How to entertain 3 and 5 year old on 8 hour flight.

[AtheneNoctua]

Outbound is an a day time flight. And Return is overnight. So, hopefully, we will sleep on the return. But, how on earth am I going to entertain them for 8 hours. A friend suggested a prtable DVD player. Is this a good idea?

We are on Virgin. Anyone flown them to Chicago recently? How is the onboard entertainment?

Book an airline with child friendly meals and definitely inseat TV's. I flew 15 hours with mine when they were 3 and had no problems. Went Etihad but Virgin are great yoo. Good luck and have a nice time!

Do they have games consoles such as a DS or a Leapster?

Yeah, we have a leapster. But, even that has it's limits. I plan to bring but think I need some more ideas.

Any other ideas? PLEASE...

(thanks to those who posted already)

For the three year old I recommend some Fuzzy Felt faces. You don't have to take the whole box, just the board and the pieces in a plastic bag. Maybe you and your eight year old could print out a map page and he or she could mark off the route as you fly over? Possibly get out a book about America and the Atlantic Ocean so they could find out something about the places you are flying over? Don't know how complex this would be but it may keep them quiet? For both I would suggest making out comic book squares on some paper and get them to fill in the blank boxes with stories and pictures.

if you are flying virgin they have back of seat tv's so they will be able to watch some of that.

portable dvd player is good idea.
stories to read
colouring. get one of those magnetic drawing things that you draw on with the pen and then rub out - saves paper as well.
games console if you have one.
what are they into? if boys get a couple of little cars for just playing with on the tables, if girls then some little dolls for playing with..
mucho snacks, although virgin do provide free icecream for part of the flight I believe? but take some packets of sweets/crisps/biscuits which can be consumed at various boring bits of the flight.
do you have a portable cd player? in which case get some story cd's for them to listen to.
buy some of those cards which have the pairs on to match up
dominoes (as they are only little so fit in handluggage.

Thank you. Good ideas!