At first we considered somewhere in Asia - Hong Kong or Singapore - but we're not sure how child friendly such places would be as a holiday destination - getting around, etc. DCs will be just 2 years and 7 months.

Then we considered Hawaii, but would have to fly back to LA in order to fly to Auckland, so defeats the purpose of a stop-over. Then considered San Francisco, but it's not really somewhere to go and enjoy with young children.

So then - Dubai maybe? Might be easy just to relax in a hotel which has everything at our finger tips. But we'd probably have to fly to Sydney and then onto Auckland, which just prolongs the agony of long haul with a toddler and baby.

So then we get back to Asia again.

I really doubt anyone can advise on this, but if anyone does have any experience or thoughts, they'd be more than welcome!!

We're both kiwis going home in January with our (then) 15 month old twins. We went a bit round in circles too with stopovers but eventually decided on Singapore, basically because we just wanted to fly with Singapore Air!

The only thing that is worrying me about Singapore is the heat. We stopped last year with the boys when they were four/five months old and its great for kids. Very organised, very friendly, clean, easy etc. Someone at the airport will get you a taxi the right size, hotels extremely helpful and as far as I'm aware there are lots of things to do with kids in Singapore. Taxis are easy and not too expensive and public transport is great.

Singapore Air swung it for us, they were great last time and are generally considered one of the best with kids. We considered San Francisco with Air NZ (but the first leg would have been with Virgin) or fly to LA and get a car at the airport and drive along the coast somewhere - the new AirNZ sky couches look great. We also considered Dubai but that flight from Dubai to Australia is very long!

If you're going for a week, you can get an apartment in Singapore which is much nicer than just having a hotel room.

Singapore get booked out well in advance, you need to book early if going in peak times. We ended up having to go through Sydney as well which is not an issue for us as we are going to Wellington (Lon-Sin-Syd-Wgtn so the same number of stops as Lon-Sin-Auck-Wgtn).

This will be my third and DH's second trip to Singapore. We're not going because we really want to visit Singapore (which is nice, but not exactly exciting) but the airline and convenience etc really swung it for us!

When we moved back to Melbourne in 2007 we stopped over in Singapore. It was great! We stayed on Sentosa Island here and it felt a bit like a beach holiday but with the city right there too.

Singapore is a great city - so clean, great food, great shopping, easy transport system, family friendly... The zoo is great too. We went on the night time tour and it was much cooler.

Anyway that is what we did and it was a fantastic holiday/stopover!

Another one for Singapore. You can go to the Island where you have the beach or stay in the city. All the good hotels have pools and are very childfriendly. I can highly recommend the Shangri-la. Their pool area is lovely and they have a child's pool. Their food is particularly good and we had no problems with DS when we were last there (he was 8 months old).

Dubai is also ok for a chilling out by the pool sort of break. It is a bloody long way though as it is only 7 hours out of the UK. Singapore is around half way.

Would agree with everyone else. Singapore is great with kids and I would always fly SA for choice. I actually won't fly with either BA or Qantas (which limits me somewhat as I'm in Oz ) but that is just personal experience.

You can also fly via Malaysia with Malaysia Airlines and then go to an island like Penang or Langkawi. They are both about an hours flight but the connecting flights are very frequent and sometimes they can be free with your ticket to NZ. The airport is a dream compared to Heathrow or LA.

Langkawi is a proper tropical island and I love it. Loads of nature stuff to do for kids. We stayed at the Andaman a few years ago on a fabulous deal and it was one of our most wonderful trips. But would recommend a week as jet lag can be tough with wee ones.