Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Strategy for LAX-HKG in F at 11:55 P.M.

My wife and I plan to fly LAX to HKG on CX next March in F. The flight leaves at 11:55 P.M. Is there any strategy to follow? I would assume we'd want to get on board and go immediately to sleep.

Do they serve dinner at midnight, or do they assume you're going to sleep and give you a first class breakfast instead?

Does anyone have any planning tips for the flight, since it leaves at such an odd hour?

CX serves their vaunted First Class dinner service (with caviar and the works) approximately 1 hour into the flight. So you don't want to miss this. Instead have a snack around your normal dinner time to tide you over until flight time.

After dinner service, if you can sleep as long as the remainder of the flight, then go ahead. When you arrive early in the morning in HKG (2 days later!), you've just had a loongg sleep (10-12 hrs) so you should be OK in terms of jetlag.

If you only sleep the usual 6-8 hours, then I suggest staying up and don't sleep until there's 6-8 hours remaining in the flight.

Alternatively, you could ask to have your dinner served much later in time for you to catch your 6-8 hours of sleep after dinner.

CX also serves a full breakfast approximately 1 hour before arrival.

Hope this helps.

The 2 am flight is the tough one, midnight is a piece of cake. Dinner is served and I usually eat it. Of course one of the frills in F is that you can eat at any time that you want. There are also mid-flight snacks (including some excellent chinese soups) and a breakfast. Remember that the flight is quite long (14 hours) so you don't have to go to sleep right away. I prefer to eat on boarding, have a nice sleep, wake and have some soup, then work or watch movies and finally have breakfast. It is a great flight but I prefer the later 2 am departure (which I find very convenient).

Strategy?

Since, I hadn't had had much to eat all day, I made the mistake of eating too much in the lounge priot to the flight. The crew was prepared to serve dinner as soon as got up to speed. I would have preferred to take a nap, but they didn't understand that, since they are geared to a routine. After a good nap, it was time for the lighter snacks, the finallly breakfast, which as to be repeated in the lounge! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

But the flights were all fantastic and I arrived in BKK feeling better then any of the numerous flights.

My strategy:
Stay awake for a few hours at the beginning of the flight, then take a Melatonin pill around 10 hours before arrival, sleep 8 to 9 hours. Then stay awake/active/outside till at least 10 pm next day in Asia, take another Melatonin. If i wake up during the night i try to keep my eyes closed, light off and typically fall aspeel again within a few minutes.
This help me to adjust to the new time zone fairly painless.

Has CX been taken over by aliens from Mars, now that the latter is so close?

When I fly CX F, I can order what I want, when I want it. If I want to go to sleep as soon as the seatbelt light is out, then have a meal 8 or 9 hours later, that's no problem. But maybe I fly a different CX than the other responders.

My strategy is only for those coming from the Right Coast. For me, the best approach is to take a morning (~8am departure) flight from BOS, then have a light meal on arriving in LAX or SFO. I'll take a room in a hotel near the airport, and have a nap from roughly 2 or 3 until 7pm. I'll shower and get ready, check out around 9.30 or 10, then head over to the airport and check in for the flight.

I feel great getting on the plane (especially compared to being dog-tired if I took an afternoon flight from Boston, then changed to the CX flight at 3am Eastern time), and I'm ready for a nice meal. With another 5- or 6-hour sleep on the plane, I arrive in HKG feeling reasonably decent.

Thanks for all of the good information and suggestions.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

What's the concensus for those of us who fly ex-YYZ or JFK, and thus endure a refuelling stop [now for the YYZ flight] in YVR about five hours after initial departure? Seems some would go right off to sleep to catch 4-hours or so, then dine out of YVR. Others would eat and keep awake on the first leg, then nap off upon departure from YVR. These two flights must be CX's longest, either side of 20 hours on the aircraft.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Shareholder:
What's the concensus for those of us who fly ex-YYZ or JFK, and thus endure a refuelling stop [now for the YYZ flight] in YVR about five hours after initial departure? Seems some would go right off to sleep to catch 4-hours or so, then dine out of YVR. Others would eat and keep awake on the first leg, then nap off upon departure from YVR. These two flights must be CX's longest, either side of 20 hours on the aircraft.</font>

Ex-JFK I enjoy the meal, watch a movie or two and stay awake. After leaving YVR, have a quick meal and then sleep as long as I can. Wake up maybe 2 or 3 hours before HKG and enjoy breakfast. At least that's the plan.

Stay awake and eat the dinner. Fall asleep the last 10 hours of the flight. Since by the time you fall asleep, it is almost night time in HKG, when you arrive you will have enough energy to do a full day's of activities.