Better Late Than Never

We got a little behind in our posts from our Singapore and Bali trip and finally got them up. Just didn't want anyone getting confused and thinking that we are currently on an exotic vacation. :) Still just hanging out in Tokyo!

Breakfast in Bali

Breakfast is included with all rooms at the St. Regis Bali, and it did not disappoint.  While maybe not quite as amazing as the W in Singapore, in addition to the buffet, it also had an extensive menu from which you could order.  I think Joe had the steak and eggs every morning.  They also had really good smoothies in many different flavors.

Fresh squeezed orange juice and a Virgin Mary, a hotel specialty.

Kid approved!

We typically loaded up during breakfast, then had lunch and dinner either from room service or a casual cafe at the resort.

We had a few communication issues with the staff who spoke English but were sometimes hard to understand. Two of the funnier ones had to do with ordering room service. When we checked in the staff informed us that a special "family treat" was included in our stay. Both Joe and I thought they said it would be a free "hot meal" and cookies for the girls. OK! They said to just call and let them know when we would like it.  When I called to order it a few days later, the man over the phone asked me if I would like hot meal or cold meal. I asked what was in the meals, and he said, "Just meal." I was so confused. When cookies and milk were delivered to the room a few minutes later we finally realized that they had been saying "HOT MILK" the entire time.

Another night when placing a dinner order over the phone I asked if the kitchen could prepare a bowl of plain peas for the girls to eat, since their vegetable intake on the trip was less than stellar. The man taking my order asked me a few funny questions about how I would the peas, and we finally agreed (I thought) that I just wanted some plain, steamed peas. When the order arrived the server proudly pulled the cover off a dish contained a plain piece of steamed fish. We went back and forth for a bit with me saying "Peas??" and him nodding and smiling saying "Yes, peas!" Well, turns out Indonesians say the word "fish" exactly like "peas." We finally sorted it out when I found a piece of paper and wrote out the word "peas." He was unnecessarily apologetic, we had a good laugh and he took back the fish and brought some peas.

Bali

We booked a round trip ticket earlier in the week on Air Asia from SIN to DPS.  I do not recall the exact price but it was under $200 per ticket, but would have been much, much cheaper had we booked in advance.  Since we ultimately were not sure we were actually going to take the trip, we weren't able to do so.  We got to the airport in plenty of time, boarded pretty quickly and had a very nice flight experience, except for one other family on the plane.  A British family let their kids run all around the flight for most of the two hours and left it up to their nanny to try to reign them in.  As our luck would have it, they were also on our return flight, where the rambunxious boy barfed all over the aisle. 

We landed at the airport and were met by a nice lady from the hotel who walked us through the immigration process and took care of everything.  When booking the hotel, Joe had not really given much thought to the round trip hotel transfer that was included, but it ended up being a life saver.  While it would have been fine if it was just the two of us, the additional help was greatly appreciated because Annie and Lizzy were not in the best of moods.

The woman asked for our passports so she could go ahead and pre-clear customs.  Joe handed them to her, but immediately regretted it once Mary pointed out we were not even certain she was actually from the hotel.  She returned after a few tense minutes and said that we were all set and could pass through a different area when clearing customs.  This was really a life saver because we avoided a pretty long customs line and it would have taken us a while to figure out protocol if we had had to do it ourselves. She walked us through a couple hundred meter path to the car, and we asked if there was time to grab the girls (and ourselves) something from Burger King.  Luckily there was and it was amazing.

The hotel had a minivan waiting with pre-installed car seats, which was nice since it was a bit chaotic and installing two car seats was the last thing Joe wanted to do right then.  We had about an hour ride to the hotel through some really interesting scenery.  Bali is a bustling city with many crazy motorcycle drivers and lots of things Annie had never seen before.  

We were so glad we had help with the transportation to the the hotel.  In addition to getting to speed through customs, the cab area looked a bit shady and I think it would have made for a very stress filled transfer.  If new to an area and traveling with jet-lagged little ones, it might be a good idea to consider pre-arranged hotel transfers.

The St. Regis Bali is in a resort area with a number of other hotels, including a Hyatt and Westin where we considered staying as well.  It has a gorgeous entry way and a beautiful open air lobby.  We were greeted by a number of hotel employees who took all the luggage and helped with the girls. The girls were close to melting down at this point, and  I stayed with them in the lobby area while Joe was at the front desk checking in.

We made it.  Check in to the front and ocean behind us

Lobby background music

Lots of time spent looking at the lobby fish and trying to get in

We booked the entry level rate through the American Express Fine Hotels & Resort program.  It was the same rate as at the St. Regis website but it included a couples massage as well.  We received a small upgrade to a better room, but we were really hoping to have something with better access to a pool for the girls, so we asked what options there were for cash upgrades.  For $150/night extra, they could move us to a bigger room with better pool options.  While certainly more than we wanted to spend, we decided to splurge.  I think we are glad that we did because the room was spectacular.

We moved to a Garden Pool Villa that was like a little one-bedroom house with a backyard with a nice sized pool for the girls.  It had a small courtyard out in front of the door and a doorbell that the girls tried to ring every time we passed it.  Best part was it was close to the hotel pool and the beach area.

Walk way to the room, which is to the left

Living and dining area, with pool out the back doors

Bedroom

Patio off the bedroom

Amazing bathroom with a perfect tub for the girls

Welcome snack and Happy Birthday flowers, Joe is so thoughtful

One of a few fairly reasonably price room service meals

It was the nicest room we have ever stayed at and helped to make our stay amazing.  While everything felt very well done with the room, the girls only cared about the pool.  And since they could always see it through the windows, there were a handful of melt downs on the rare occasions where we weren't actually in the pool.

Lizzy ready to head out and get in the pool

Many hours spent in the backyard pool on this part of the trip

Having the pool right off the back of the room was amazing.  Even though the hotel a giant salt water lagoon pool that was the best pool I have ever seen at a resort, it was so nice to have this small one right there for us to use whenever we felt like taking a quick swim.  They also enjoyed the other aspects of the backyard as well.

A nice Korean lady who thought the girls were cute bought them candy

Treats in the backyard meditation structure

The room was amazing but there were many other parts of the hotel we enjoyed just as much.

Marina Bay Sands Singapore

We had seen the Marina Bay Sands on travel TV shows and in pictures so we thought it would be fun to go check it out in person.  Joe definitely prefers to stay at Starwood and Hyatt properties (to a fault at times) but we both agreed we would regret not checking this place out.

We arrived at the Marina Bay Sands Singapore in the early afternoon and unlike everywhere else we stayed, there was no one to assist with luggage.  Eventually we found a bellman once we hauled everything into the lobby and he took the luggage up to our room.  Check in was uneventful and we got assigned a fairly standard room on the 36th floor overlooking the sea and a huge garden park right on the water.

View from the balcony of our room

A nice bathroom. A dining room while Lizzy slept

4th hotel in 7 days.  Getting a little silly

Annie thought this was hilarious, as did her audience, Lizzy.

The room was nice and clean with a big bathroom but nothing too remarkable.  That was fine by us because the hotel was able to provide two cribs and we were there mostly to see shopping area (because we didn't get to see enough luxury shopping while on Orchard Road) and the 60th floor infinity pool.  We had some apples, got dressed for the pool, and headed up to the 60th floor.

Unfortunately for our pictures, it was an overcast day so they did not come out very well, but it was a really cool pool.  It was crowded but we had no problem finding four lounge chairs together. There was a kid pool at the far end of the pool area that the girls liked but we really enjoyed the main pool with the view over the marina.

After we went back down to our rooms, Joe headed downstairs with Annie to the mall to get some food for dinner while I stayed up and put Lizzy down for bed.  He got us Pizzeria Mozza which was really exciting because I had been asking him for over a year to take me there and he never did.  Hard to be mad at him for it since he almost always makes up for his lack of romance with amazing trips and hotels.  The food was delicous, even on the bathroom floor.

One of the reason we like to stay at the hotels where we have status is for the fairly frequent free upgrades.  Despite being among the most expensive rooms during our trip, it was the first standard room we were in and we really missed the extra space. It is nice to have extra space to lounge around in, but it really is great at night when we can separate ourselves from the girls while they sleep.  Since we didn't have that luxury in this room, we had to eat dinner on the floor in the bathroom because Lizzy was asleep in the main room. It was a nice bathroom, but still not an ideal situation.

*Reading back over this post, 8 months later, I am wondering why we didn't put Lizzy's crib in the bathroom so we could eat in the main room. She has spent many a night in a hotel bathroom since then!

Had an anniversary cake waiting for us in the room when we returned from the pool!

We had to leave for the airport pretty early the next morning for our flight to Bali, so we cleaned up a bit and went to bed shortly after we finished eating.  We packed up in the morning and headed down to grab a cab to the airport.  While a much shorted stay at the Marina Bay Sands than we would have liked, we were glad we made the effort to see the development and check out the pool.

We had an amazing time in Singapore, even with the severe jet lag.  It is really an easy city to get around and we always felt safe, even at 3am with all the ladies of the night pinching Lizzy's chubby legs.  Despite it consistently being ranked as one of the world's most expensive cities, we found it relatively affordable.  We were sad to have to be leaving so soon, but we were also excited to start a relaxed few days in Bali.

Universal Studios Singapore

We got a little busy and are only 8 months behind on finishing these posts, but better late than never!

We thought it was a bit funny that we decided to go to Universal Studios Singapore since we live(d) literally 5 minutes from Universal Studios Hollywood and have never been. So naturally we would go to the one that is halfway around the world. It also just so happened to be my birthday that day, and I was excited to try out some of the rides since when we visited Universal Studios in Orlando I was very pregnant and unable to ride ANYTHING in the entire park.

Universal Studios Singapore is located in Sentosa, a resort destination on the outskirts of Singapore.  They continue to build it out but aside from some hotels, Universal, a casino and some residential areas, it seemed pretty quiet and off the beaten path.  We took a cab from our hotel and it was just a few minutes to the complex.  We actually had a bit of a hard time finding the park entrance but once we got there we bought our tickets and we in a few minutes later.

The park was well kept and not busy, but we said many times that it was hard to really 'get' a lot of it since we had never seen a lot of the movies that many of the attractions were based on. I was SUPER excited to ride the Jurassic Park ride, which was a water ride, but it was pretty disappointing. I guess in reality it is a really old ride, but I was expecting more than the lifeless dinosaur statues that lined the boat ride. The ones that did move just looked like bad animatronics. Also, it was a water ride and I was the ONLY person in my boat who got completely soaked.  Everyone else in my raft had ponchos on and we all stayed pretty dry for the entire ride, and then at the bottom of the big drop at the end a giant wave splashed right over my head.

Lizzy's first Universal Park, every one else's second

Not quite the same as Mickey, but not too bad

There were a few rides that Annie really enjoyed - a dumbo type ride in the Jurassic Park area and a Madagascar themed indoor boat ride.

We also took them to a Sesame Street live show and a splash pad that was the hit of the day, and made the girls the hit of the park.

As we saw with the crowds at the Singapore Flyer, chubby girls with blonde hair and blue eyes are a bit of a novelty in this part of the world.  Many people were grabbing the girls and trying to get in pictures with them and were very interested in Annie and Lizzy.  The girls were pretty unfazed for most of the time but had had enough once the crowd grew pretty large.

After a few more grabs from ladies like this one, Lizzy decided it was time to go.  We headed to the bathroom to get them cleaned up and spent a little time on their version of main street and decided to head back to the hotel or a swim.

Overall, it was a really fun day for the girls and it is always fun seeing a new theme park.  While it did not resonate for us like a Disney Park, we would consider going back if we ended up back in that area again.

Tokyo Disneyland

We had been talking about going to Disneyland before Japanese school let out for a summer break on July 19th, but after a few VERY hot weeks and some huge crowds at the park we thought it probably wouldn't be worth it. I imagined pushing the double stroller through the park with 2 hot, sweaty sunburned girls with lines too long for any sane person to wait in.  So, I had sadly resigned myself to the fact that we would have to wait a few months before trying it out.  But then on Thursday morning while I was getting the girls ready to head to Tokyo American Club and Joe was getting ready for work, he looked at the forecast (highs only in the upper 80s!) and thought that crowd wise we might actually have a shot at getting on some rides.  Lines for attractions, character greetings and even popcorn have been known to be as long as 7 hours at Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea.  I knew it would be a disaster if we took the girls to the park and weren't even able to get on any rides so I was keeping my fingers crossed!  It worked out well that day because Joe's morning meeting was cancelled and he could go in a bit later than usual, so we quickly got packed up and loaded into our new Prius to ride with dad to work. Joe wasn't able to take the day off but planned on meeting us for lunch and picking us up on his way out that evening.  

Bottom left: A view of Tokyo as we left the city. Tokyo Disney Resort is about 10 miles from the downtown.

Traffic on the way wasn't too bad and Joe dropped us off in front of the Disneyland Hotel and rushed to make a meeting. We walked through the hotel and out the back where the entrance gate was located. We got there right around opening time and the line to get in the park looked pretty crazy, but it only took us about 10 minutes to get through the gate. Main Street was also packed and we quickly made our way to Fantasyland. I didn't get a chance to grab a map but from my initial assessment of what I could see while standing in front of the castle, it seemed to be laid out basically like Disneyland in California.  We quickly found Fantasyland and jumped in line for Dumbo with only a 5 minute wait! As it got closer to our turn, I panicked for a moment worried that I wouldn't be able to ride with both girls in one car and they are both too small to ride by themselves. Luckily we were all able to ride together and Dumbo was a hit. After Dumbo we ran Birmingham style over to Peter Pan which had a 20 minute wait prediction - I usually never do anything over 10 with the girls but decided to press my luck. It ended up only taking 12 minutes to get on the ride, and even though Annie was very excited she covered her eyes for a lot of it. Next we headed over to Snow White's Scary Adventures and walked right on, but again Annie covered her eyes for a majority of the ride. I found it to be way better and more updated than Snow White in California. Oh, and one major difference that for some reason I didn't expect: all the audio on the rides is in Japanese. Funny to hear the familiar voices of the Disney characters speaking and singing in Japanese. We hopped on the carousel after some confusion about whether or not the girls were allowed to ride on horses by themselves, and then Joe texted me to try to get on Pooh's Hunny Hunt ASAP. The line for Pooh was already 70 minutes when we got there (still not even 10:00 am at this point) so we got a Fast Pass to return at 1:00 pm. 

It was just about time for a snack and there was a Honey Popcorn cart right outside the Pooh ride so the girls chomped that down and took a little break in the shade.

Had a few people ask to take pictures with Annie and Lizzy. I promised them candy if they would cooperate but as you can see here it didn't seem to work. 

Having a great morning so far!

We then headed into Toontown, an area of Disney specifically designed for small children.  We went to Minnie's House (big hit!), climbed up into Chip n Dale's tree house and found a boat to explore.

The girls had a great time in Minnie's kitchen! 

We spent about an hour playing at Toontown and we were hot and ready for a break, so we went into a store to do some browsing. Every single time I turned around Lizzy had a pair of Minnie Mouse sunglasses on despite me telling her to put them back each and every time.

"Mom, can we get one of these?"

Disney chopsticks, a cheese selection and a t-shirt. 

After Annie and Lizzy had touched just about every single thing in the store I had to practically drag them out of there for a stop at the Baby Center.  We had a bathroom break and some cold water and then were on our way to meet dad for lunch. 

We met up with Joe, who must have been DYING in his work clothes while walking around the park. I actually felt sorry for him, which rarely happens. There are tons of food choices at Tokyo Disneyland, but it takes some searching to find something, er, Western. We stopped for pizza in Tomorrowland and it was pretty good. Out of the 3 choices of pizzas I picked "double sausage" which was the only one that didn't include seafood or an equally questionable topping, and ironically contained no sausage. The slice came with a side of mini cream puffs drizzled with chocolate syrup and a drink for around 800 yen.

After lunch Joe had to go back to work and it was time to use our Fast Pass at Pooh's Hunny Hunt.  The line by this point was over 100 minutes and even the Fast Pass line was winding out into the park. I'd say it took us around 15 minutes of waiting before it was our turn. Pooh's Hunny Hunt was definitely my favorite ride of the day, and one of the best ones I've been on in a while! It's a trackless ride system that has not been introduced in the US (too expensive) so each individual Hunny pot moves independently all over the floor, making for a different ride every time. Hard to say who enjoyed it more, me or the girls. Annie kept saying during the ride, "This is awesome!"

Sad the the Hunny Hunt is over!

Next up we had planned to take in a live character show but missed it by 1 minute so we tried out Mickey's Philharmagic instead. The girls didn't mind the wait, thank goodness it was indoors, as it was getting pretty hot by this point. They both really enjoyed the 3-D cartoon show which included some of their favorite Disney songs.

Sharing a seat because sepeartely they weren't heavy enough to keep the seat from folding up! Annie kept her arm around Lizzy for the entire show. So sweet.

It was well past 2:30 and the girls both fell asleep in the stroller.  I walked around and did some window shopping while they slept, and enjoyed a mango/vanilla swirl cone (no dole whip in Adventure Land, boo!) that I didn't have to share :).

Sleeping sweaty angels.

Time for a cool treat!

I took some pictures of menus as I walked around during naptime just to give you an idea of what they are serving.

What is Char Siu? Do I want to know? Guessing it probably doesn't belong on a pizza.

Fake food displays are BIG in Tokyo. Almost every restaurant has one of these displays outside.

Hungry Bear is one of my favorite restaurants at Disneyland in California. They don't serve curry. 

Really wanted to try this Green Tea shaved ice with Red Beans but I had just polished off an ice cream cone. Next time!

Menu from a table service restaurant on Main Street.

So many different flavors of popcorn!

The girls ended up sleeping for a LONG time, and a few minutes after Annie woke up we decided to wake up Lizzy to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Even though it was her idea in the first place, Annie immediately started crying and saying she didn't want to go once we walked into the ride (there was no wait.) Mean mom made her go anyway since we had already woken up Lizzy for this ride.  Annie straddled me on my lap with her head buried in my chest for the entire ride. Lizzy was a little bit braver, but stayed pretty close to my side the whole time. A little bummed that we had to leave on that note, but Joe was done with work and our babysitter Vicky was coming over at 7 to watch the girls. 

All in all I'd say the trip was a big success and I am looking forward to many more days spent at Tokyo Disneyland!

Until next time!