laura

We are leaving Chicago at 3:30pm and arriving in Rome at 8:00am. Should we try to get in our hotel and sleep or explore and nap later or tough it out and stay up till bed time? Which seems to help the jet lag go smoother(faster)? Assume we sleep very little on the plane. We have two 14 year olds and one 12,if that matters. If we stay up what would be a good activity<BR>Laura

monique

Laura,<BR><BR>Good luck with your flight. Are you connecting or is it direct? We had a delay and missed our connection so instead of arriving at 8am we arrived at 1pm. However, we stayed up until that night without any problems. Since we were routed through Venice we did not have to go through customs in Rome. I was told that it would take at least an hour. Is your hotel in town close to the attractions? We stayed at the Hotel Isa on the Vatican side of the river. Walked everywhere in the city though. That first day we went to the Castl de Angelo and St. Peters before finding a small place for dinner near our hotel. Please email if I can answer any questions.

Jo

Laura,<BR><BR>Check with your hotel - sometimes they'll let you leave luggage, but not get into your room until midday or 1pm. I think its best to stay up and try to acclimatise, so to speak, as soon as possible, otherwise you'll be out of kilter.

Red

IMO, if you sleep very little on the plane you will be wiped out when you land. If you can check into your hotel that early, take a nap. Set your alarm for noon, and then get up, have some lunch, and explore. Do your very best to stay up until bedtime.<BR><BR>If you can't check into your hotel that early, I suggest you do your very best to sleep on the plane. Leave your luggage at the desk and go exploring. Take a nap before dinner or just go to bed early on the first night.

maria

Everytime I arrive in Europe before 9-10 am, I try to take a nap when I get to my hotel, for no more than 2-3 hrs. Then I take a shower and I'm ready to enjoy the rest of the day and evening. I'm always ready to fall asleep that night( although not very early!).

Alice Twain

The only way, more or less, to be able to check in at an Italian hotel at 8am is to book the room for the day previous to your arrival and making it very clear with the manager that you will not be there until the eraly morning of the next day but you want the hotel room to be empty and ready for you. When you rent a hotel room in italy, your stay is inteded to be since 1 pm until 11 am of the next day, so at 8am the previous occupant will probably still be in bed, unless you hav already reserved the room for the previous day. But be also aware that in several cases, hotel managers rent a booked room in the evening if the people who booked it didn't show up, unless you explain that you will be there at a certain hour (in this case you might be required to pay the room or part of its price in advance).

Jim

Bet you are on American #110, wife and I did that early June. Hope you have a better plane than we did. Cramped seating and lousy electronics. Overhead lights would not turn off, and the audio was stuck on the Italian track of the movie no matter what channel you changed it to. Return flight #111 was totally different. Anyway...We arrived at our accomodations around 10AM, very close to the Coloseum. Took extra time driving to the hotel because we arrived on June 2nd, during the Anniversary of the Republic parade. We got lucky and the room was ready so we dropped off our bags, got our walking-around materials and headed off. We watched the parade for a couple of hours, it was great. Hit some churches in the ancient Rome area, little or no people in any of them. After the parade we caught a quick lunch and did the Coloseum and Forum. By that time we were starting to get a little tired, so we wandered back to the hotel, got an early dinner (early for Italy) and went to bed around 8:30 PM. My suggestion is to set your watch for Rome time as soon as you leave Chicago and keep thinking of that time and not the time where you're from. Get as much "unaided" sleep as you can on the plane. Take earplugs, masks and neck pillows. Get out as soon as you get settled and try to go for as long as you can. This system always seems to work for me on several trips to Europe.

Leslie

There have been lots of threads on dealing with jet lag so I won't add much except that the consensus seems to be to get sunshine and walk your first day, avoid indoor activities such as museums and then go to be early, as the above poster suggests.<BR><BR>As far as things to do at night, the Fontana di Trevi is just lovely at night. Something to be seen again in daylight. But, much depends on where you are staying. I'd just walk to the sights in that area. <BR><BR>You'll find that most restaurants don't begin serving dinner till about 7:30 or 8:00 pm which was always a problem for our kids. You might want to let your's have some late afternoon gelato (we loved Giolitti's a block or so north of the Pantheon), then have dinner near the Fontana di Trevi, and then off to bed. Have a wonderful trip. I'll be surprised if your kids don't LOVE Rome!

cindy

Hey Monique--We did the exact same thing as you..Stayed at the Hotel Isa, dropped our luggage off in the morning, then toured the Castel Sant Angelo and a bit of St. Peter's before going back to our hotel for a brief rest in the afternoon. Then we went to a local restaurant (the Pizza 8 I think it was called--fantastic caprese) before collapsing in bed by 9:30! The next morning we were fine. I would recommend not sleeping right away--you probably won't be able to get in your hotel room anyway. Drop off your luggage and go out! Back to the hotel after lunch for a brief nap before dinner.

carol

Unlikely that you can get into your hotel before 10 or 11 am. Leave your luggage at the hotel desk, walk around, get used to the area, and when you can get back into your room, have a 1-2 hour nap, then try to stay up to the time you usually would back home, in the new time zone.