Holiday to Hawaii in Nov 2026: Day 3 – Los Angeles (LAX) to Lihue (LIH)

After being told off for forcing my beloved to walk too far with a heavy suitcase, we had a mixed night’s sleep at the H Hotel at Los Angeles airport.

I don’t sleep that much anyway. Vick needs her sleep. Jet lag doesn’t help, but we both seemed in good spirits when we finally got up at just after 4am. Perhaps the thought of reaching Hawaii made us smile.

We caught the shuttle bus back to the airport. Typically, we just missed one when we arrived into the foyer of the hotel, so we had to wait 15 mins for the next one. It was lovely and fresh at 5am in Los Angeles, so that made the wait almost acceptable.

The shuttle also stopped off at another hotel and by the time we were on our way, the bus was packed. Consequently, we stopped off at a few airline terminals dropping off passengers before reaching T4 and American Airlines.

It was pretty busy at 5:30am but T4 was starting to look quite nice after all of the renovations, but there was still a lot of work going on.

I noticed that SkyLink was in its final stages of testing after (it must be) 10 years of work. SkyLink will link up three terminal stops to the rental car centre, car parking and the new Transit Hub, which will link the LA Metro up to the airport. A much needed addition to LA travel capabilities.

We headed up to TSA Pre-Check and it was pretty clear. The only queue was in getting our cases onto the conveyor belt to go through the scanner.

Once through security, in was only a short walk to the AA Flagship Lounge and we secured my favourite seats. After dumping our stuff, we immediately headed across the corridor to join the queue at Starbucks.

Here I received my first birthday present. When we ordered our favourite drinks, the server wished me a happy birthday and gave me my drink for free! A saving of $14.

We were both desperate for caffeine and our coffees really hit the spot as we settled in our seats in the lounge.

It wasn’t long before we started thinking about food, and we sampled the breakfast offerings, which were really good (as always for the AA Flagship Lounge).

I went for an all terminals walk, but I had forgotten that the walkway between T4 and T5-T7 was no more.

I couldn’t be bothered with the bus connection, so it was a very short all terminals walk! Whilst travelling, I take any opportunity to stretch my legs.

We headed down to Gate 48A about an hour before the scheduled departure time. You have to be on it for these flights.

Passengers can be keen to get on board, like us, so getting the right starting position in the priority boarding lane is critical!

We got it just right. We were first on and grabbed our overhead locker space and settled into seats 01D and 01F.

That was the main stress dealt with for the day.

After taking off heading west over the Pacific Ocean, we enjoyed clear views of the west coast. The flight was going to take not far off 6 hours, which felt an age.

Vick read most of the way. I started watching Up in the Air again with Mr Clooney, but gave up on that after about 15 mins when I realised I knew all of the actors’ lines.

Drinks were served shortly after take off and then breakfast came along. But it was all over far too quickly.

We both opted for the cheese omelette over the charcuterie plate. It was ok. It came with heavily seasoned wedges, which were not to Vick’s taste.

The rest of flight dragged on a bit. We both tried to sleep but we couldn’t get comfy in the non-lie-flat seat.

There were short periods of turbulence on the way over the Pacific Ocean, which is not unusual for this route.

We grabbed a view of Honolulu airport as we passed overhead. See you in a few days time!

We were relieved when we finally touched down at Lihue airport. After a short taxi we arrived into Gate 10.

Hawaii braced itself for the arrival of the Billinghams!