"Oh, Is Your Family Moving to Japan?"

I was asked this question 3 times by flight attendants on our recent flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo.  Here is Joe's explanation (written by Joe himself!) of why we were "crazy" enough to take our family on vacation halfway around the world.

Back in the spring there was a big fare sale to Singapore on a number of airlines and since Delta was participating, we decided to take the plunge.  Coach round trip tickets from LAX routing through Tokyo Narita both ways were right around $600, which is a very good deal on that route.  We bought three tickets for Mary, Annie and me and took Lizzy as a lap child to save some money on the trip. Once we got to Singapore, we added a separate ticket on AirAsia to Bali, Indonesia.

This was a good deal for anyone looking to head to Singapore, but since the three us of had some level of status with Delta, it made it even better.  Here is how it broke down for me.
Fare was $600 with the following routing:

Route Flight miles
LAX-NRT 5,451
NRT-SIN 3,328
SIN-NRT 3,328
NRT-LAX 5,451

LAX - Los Angeles
NRT - Narita/Tokyo
SIN - Singapore

That is a total of 17,558 miles earned for the trip.  Anyone booking the trip would earn those.  Since I am a Delta Diamond member, I earn an additional 1.25x miles, earning me a total of 39,506 redeemable miles for the trip.  Valued at a penny a mile, that is $395 worth of miles for completing the trip.  If you use them wisely for domestic travel or use them for business class international travel, they are easily worth two cents a mile, for a value around $790.

There is also value to the Medallian Qualifying Miles (MQMs) that were earned.  Part of the reason I booked this was I was not certain I would travel enough to maintain my Diamond status so it is always nice to get a big chunk of those miles on one trip.  In this case, my cost per MQM (cpm) was 3.4, which is pretty good for a trip you would like to go on anyway.  There is a wide range of value placed on these, but 2 cents a piece could be reasonable.  It is worth noting that these only had value for me.  Without going into the details, these had no value at all to Mary and Annie because I gift them status (a benefit of Diamond status) instead of earning it through flying.

As a Gold, you get an additional 1x the miles instead of 1.25x, so Annie and Mary each ended up with 35,116, worth anywhere between $351 and $700.  As long as you have some flexibility for when you redeem the miles, it should be towards the high end of the range.  My general rule is 2.2 cents per mile or otherwise pay cash.

Another (small) perk of Diamond status is that it allows you to book Premium Economy seats at no additional cost for you and everyone on your itinerary.  To be clear, I am still not sure what is premium about them other than that they are immediately behind the business class section.  They are essentially the same seat as coach with a tiny extra amount of recline. They also have a bit of extra leg room.

We booked an aisle and a window seat in one row, in hopes of having the middle aisle seat open, and an aisle seat in the row behind.

So, we kinda sorta flew all the way to Singapore for a buy one, get one deal.  I would like to say "free" but since we parted with the money and only received a trip and miles in return, it really isn't free.  At a minimum, we could use the miles earned to redeem for airfare to Hawaii, so you could look at it as "pay $600 to fly to Singapore, get a free round trip flight to Hawaii."

Parts of the travel were torturous but now that it's over I'm definitely glad we did it. The girls did really well and everyone had a great time. Thanks, Joe, for planning all the travel and explaining it for all of us pea brains to understand!

More posts about the trip coming soon!

Still Dragging Out This Cruise Post

Ok, trying to fly through the rest of this trip so I can at least be caught up for our next one! So sorry for the horribly written, non proofread text. :)

Cruise Day 3, Continued

Playing on the magic interactive floor in the big kid's club

Later in the evening on Tuesday, we all went to check out  the kid's club on the ship. I can't remember what it was called, but it was the club for older kids. They have the Small World Nursery for babies and toddlers 3 and under, a younger kid's club, and an older kid's club. Once a child is 3 you can sign them into the kid's club and leave them there for as long as they want, for FREE!! The Nursery is still a steal at $6/hr for the first child and $5/hr for any additional children. All the clubs are amazing with tons of different activities and the supervision is great.

Before dinner that evening we did the rounds of meeting the characters, then we decided to send Lizzy back to the nursery since she was getting super tired by that point and would definitely not make it through dinner. This was a real life saver, because Annie is a dream to take out to dinner (knock on wood), so it was nice we could have a special evening with just her. That night we ate at Animator's Palate, which has an "animation" theme. Annie especially loved it because there were TVs and Crush the turtle would swim around the walls interacting with diners. My favorite part was the Mickey chairs, super cute!

Dinner at Animator's Palate

Day 4 

On Wednesday it was back to Castaway Cay, and this time Joe and Lizzy were able to join Annie and me on the island. We took the girls swimming in the ocean and they LOVED it. We also played in the splash pad and enjoyed another island BBQ.  

The girls with Chip and Dale on Castaway Cay

After lunch we went back on the ship and the girls took naps and then went to play at the nursery. (It sounds like sent them to the nursery a lot, doesn't it?? They really were not there very often!) While they were in the nursery Joe and I took the opportunity to enjoy a little bit of pool time alone. I even ordered a strawberry daiquiri, watch out! We also rode the Aqua Duck (giant water slide) together, really fun! After picking the girls up, Joe took Annie to one of the live shows while Lizzy and I walked around the shops. We attempted to bring Lizzy to dinner that night since it was our last night, but after 5 minutes of  her screeching, knocking everything in sight off of the table, spilling water and eating several pats of butter, we decided it was in everyone's best interest that we take her back to the nursery, where she promptly fell asleep.

Day 5, Disembarkation

Annie out cold amongst the chaos of trying to get packed up in the morning!

Of course the girls picked the ONE day we had to get up early to be off the ship to sleep in. We had to wake them at 9:30 and high tail it off, I think we were some of the last people to get off the boat.  It was a really easy process, we had placed our big luggage out in the hallway the evening before, so when we got off the ship we went to a baggage claim area to pick it up. One of the luggage attendants helped carry it all the way to our car in the parking garage. We then drove back to WDW and checked into the Grand Floridian, where we got upgraded to a room in one of the concierge buildings. It was a HUGE room with a separate sitting area where we set up the pack n play for Lizzy, and Annie slept in one of the big beds with rails that the hotel provided and set up for us.

Grand Floridian Room

After getting set up in our room we had lunch at the pool and Joe had to fly to Philadelphia to do some interviews. I took the girls back to the room for naps and then we took the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom. This was the point in the trip where I stopped taking pictures and notes so I am not exactly sure what went on, but I know that it was pretty crowded and miserable. After a nice relaxing Cruise with Joe there to help, taking the girls to the Magic Kingdom alone was A LOT of work. I think we only managed to make it on 1 or 2 rides before throwing in the towel.

One of the best things about a concierge room is the lounge where a selection of food and drinks were provided (free) throughout the day. It's especially nice when you have young ones because you can always get cold milk. The girls and I ate dinner there (really good selection of hot and cold items), they had their bath, we went for a walk around the resort and then it was bedtime. 

Joe thankfully came back the next afternoon and gave me some alone time at the pool which was amazing!! We spent Friday and Saturday nights at the Grand Floridian and got in some good time at the Magic Kingdom and headed back to Burbank on Sunday afternoon. It was really a GREAT trip and I know that the girls really enjoyed themselves. For the most part they were really well behaved despite being out of their normal routines and probably very tired a lot of the time. 

I can't wait until we have the opportunity to do another Disney Cruise, it will be even better when Lizzy is a bit older and more independent. Becherer/Fleming/Koutnik/Hattman/Birmingham Family Vacay 2013, anyone?? :)