Flying to Florida tomorrow with three kids for a month....

[Wiifitmama]

Tell me the flight will not be hell please!!

Ds1 is 10. Ds2 is 7 and ds3 is 3. Will also have DH with us. Flying Virgin to Miami.

Panicking slightly :)

Having flown with Virgin in economy many times with our two sons to Orlando, the only thing that was hell was the babies and toddlers near us crying and screaming for 9 hours! When one stopped, another seemed to start!
Our boys were fine watching films, playing on their Gameboys or Nintendo, listening to music, and eating/ drinking.
We made sure that we all got up from time to time for a bit of excercise as you should always do on a long flight.
DS2 did get very frightened on one flight when we arrived to a tropical storm and could not land in Orlando. After several attempts with the plane lurching up and down and some some silly people screaming ( which did not help at all ) the pilot diverted to Tampa and we managed to land there although it was still stormy. He wanted to get off the plane here and go to WDW by bus.

Luckily DS2 fell asleep on my lap during the hour we had to wait on the plane at Tampa refuelling, so didn't realise when we took off again for Orlando and landed safely. as he was getting very stressed about flying again.

Presumably your 10 and 7 year olds will be fine.

Just have plenty of quiet activities and bribery for your toddler.

Jealous - Florida for three weeks!

The flight will probably be fine! Mine loved the films and took nintendos. Cabin crew brought around colouring etc! It was fine!

The worse bit is immigration! Miami especially is reknown for very thorough immigration checks, hence sometimes longer waits. You may be lucky, it depends how many other flights have landed at a similar time to yours.

Anyway - it will all be forgotten as soon as you emerge the other side of the airport and start your holiday!

Have a wonderful time.

Thanks for replying. My older two will be fine I think. Not so sure about my three year old though. He is not used to sitting still or being quiet.

And don't mention tropical storms!!

Yes....I am anticipating up to two hours to clear immigration and baggage and have warned the boys of this. Then a 45 min drive.

God, it better be worth it!

It is very definately worth it! If it was not Florida would not still be doing a booming business.

We went for a month and its was lovely! Didnt have to rush and we had time to just take it all in iykwim!

So jealous!! Enjoy!

Remember the time difference as well - they are 5 hrs behind us, so you do those 5 hrs again!
We were flying from 11am to 8pm our time, so was 3pm in Florida when we landed. Immigration and security does take a long time on arrival - don't make any mistakes on the immigration form you fill out on the plane, or you will be sent to the back of the queue in arrivals / passport control to do it again.

Our boys were always excited to be there, so wanted to go into the Disney parks after we had checked in to our hotel etc. They had more energy than DH and I did. When we were in a ride queue shortly before midnight, I realised we had been on the go for 24 hrs since leaving home.
It caught up with them two days later, and they slept all night until around 3pm.

Hope you have a lovely trip and good weather!

We are not doing the parks. We are visiting family in Ft Lauderdale and Key West. I am looking forward to it.....just not the flight!