Eyeing a redemption to Europe later this year, my options are
28k avios + 8514inr for finair eco
42k avios + 14146inr for finair prem eco
25k aeroplan + 7253inr for LOT polish eco
45k aeroplan + 7253inr for LOT poilsh business
The LOT polish business is the older 787 seats with little privacy. Is it worth it? Which of the three would you go for?
Hey everyone. My wife and I are planning our first ever trip to the US this December and I'd love some honest opinions before we commit to everything. We'll have our daughter with us who turns 1 on December 5th, so she'll be about 13 months when we travel. We've spent a fair bit of time planning this so I'm not looking for someone to redo the whole thing, just gut-checks on a few specific concerns.
tl;dr: First US trip, Dec 2026, couple + 13 month old. SFO 3 nights, Hawaii cruise 7 nights, NYC 5 nights + NYE. Too much? Anything obviously wrong with this?
The plan (Dec 16 to Jan 2, roughly 17 days):
San Francisco for 3 nights (Dec 16-19) Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Woods, Fisherman's Wharf, cable cars, that sort of thing.
Then fly to Honolulu and board the NCL Pride of America for a 7-night Hawaii inter-island cruise (Dec 19-26). Maui gets two full days, then Big Island Hilo, Big Island Kona, and Kauai gets two days.
Disembark in Honolulu on Dec 26, fly straight to NYC (about 10 hours), and spend 5 nights there. Goal is to do the usual NYC bucket list stuff and be there for New Year's Eve. Fly back home on Jan 1 evening.
Would love to get a review of our plan above, and these five things I genuinely want opinions on:
The HNL to JFK flight is 10 hours and crosses 6 time zones going east. We'd be doing that the same day we get off a 7-night cruise. Then 5 days of sightseeing in December cold before a 14-hour flight home. Part of me thinks this is totally doable and we'd regret skipping NYC. Another part thinks we'd be wrecked by that point especially with a baby. Would you keep NYC or drop it and fly home from Honolulu?
She's never done international travel. The outbound flight is about 15.5 hours. There's a big time zone jump on arrival. Then cruise life for a week, then NYC in what will probably be 3-5 degree weather. We've done short domestic trips with her and she handles new environments reasonably well but this is obviously a different scale. Anyone done something similar with a baby around this age? What caught you off guard?
We're already doing Hawaii Volcanoes NP on the Big Island and Muir Woods near SF. Is Yosemite realistic as a day trip from San Francisco with only 3 days there? (My gut says no.) Anything near NYC in late December worth driving to? Open to suggestions but also fine to skip if December just isn't the right time.
Road to Hana on Maui is already in the plan. We're doing a day trip to Muir Woods from SF. Is a quick morning in Napa Valley realistic before catching an afternoon flight to Honolulu? And are there any good drives from NYC in late December if we rented a car for a day?
We both have jobs to get back to after the trip, and a parent-toddler program we're signing up for so we need to be home by Jan 2-3 at the latest. The mid-December to early January window is really the one slot that works. Not looking to extend, just want to make sure what we have fits cleanly. That said, I do sense this is probably peak travel season with year-end holidays and I'm wondering if that's a real problem - crowds, prices, availability. If that's a significant concern worth taking seriously, I could potentially shuffle the dates a bit, so curious if anyone has a strong view on that.
Happy to share more details if helpful. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Really grateful for all the responses, this is exactly the kind of honest feedback I was hoping for. The consensus is pretty clear and we've made a significant change to the plan.
We're dropping New York City entirely. In hindsight the HNL→JFK flight after a week on a cruise with a 13-month-old was always going to be rough, and several people made the packing-three-wardrobes point that I genuinely hadn't considered. NYC in December with a baby also just doesn't make much sense — she won't remember it and we'd spend half the time managing logistics in the cold.
Revised ending: after the cruise we fly Honolulu→San Diego (5.5hrs, much gentler), spend 2 nights there (San Diego Zoo is apparently incredible for this age), then drive the Pacific Coast Highway up to LA for 3 nights, with NYE in Los Angeles instead. Warm weather the whole way through, one less climate to pack for, and we actually get the road trip we wanted.