My fear

[Spookie2018]

Every year, I buy plane tickets to Orlando in order to avoid a 16 hour drive. Every year, as my trip date draws closer, I talk myself out of flying, and into driving. It's not the fear of flying. It's the fear of getting sick (cold/flu), having been on a plane, sitting by strangers, during flu season (October) who may or may not be sick. If I don't use the tickets I purchased this year, I'll have thrown away $1100 in airfare over the last two years, so I ask to those of you that fly to Orlando, how often are you getting sick after flying???

 

[cosmicgirl]

Never.

If I get sick it's after being there for a week and constantly going from the heat to ice cold A/C, especially on the buses when they're not full. Another reason why I'm going to love the gondolas!

I've never been sick when flying anywhere else but I always get a cold in FL so it's a FL thing, not a plane thing.

 

[yensid67]

If you are worried about getting sick on a plane...think about taking the Amtrak. You can rent a roomette and have a room to yourselves with a nice dose of Disinfectant Spray! It take the same amount of time(for me from PA to FL) and the costs were OK. Leave the driving to someone else, get a good night sleep and rent a car? once there

 

[Janir]

Generally don't get sick from airplane travel, but I can understand the worry. Bring hand sanitizer and a bunch of baby wipe cleaners and even some Clorox wipes. Wipe down anything that you will touch in your seats with clorox wipes, use the hand sanitizer like crazy on your hands and wipe your face every so often with the baby wipe cleaners. If you can sand it, avoid any eating/ drinking while on the plane but make sure your tray and your hands are super clean if you do. Unless you are sitting right next to typhoid Mary herself, you can probably avoid any illness.

 

[JIMINYCR]

We never gotten sick in all our years of flying to WDW or anyplace else. I have however come home from WDW with a cold or something I picked up in the parks. If flying and being concerned about being closed in around strangers how about picking up a disposable surgical mask ( you can get them at a Walgreens or CVS etc. ) and wear it during your flight. Ive seen many people wearing them that are going through chemo or other treatments whose immune system is compromised, so you wont stand out as being odd.

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

I have flown 6 times this year without getting sick after. I am also immunosuppressed so I am more likely than others to get sick.

Here are some unsolicited tips:

• Hand sanitizer. It’s your friend
• Buy a travel pack of Clorox wipes and wipe down your seat tray table and anything else you touch on the plane.
• Consider wearing a face mask. I recommend these:
  
• I also tend to sit in the window or middle seat if possible to minimize the number of people that I get exposed to.
• I highly recommend being as well rested and healthy pre-trip as possible.

Hope these tips make you feel a little better about flying.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Get a flu shot. There’s plenty of sick and disgusting people walking round Walt Disney World and the miscellaneous places you stop along the highway.

 

[Dave B]

Never had this happen

 

[DisneyDoctor]

I mean this in the most sincere sense, you should talk to a psychologist about this. Contracting a sickness from a flight is possible and a rational fear. Wasting over $1000 due to that fear is irrational and shows signs of compulsive behavior.

 

[Minthorne]

Just get one of these

 

[Heppenheimer]

Here are some unsolicited tips:

• Hand sanitizer. It’s your friend
• Buy a travel pack of Clorox wipes and wipe down your seat tray table and anything else you touch on the plane.
• Consider wearing a face mask. I recommend these: View attachment 381135
• I also tend to sit in the window or middle seat if possible to minimize the number of people that I get exposed to.
• I highly recommend being as well rested and healthy pre-trip as possible.

Hope these tips make you feel a little better about flying.
[/QUOTE]
Those masks are designed to prevent you from infecting others, not the other way around. The only portable mask clinically proven to prevent respiratory infections is a properly fitted M95 respirator, and this would be extremely uncomfortable to wear for the duration of a flight.

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

Here are some unsolicited tips:

• Hand sanitizer. It’s your friend
• Buy a travel pack of Clorox wipes and wipe down your seat tray table and anything else you touch on the plane.
• Consider wearing a face mask. I recommend these: View attachment 381135
• I also tend to sit in the window or middle seat if possible to minimize the number of people that I get exposed to.
• I highly recommend being as well rested and healthy pre-trip as possible.

Hope these tips make you feel a little better about flying.

Those masks are designed to prevent you from infecting others, not the other way around. The only portable mask clinically proven to prevent respiratory infections is a properly fitted M95 respirator, and this would be extremely uncomfortable to wear for the duration of a flight.
[/QUOTE]

I agree that an N95 mask would certainly be more effective but very uncomfortable/impractical.

The masks I suggested are not perfect better than nothing at keeping stranger’s fluids from your nose and mouth.

 

[Bartledvd]

If getting sick from flying was really such a giant issue then how can all the pilots and cabin crew survive and unless you have a strange habit of sticking your fingers in your mouth then washing them before a meal or after using the bathroom is sufficient. I would be far more worried about all the chemicals you are handling or rubbing all over yourself.

 

[eliza61nyc]

Never and I do 8-10 hr flights to Europe. I second what every one else said about hand sanitizer and washing.

I also take a vitamin C 500 mg daily.

 

[DisneyDoctor]

Never and I do 8-10 hr flights to Europe. I second what every one else said about hand sanitizer and washing.

I also take a vitamin C 500 mg daily.

Mythbusters: Does Vitamin C Really Help? – Yale Scientific Magazine

Many people believe that vitamin C can prevent and treat the common cold. To the contrary, scientific evidence suggests that vitamin C does not in fact make a difference.

www.yalescientific.org

 

[Spookie2018]

Thanks for all the great replies & suggestions. To me, getting sick, shortly after getting off a plane, seemed a forgone conclusion. Reading your responses helped me realize that, after all this time, I may have been wrong.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

Never gotten sick from flying. OF flying, on the other hand...

 

[danyoung56]

I don't get sick on the flight to Orlando. But after a few days of navigating the parks, touching railings that rugrats have licked all over, etc., I usually have a post-WDW cold.

 

[James J]

I've flown back and forth over the Atlantic plenty of times over the last few years and haven't ever gotten sick. I have at WDW though, annoyingly!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Why in the world would you continue to purchase airline tickets????

Clearly driving isn't too bad of an option for you if you continue to waste money on flights and then drive anyways so honestly I'd suggest that you just drive and stop wasting your money.

But really your fear is more of a phobia to think that just because you flew you'd get sick.

If you think logically going to Disney in general is sooooo much more likely to cause illness than flying there.

Are YOU getting a flu shot? As long as you are and getting it at least 2 weeks prior to flying then you're decently protected.
Also take some Airborne for a couple days straight prior to flying.

But really you're in the plane for what 2.5 hours with like 150 people vs being at Disney for days with people from all over the world.
Where is the more likely place to contract an illness?