First Trip To Aulani!

[bazbirjis]

Do you mean spending a night or two in California, or just a layover for a few hours?

Hawaiian and Delta do nonstop flights from JFK, and those would be my preferred options. They use larger, long haul planes, which are more comfortable than using two 737s or 757s IMO.

I wouldn't stop in San Francisco or LA just to stop, only if you had something specific the whole family wanted to do. You could do 2-3 nights in Disneyland, but that would add substantial cost to the trip and might not be doable.

If the length of the flight is a concern for your parents, I might recommend doing around a 4-hour layover and eating lunch at the airport. That way they'll have the chance to walk around and be well-fed before the second leg. But if you do this, you'll almost definitely be in narrow-body planes for both legs, which goes back to doing the nonstop flight.

Thank you so much! I appreciate all the insightful feedback which is tremendously helpful in planning our trip. We have our mom with us, plus 3 boys under 11 years old. We are trying to split the journey since we have never visited northern Cali. I understand your POV of how the smaller body planes will impact. I do prefer the Spaceos Aircraft for sure. We were also thinking of splitting the trips into roundtrips from EWR-SFO and HNL-SFO. We have to decide by the end of this week as we are so close to our dates. I have already booked the Aulani from 24th Aug- Sep 2nd plus we have an SFO trip to add to it.

 

[jimmymc]

Thank you so much! I appreciate all the insightful feedback which is tremendously helpful in planning our trip. We have our mom with us, plus 3 boys under 11 years old. We are trying to split the journey since we have never visited northern Cali. I understand your POV of how the smaller body planes will impact. I do prefer the Spaceos Aircraft for sure. We were also thinking of splitting the trips into roundtrips from EWR-SFO and HNL-SFO. We have to decide by the end of this week as we are so close to our dates. I have already booked the Aulani from 24th Aug- Sep 2nd plus we have an SFO trip to add to it.

There's definitely plenty to do in 2-3 days in northern Cali, so I think that's a great way to extend the trip. If it were me, I would still do nonstop from Hawaii to NYC on the way back, since you'll probably need to do an overnight flight anyway even if you break it up, and that way people might sleep for longer. Or you could also do a hotel, but I think at that point I wouldn't want to stop just to stop.