A cruise around Europe might seem like the perfect way to see the world, but when you’re flying across the Atlantic, it’s important that you start the trip on the right foot.

I flew from my home in Florida to London to join a cruise on Anthem of the Seas departing from Southampton. It’s a new itinerary with many firsts for me.

The problem is fighting jet lag before it hits so you don’t sleep through half the cruise while you adjust to local time.

Before my trip, I read the same advice over and over again: don’t go to sleep until it’s bedtime so you can get used to the local time.

This is a good strategy, but you have to consider when you arrive in Europe and how feasible it is to stay awake.

Flight times are important

I thought I had hit the jackpot with my direct flight between Orlando and London, as international flights and taking connecting flights seem to be a recipe for disaster.

What I hadn’t considered was when I would arrive in London and how difficult it would be to follow all the advice.

My flight left Florida at 5:30 p.m. (it was actually 6:30 p.m. due to weather and traffic delays), so I arrived in London a few minutes before 7 a.m.

This meant that I had to stay awake for about 36 hours to follow the strategy.

Oh, but Matt, you can sleep on the plane!

While there may be unconfirmed cases of people being able to sleep on airplanes, I am not one of those people. Also, because of the departure time, my brain thought it was too early to sleep, and I didn’t really get sleepy until the last two hours of the flight.

I’m sure some would point to various drug and alcohol cocktails designed to make me sleepy, but I really hate feeling like I’m losing control on an airplane.

Ultimately, the most important thing is the flight time. Ideally, you should book a flight that takes you to Europe in the afternoon or evening, so you only have to stay awake for a few hours.

Ignoring jet lag can cause you to miss too much of the cruise

The longer you delay switching to local time, the more difficult it is to break the cycle of getting up too early and going to bed too early.

Since this is a completely new itinerary for me, visiting the northern coast of Spain and France, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity by oversleeping.

I remember how frustrating it was when traveling, waking up at around 3 or 4 in the morning and then wanting to go to sleep in the afternoon. You feel helpless and the situation quickly gets out of control.

Plan several days before your cruise

Even though I may have chosen the wrong flight, it was a good decision to arrive so early before my cruise departure.

Instead of flying in the day before the cruise as usual, I arrived in London a full two days before my cruise began.

The idea is to give myself more time to acclimatise. Of course it is also good to see the sights around London, but the cruise is what interests me most.

If you have plenty of vacation days, you can even arrive earlier than two days early and wait out the jet lag but still continue working.

Fighting jet lag requires discipline

The experts are right. No matter how hard it is, on the day of arrival you really want to force yourself to stay awake until it’s bedtime in this country.

Unless you’re one of those people who can sleep really well on a plane, you should be prepared to get used to the local time as quickly as possible.

When you’re flying for hours on a cruise, you don’t want to sleep through it all. And you definitely don’t want to feel tired and groggy when you wake up.

Choose a flight that arrives shortly before bedtime to give your body plenty of time to adjust.