Anonymous wrote:We’ve had great luck taking a 6 yo to Hawaii. Your DC will love it.
We have two kids, and we’ve gone a few times. I recommend taking the nonstop from Dulles to Honolulu, then Hawaiian if you’re going on to a different island. The direct from Dulles flight is pretty nice, and I am not generally a fan of UAL (but i am for this flight).
On the way back we budget time and money so that we can stop in California for one or more nights. So we try to fly Hawaii to LAX or SFO during the day - not a red eye. Then we stay overnight in CA, flying out the next morning. It’s definitely a more long, drawn out way to come home, but I don’t sleep on planes and neither do my young kids. Lots of people do the red eye with kids just fine - I’m just weird about sleep and jet lag, and it’s definitely worse going East.
Unfortunately the one nonstop is nearly 2x the cost of the connecting.