Flying long haul

DHs office closes over Xmas so he has to take 11days annual leave.
We were going to fly home to Ireland with the girls in May but are currently looking at Xmas flights now. yayy!

Anyway I'm wondering about the stopovers. What are peoples experiences with flying long haul with infants?

Basically we normally just travel as quickly as possible. However with 2 11 month babies in tow would they/we be better off to have a longer stop along the way?
One flight we're looking at has just a refuel stop.

I think my opinion is that the girls are going to be disrupted anyway so might as well just continue on and let them readjust once we get to our destination.

I suppose it's really a matter of personal choice really.

Maybe I should just go with the flow and just return to stressing about which grandparents get the pleasure of having their first grandchildren present for Christmas dinner
Seriously we might just take a baby each

I would probably choose to go direct too, even though we have only flown with DD as an infant to Australia, and then to Canada with her not that long ago (so as a 2yo).

I agree with Ann, if you are going to do an extended stopover then try and do it on the way back.

We did a stop over in singapore for a night, was enough for us to recharge our batteries rather than Fay, but this is how we have always done it, I hate going in one big hit it takes me nearly a week to feel human again. Babies tend to cope with what you throw at them, they don't have the choice and don't know any better/different. fay was 10mo when we did the trip to the UK this time last year

AnnC - I'm from Cork and DH is from Limerick so we'll be alternating between both.

On our own, we've always either stopped over somewhere to visit friends for a few days or just had 10ish hours stopover to visit a city.

I think we'll probably do the shortest stopover we can to get the journey over and done with as soon as possible.
When I think about it don't think the credit card can handle a couple of nights hotel on top of the flight costs
kriss - Eimear = 'ee-mer' and Aoife = 'ee-fa'

Tishy,if you're looking for xmas flights you really need to book asap.We've just decided to go back to Ireland (Limerick) for xmas and have had so much trouble getting flights as everything is booked.We're going via the states on way there and via hong kong on the way back and we're not going to have any stopovers.

I took Maya to London at 22 mths and we went direct for the reasons everyone else said. Flew Qantas and they were horrific. Have only ever done short haul with Emirates and Air NZ but they are great short haul.

We had a couple of hours in Bangkok on the way over and Singapore on the way back.

I've done both- came over when Charlotte was 2 1/2 (then another return flight when she was 3) and did the non stop thing. Then last time we came back (Charlotte was 4 and Kate 9 months) we stopped off for 2 days in Singapore on the way over and 3 days in LA on the way back. They both have their pluses and minuses but I preferred stopping off for a bit. The non stop flight from Auckland to Heathrow is 27-29 hours which is blimmin horrific and a couple of hours stop off is pretty awful in itself, especially if you're going through the US.

We have flown with both Air NZ and Qantas- found them both really good except Qantas 'partner' ariline that flies from US to UK is BA and they are not very good when you have kiddies- the plane we came over on was soooo old. No personal screens and a bouncinette for the baby to sleep in!