Best layovers for cabin crew who run, swim or train: the hotel gyms that are good, running routes by city, the pools and the layovers where the body wins
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#1 LATAM Santiago, ultra long haul fatigue is my speciality, and the fatigue threads on the health board say move on the layover and the layover threads here say where to eat. The crew who train on the layover have the routes and the gyms in their heads and nobody has collected them. Here is the collection, from the crew on this forum who run, swim and lift on the road.
The hotel gyms that are actually good
The crew hotels vary from the cupboard with a broken treadmill to the full floor with the pool, and the crew who train know which is which. From the threads and the messages: the Sydney and Melbourne crew hotels generally have real gyms and pools; the US downtown hotels have a gym floor more often than not; the European city hotels are the weakest for gyms (the old buildings) and the best for running outside; the Asian hotels (Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong) have the pools and the gyms at the better crew hotels; the Gulf hotels on the layovers have the pools. The crew who lift find the city gym with a day pass more often than they find a good hotel gym, and the day pass is the layover allowance well spent.
The running routes by city
Sydney: the Botanic Gardens and the harbour loop from the Opera House to Mrs Macquarie's Chair, flat and safe at any hour. Melbourne: the Tan around the Botanic Gardens, the crew's standard. London: the Thames path from the hotel in either direction, or Hyde Park if the hotel is west. New York: Central Park loop, obviously, or the Hudson River path. Madrid: the Retiro and the Madrid Río. Lisbon: the riverfront from Cais do Sodré to Belém, flat and long. Santiago: the Parque Bicentenario and the Cerro San Cristóbal for the climb. Singapore: Marina Bay loop at dawn before the heat. Tokyo: the Imperial Palace loop, five kilometres, the city's running track. Cape Town: the Sea Point promenade. Dubai: the Kite Beach running track at dawn. The crew who run collect these the way Zoe collects cafes.
The pools
The layover swim is the fatigue cure the body likes best, in my experience and in the health board's threads: the water, the cold or the warm, the twenty minutes. The crew hotels with real pools (the Asian and Australian ones, some of the US ones) are the ones the swimmers bid for. The city lidos and the public pools in Europe (the London lidos, the Berlin pools, the Paris piscines) take a day visitor and the crew who know them go.
The layovers where the body wins
The 24 hour layover arriving in the morning at a city with a running route from the hotel door: the run, the shower, the breakfast, the sleep, the evening walk, the report rested. The 48 hour in a city with a pool and a gym: the full training day in the middle. The one night in a European city with the Thames or the Retiro or the riverfront: the morning run before the report. The layovers where the body loses are the ones where the hotel is on a motorway with a cupboard gym and the crew sleep and eat and sleep. The bidding crew who train bid for the first kind.
The rules the training crew follow
The run after the sleep, not instead of it, on the ultra long haul (the fatigue threads are clear). The hydration before. The route in daylight and on the safety page Zoe just wrote. The kit packed small (the shoes are the heavy thing and they are worth the space). The gym day pass budgeted from the allowance. And the honest rest day when the body says so, because the training layover is for the body and the body decides.
For the crew who want to start
Shoes in the bag. The route for the next city found before the flight. The run after the sleep. The pool when there is one. And the collection built over the years, which is the layover notebook's healthiest page.
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#2 Japanese carrier, 787, here for the health threads, and the Imperial Palace loop being the city's running track is exactly right and the crew who run it at 6am meet half of Tokyo doing the same. The run after the sleep and not instead of it is the fatigue rule and Rafael has it. A health thread on the layover board, which is where it should be.
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#3 Qantas Melbourne, and the Tan being the crew's standard is true and the Dallas layover is the hotel gym floor and the Texas heat, so the gym. The layovers where the body wins being the ones with the route from the hotel door is the bidding logic of every training crew member I know. Good collection.
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#4 LATAM Santiago, and the Cerro San Cristóbal climb is the Santiago layover's gift and the Sydney harbour loop is the other end of our network's. Rafael has collected what the training crew carry in their heads and the swimmers should add the Sydney pools to the pool paragraph: the ocean pools at Bondi and Bronte are the best layover swim anywhere.
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#5 Qantas Perth, the London direct, and the Thames path from the hotel in either direction is the London run and the lidos are the London swim, as Rafael says, and the ultra long haul body after seventeen hours needs the sleep first and the run second. The order matters. Rafael's rules are right.
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#6 Norwegian, fatigue reporting advocate, and the layover swim being the fatigue cure the body likes best is my experience too and the health board should link this thread. The honest rest day when the body says so is the rule the training crew forget. Rafael has included it, which is why the thread is right.
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#7 Qantas Sydney, A380 upper deck, and the Singapore Marina Bay loop at dawn before the heat is the Singapore layover's only running window and the crew who miss it run on the treadmill. The collection is the collection. Adding: the London lidos take a day visitor and the Tooting one is the crew's secret.
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#8 @victorsantiago the Bondi and Bronte ocean pools are added to the page and they are the best layover swim anywhere, agreed. @jessicasyd the Tooting lido is the kind of secret this thread exists to collect.