Holiday to Hawaii in Nov 2026: Day 2 – New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX)

Deboarding off our Heathrow flight was relatively quick via door 2L as normal. As we walked through the rabbit warren of corridors there was a horrendous wail coming from a security door which was locked.

I assume one the passengers ahead of us had tried to open the door and the alarm had been triggered.

Once through, Global Entry was a breeze as normal, other than being slightly baffled by an unexpected question about which visa waiver we were travelling under.

Up to Tsa Pre-Check, which was empty, and we were soon at the Chelsea Lounge check in desk. There was some debate as to under what criteria we would be allowed into Chelsea, but after scanning my inbound First Class boarding pass, we were in. I had thought the fact that I was GGL was enough now.

Vick had started to flag a little, so we walked out to Starbucks to get a caffeine top up. That helped and then a minor snooze in the lounge perked her up further.

We had some food in the Soho Lounge. Cauliflower cheese as a starter was much appreciated.

Vick then had a salad and I had a lamb kofta, both with salty fries. Our recovery was complete.

Our next flight was scheduled to leave from Gate 39, which was located on the far concourse.

We headed down about an hour before we were due to depart. It was a decent walk, but we got there a lot faster than expected, so we had a bit of a wait.

Whilst there, we passenger watched as the usual suspects loitered around the priority boarding queue, which obviously included us!

There were the CKs and the ones in First. Some of them travel with their lap dogs. Then there were those in business that wanted to secure overhead storage.

There were a lot of CKs, a few in First Class, then we managed to be next in line.

We secured the storage space over our seats, but we also had to use the space above another row. The passengers weren’t too concerned when they got on board.

Into seats 06D and 06F and we had the normal AA push to get away ahead of schedule. We pushed back 10 mins early and we were on the runway about 10 mins later.

Not longer after taking off, the captain welcomed us on board and advised he was expecting to get us to LAX about an hour early. That would go down very well.

We both dozed initially, but we had decided we would eat on this flight to avoid waking up hungry.

The fish starter was ejected from our trays before they reached our laps.

The salad was fine and my pasta was pretty decent. But the best part of the meal was the ice cream sundae at the end. It’s a tradition on these AA flights and we very much look forward to them!

We both grabbed some sleep after eating.

After a slightly bumpy landing, we taxied to Gate 46B at T4. As with all AA flights, they were quick to attach the air bridge and we were following the First Class passengers off the aircraft and into the new part of the terminal.

When we got outside, it was a lovely temperature for the half a mile walk to get to the edge of the airport along World Way, and a further half a mile walk to the H Hotel.

Although I need to highlight that this was a lot closer than the original hotel that I had booked.

The H Hotel was very nice; we had a corner room and the bed was very comfy. It was unclear as to how much sleep we might be able to force ourselves to stay in bed for.

Our final outward flight tomorrow was due to leave just after 9am, so we would have to be up at a reasonable time.