7:00am flight...do you sleep?

So we are going to Vegas in May and we booked flights through Alliegant.
We will be flying out of Grand Forks and then driving 2.5 hours back to Manitoba Canada.

With a flight leaving at 7:00am on a Monday. What time do I have to leave Ballys from?

Do we write off Sunday night and get to bed early?

Do we stay up all night?

Take a nap Sunday afternoon and the stay up all night?

We have never left that early in the morning to go back home.

 

All morning flights to or from my destination, I almost NEVER go to sleep.

The only time I do is when I get no sleep (nap) the day before.

I can sleep on the plane.

 

Leaving Bally's between 5 and 6 should be fine. There shouldn't be much traffic on the road and the trip should take about 15-20 minutes by taxi. There probably won't be much of a line at security, but you never know.

Whether you stay up all night or get a short rest really depends on your habits in the rest of your life, but I mostly take early flights out of town and I go to sleep early the night before.

 

In December, I had a Southwest flight that left Vegas at 6am. They started boarding the flight a 0530am. The shuttle picked me up at 0310am. I was at the airport at 0330am. Southwest's check in counter does not open until 0400am!. I should have taken the 0410am shuttle pick up time.
I prefer the first flight out because there tends to be less hassle. Since I am an early riser, getting up that early is not problem for me. I will get maybe four hours of sleep and I make sure I have a good alarm clock.

It all depends on you. Only you can decide what is best for you. Just remember, you have a 2.5 hour drive back home. I don't know if I would try staying up all night. Plan accordingly.

 

This is my thinking too.

My wife and I, we could do it easily... but thats us and we are normally up until 3-4AM every day already and we live in the same timezone as Las Vegas.

If your normal bed time is 11PM, as an example, and thats back home where its currently 3hrs ahead of the pacific time zone that'd be like you pulling an all nighter and staying up until 10AM just for the flight... when you factor in the flight time and the drive you could end up being up for some 35-40 hours straight if you don't get some sleep in there (I've been up for 40+hrs straight a few times... your mind can get pretty loopy at that time and exhaustion can just set in and hit you like a hammer when it does).


If it were me what I'd do is probably get up early the day before, pack everything up except the final essentials we need that day and the next morning. Then go out have some breakfast, have some fun for a little bit before coming back to the room around 1PM and getting a 1-2hr nap in.

Then since everything should be all ready to go I'd get up from the nap, go out and enjoy the last day and head up to the room around 11:30PM, take a nice hot shower to relax and then go to bed and sleep for as late as I feel comfortable with before going to the airport (you should check what time the ticket window opens at the airport and things like that... no point getting there at 5AM for that traditional 'be there 2-3 hours early' stuff if their ticket agent doesn't open until 6AM and you can't check bags or pick up a boarding pass until then).

After all that I'd still try to sleep on the flight, though usually that doesn't work for me. But once you get to Manitoba if you still feel pretty tired then you could just try grabbing a nap in your car for an hour or something before tackling the drive home.

 

Living on the East coast I always take an early flight home. Otherwise I end up getting home very late at night. I always have a layover so that adds on too. I'm not much of a napper so I must go to bed early and get up early. I always leave a wake up call just to be sure. The trip to the airport is usually very fast, and security is usually fairly fast - but I never count on it. I try to be there 90 mins early so leave the hotel at 5-5:15AM for my 7AM flight.

I will either take a break in them middle of the last day and pack so I can just drop into bed around 9PM or (especially if I'm down a bit of money) will go up about 7PM, order room service for dinner and get the packing done.

I would stay up if I were younger, but now if I don't get enough sleep I get really cold and cranky. Traveling is stressful enough, I'd be afraid for the unlucky person sitting next to me if they run out of blueberry muffins.

 

I dont know what the airport is like in Vegas for Allegiant, but every other airport you need to be there 2 hours before your flight, since the ticket agents for allegiant are also the plane stockers, fuelers, and baggage handlers. They close the ticket counter an hour before the flight, and have read many many horror stories about people arriving at the airport and nobody there to help them...no refunds...no other plane to catch. I will spend extra to fly an airline that has customer service, so just make sure that if you sleep or not, that you are at the airport atleast 2 hours before the flight. I encountered a lady at Grand Island the other day that missed a flight to Mesa on Allegiant, and she was on the phone with Customer service, she was very upset because they would not help her or get her on another flight.

 

Security lines when I flew out last friday were VERY long in Vegas. I had barely got to my gate and they were starting to board. That was the closest I have ever been. This was BEFORE the TSA/Gov't sequester. I can only imagine what it will be like after the sequester takes effect

 

Only you know what works for you and my return flights from Vegas are incredibly short, so I get leave later... but, in thinking about the times when I'm across the country and have a long travel day ahead of me, I HATE screwing it up by pullin' a long night. Doesn't mean I haven't done it (cause I'm not very bright), but I've ALWAYS regretted it.

 

TSA blows that early in the morning and they tend to be disorganized at LAS. You probably need to plan on 30-45 minutes to clear TSA. As for whether or not to sleep, I can't sleep or even rest on planes so sleeping is a no brainer. Plus, by the end of a trip no matter how long I am ready to go. One good dinner the final night and I am generally ready to pack it in.

 

I had a 6:00am flight on 1/2 this year. I went to bed real early and set the alarm for 3:15am, got up, showered, met the limo at 4:15am and probably could have slept a bit more and got a later limo. There was no one in the airport, and luckily I have the A-List on Southwest, so I don't have to wait in the long security line.

If I wasn't going to work right after that flight, I might have stayed up all night, but considering having to work a full 8-hour day after waking up at 3am, it worked out okay for me. I'm doing the same thing on 2 trips in April, getting the 6am flights and going right into work when I arrive back in Salt Lake City. The price difference taking the 6am flights versus the night before was too good to pass up!

 

Sometimes our best plans go to hell in a hand basket. I think it depends on you and how you're feeling. What if you get really loaded Saturday night and spend Sunday with an epic hangover? Can you get by with a nap? Do you sleep OK on planes? Can you function sleep deprived?

 

Yeah, I would check to see if Allegiant is main terminal or terminal 3 in Vegas. Main terminal security lines are horrendous, but I flew in/out of terminal 3 in november and they were pretty decent.

 

For Allegiant, get there early. It takes a while to check in and get through security. I always stay up all night before my early flight. They have a lot of early flights checking in at the same time.

 

What time of day did you leave? I flew out of Vegas last Friday also. I had a 0740am flight and I went though security at about 0600am. It only took about 10 minutes to get through security.

 

Allegiant flies out of the D gates, ticket counter is in the main terminal, and they have a TON of flights that leave out between 6 and 7:30 am, almost their entire fleet it seems.

I've arrived at the airport for a 7 am flight at 4:45 and encountered no line at the sky cap, by 5 am I've seen huge lines at the sky cap and the ticket counter lines were a zoo. (I've found the sky caps tend to overlook a heavy bag, etc).

TSA at that time seems to have long lines, but they move pretty fast. I've always thought the bottle neck was more at flight check in. Getting there just before 5am tends to get us to the gate area in about 45 minutes.

 

Around 2:30 I was in line. I have flown out at various times and main terminal has always been a bit of a mess.

 

What is a 'sky cap'?

 

What sequester?

 

Where do you like to go for your last dinner?