Tips for Time Change

ebenmax

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Our family is flying from Ohio and Tennessee in June, making a 2 day stop at Disneyland before our stay in Aulani/Hawaii.
Any suggestions for conquering jet lag or ways to make the most of the time change?
(Our group includes a one year old too, so if there are any addt. ideas for making his transition smoother - greatly appreciated!)

Thanks tons!
Ellen
 
it’ll only be a 3 hour time diff., and since your taking the jet lag in stages, it won’t be as bad as a direct flight.

on the first morning when you’re likely to be up early anyway you could use that oppurtunity to beat morning rush hour if its a weekday and you plan on doing something like diamond head (depending on when you actually get up) or catch the sunrise from a beach...in june that’ll be well before 6 am (not the easiest wake up time when in vacation mode for many). sunrise...

if possible the hawaii kai area to around where sea life park is offers some great views...but it is a very long drive from aulani and would mostly be if you find yourself fully awake at 4 am or so in the morning.

heading towards the shared lagoon and watching sunrise as you look at the resort buildings can be nice as well (and considerably less time consuming)
 
Actually, I assume you are in the the Eastern time zone? HI does not observe DST, so during the summer months, it's actually a 6 hour difference, though, as the pp mentioned, you'll be doing it in phases, since you're stopping in CA (maybe that's what the pp meant?--3 hours diff from CA). My best recommendation is to just plan to be early risers and not stay up late. This is pretty easy to do at Aulani, as most everything closes down for the night by 10:30 or so. The first time we went, it was during the winter, and we are in the Central time zone, so it was 4 hours diff. I didn't mind getting up early, watching the sunrise over the ocean from my lanai, but man oh man, staying up much past 9 was ROUGH! Apparently, I'm old. Lol
 
yup, 3 hours from CA to HI time difference in June. and I think its 3 (might be 2) from ohio/tennesee to CA.

2 days is typically enough to adjust to 2-3 hour jet lag, so probably just the 3 hours from CA to HI left to deal with when arriving at aulani.
 


Just try to stay up as late as possible the first night. On our trip last month I adjusted there better than usual but had a heck of a time once we got home.
 
Just try to stay up as late as possible the first night. On our trip last month I adjusted there better than usual but had a heck of a time once we got home.
Thanks for this tip! We will try to push ourselves to stay up. Will we be tired the next day or up at 3:00 am raring to go?
 


Thanks for this tip! We will try to push ourselves to stay up. Will we be tired the next day or up at 3:00 am raring to go?

More than likely wide awake by 5 at the latest. I’m always up by 6:30 in Hawaii as I never truly adjust. It just gets easier to stay up later as each day passes.
 
Yep, we were up by 4 on our first full day, after having gone to bed around 10, which isn't outside of our normal bedtime
 
We flew direct from Atlanta to Honolulu. To combat the jet lag, we spent our first 3 nights in Waikiki and durin that time we did the two tours that you should do early in the day - Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor. I believe our Diamond Head tour picked us up at 7:30am and our Pearl Harbor tour picked us up at 6:45am. I knew we'd be up early those first few days with the time change, which we were. I think we were in bed by 8pm and awake by 4:30-5am. By day 3ish, we were more acclimated so it worked well for us. Diamond Head is best done early morning so you have an easier time parking and the trail isn't as crowded or hot. Pearl Harbor is best done early in the morning mostly for those who need same day tickets.
 
My daughter went to Disneyland at 8 months. To help her adjust to the time difference, I started changing her sleep schedule about two weeks before we left home. In your case, you would want to keep baby up 15 minutes longer the first nightand wake him/her up 15 minutes earlier the next morning. On day two you keep her up 30 minutes longer and wake her up 30 minutes earlier . . and so on. As a previous poster mentioned, jet lag isn't as bad when you're flying west.
 
My daughter went to Disneyland at 8 months. To help her adjust to the time difference, I started changing her sleep schedule about two weeks before we left home. In your case, you would want to keep baby up 15 minutes longer the first nightand wake him/her up 15 minutes earlier the next morning. On day two you keep her up 30 minutes longer and wake her up 30 minutes earlier . . and so on. As a previous poster mentioned, jet lag isn't as bad when you're flying west.
Thank you for this suggestion! I just haven’t had any experience with a little one and time changes! I will let my daughter know!
 

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