We’re back from Hawaii! What we ended up doing was booking a hotel room at Embassy Suites next to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) the day before we left, so we didn’t have to haul her out of bed at 4 in the morning for an 8:30 a.m. flight. We took our time getting to the hotel on Monday afternoon, checked into our suite, Allie was all excited and running around, slept well in the living room of the suite. Then in the morning, we caught the hotel’s complimentary shuttle to the airport, leaving our car in the hotel’s guarded underground parking for the week (at like $16/day). Then when we returned on our 9pm flight, we took the shuttle back to the hotel, where we spent another night, then took our time driving back home the next morning. It worked out well, albeit expensive. I’d do it that way again if we have to fly out of LAX, since the drive itself is almost 2 hours and more if hit rush hour traffic.

The plane ride was 5.5 hours there and 4.5 hours back.

Allie had her own headphones to watch her own in-flight TV in her seat, and the airline movie options were well stocked with Disney movies. She entertained herself and watched TV, dozed off and napped for an hour and a half (waking up precisely every half hour to cry for a bit, whimpering, “Mommy!” but then falling back to sleep within minutes).

After her nap, Allie pigged out on expensive cheese, nuts, crackers and fruit (domestic airlines no longer provide meals), and was just fine when we got to Hawaii. When we landed, she said excitedly, “I’m in HAWAII!”
The kid did better with cabin fever than I thought, although she was definitely eager to get out after we landed. I had to almost chase her down.

I had thought Allie’s unusual crying spells every half an hour was due to her still being under the weather the first couple of days of our vacation, but she did the exact same thing on the flight back. Fell asleep, woke up every half hour crying for me for a few minutes, then went back down, for 3 cycles, or 90 minutes. It may just be disorientation every REM cycle. Other than that, she was great on the flight. Less kicky than she was on the flight to Dallas. This is Allie after we arrived back at LAX. Happy to be back in California!