thinking of booking a trip - san diego, ca

i am not sure where to post this.

we were thinking of booking our first family trip next february. twins will be 4.5 and baby 2. we would fly from NY - san diego....anyone ever been? is this ok as far as length of the flight goes with three LO's at this age? if you've been there, can you share your hotel/itineraries, etc?

thanks so much!

 

We have done three long trips with the girls. Hawaii-China when they were 9 months, Hawaii-Australia when they were almost 2, and Hawaii-Toronto when they were 5. Plus several shorter trips in between. What has worked best for us are
(1) night flights with as few layovers as possible or
(2) layovers every 4-5 hours if we have to take a day flight

They are more likely to sleep during a night flight. On a day flight you can make it through 4-5 hours with snacks, electronics, books and small toys, then they can run around during the layover.

Flying when they were almost 2 was probably the most difficult. They were in full gross motor mode wanting to run all over the place. Coloring, crafts etc did not hold their attention for long and, while they could spend hours with books they were still in the picture book stage which meant lugging around a lot of them. We didn't have iPads or a portable DVD player (they didn't watch TV/movies anyway) but that might be a good diversion if you have them.

4-5 years was a lot easier because they understood what was happening and even it upon themselves to be in charge of our luggage and carry ons. They couldn't read much yet but were happy to listen to me reading chapter books and they would sit for a while to do crafts or drawing.