The best flights from London to Tampa

Make the most of your trip to Tampa by feeling more awake. Flights that depart London between noon and 3pm make it easier to adjust to the local timezone on the day you land - "day 1 jetlag".

To defy jetlag, you need to try to avoid stretching your travel day out too long. But, the hours in a long haul travel day add up quickly:

• Flights from London to Tampa are typically about 9 hours long.

• Add 2-3 hours in airports

• Add 2-3 hours getting to and from each airport

Your total door-to-door travel time becomes near the peak of your typical endurance. Most adults are awake for about 16-17 hours in a 24-hour period. An inflight nap will help, but picking better timed flights will make the most difference.

Flights that depart before noon will depart in the middle of the night in Tampa. Most people will be asleep there, but you will have been up for hours, getting to the airport, checking in, then taking off. Stretching out your day like this creates the perfect conditions for awful day 1 jetlag.

It's helpful to think of the earlier flights as "overnight" flights, instead of daylight flights. If you do have to take these earlier flights, plan to sleep deeply, avoid caffeine before you board, then "restart your day" with your pre-arrival meal service. It helps to plan to be active and outside when you land too, and avoid going to bed too early so you sleep through to the following morning.

Flights that depart after 3pm will land into Tampa in the middle of the night London time. Your body clock will be craving sleep, but you'll have to deal with immigration, collecting bags, and then getting to wherever you're staying first.

Treat these later flights as a long and lazy evening. Try to avoid sleeping deeply onboard, and aim for a place to stay near the airport. A good nights sleep in a real bed will help reset your body clock and minimise your day 2 jetlag.

Virgin's oldest Upper Class cabin divides fans. The design was first offered in 2003. You'll have the same onboard service, but the seat design is much narrower, angled towards the aisle with less privacy and little storage compared to modern configurations. Window gazers will find it frustrating trying to look out at a narrow angle while facing towards the middle of the cabin.

All the seats have aisle access, and these beds benefit from no obstruction to your feet so they're good for sleeping. These are also the only remaining aircraft with the onboard bar. The A330-300s will be out of the fleet by 2028, and the last 787-9 will be reconfigured by 2030.

Until then, you may get more for your money by booking an alternative cabin - either another Virgin flight, or an alternative airline with a more modern business class configuration.