Traveling to Islands from Midwest

[hehateme]

Hi:

We are planning a trip to Caribbean islands in either November or December of this year.
DS1 will be nearly 4.5 and DS2 will be 2 years old at that time.
After a lot of research we narrowed down our choices to:
Cap Maison, British Virgin Island
Scrubs Resort, St. Lucia

We chose these places based on facilities they offered for families.
When I began looking for flights It was clear to me that is tough to find convenient flights to these islands from MN. We ruled out Scrubs Resort because the best flight was taking 13-14 hours and 2 stops.
Even Cap Maison in BVI requires a 5:30 am flight.
Catching a 5:30 flight with 2 young kids seems very tough.
The flights are also expensive $4300 for 4 of us. I have searched everywhere and tried to see if I can fly to a city, spend the night and take the morning flight but even that adds to the expense and does not help with convenience.

Let us know if you have any suggestions for us. I want to find another sunny island destination in November/December that is not as hard to travel to from MN.

Thanks

[Katigre]

My family did Caribbean vacations growing up and we always did the early morning flights. If you're all packed and explain it as an adventure its not so bad. And it is really nice to get to your destination with enough time to swim and see the beach.

Is say just such it up and do it - it will be ok.

Sent from my Android phone using Swype

[westwoodmom04]

What about Puerto Rico or Jamaica or the Bahamas? They typically have a number of direct flights from the EC to those islands so you should be able to do it in two flights. Each of those islands has family-friendly resorts. The smaller islands are much harder to get to.

[cuca_]

My family did Caribbean vacations growing up and we always did the early morning flights. If you're all packed and explain it as an adventure its not so bad. And it is really nice to get to your destination with enough time to swim and see the beach.

Is say just such it up and do it - it will be ok.

Sent from my Android phone using Swype

We travel to the Caribbean often from the midwest, and we usually take very early flights. Even when we lived in the East Coast and had direct flights, we travelled early. My kids totally see it as an adventure. In fact, the few time when we have not taken early flights, my kids have been disappointed. I also find that with earlier flights there are usually fewer delays to deal with.

As westwoodmom said, I would look into the bigger islands. Other than the ones she mentioned, you can check Dominican Republic, Antigua, St. Marteen. The bigger islands usually have direct flights from the US, so you are more likely to only need one connecting flight.