Trip Planning: Taipei and Hong Kong

Joe has been traveling for work much more than he anticipated so far this year, so we thought trying to fit in a week trip would be a good way to ensure some family time!  Since we are still new to the Asia travel experience, it is pretty easy to find availability with our dwindling points balances to go somewhere we haven’t been yet.  We have been wanting to take the girls to Hong Kong Disneyland (which would leave just the two parks in Paris on the list, until Shanghai opens) and focused our efforts primarily around trying to find something in that part of Asia.

Like most things with Joe, travel planning can be really, really annoying, but this time he actually wasn’t too bad.  After our New Year’s trip to 6 cities requiring 7 flights, we agreed that next time we would take a much more simple vacation with one destination.  After some discussion, we thought we would try two places over eight days and see if that would be more reasonable.  Next was figuring out how to do as much as we could using our miles and hotel points.

As usual, our millions of Delta miles, while actually pretty useful for one traveler, are incredibly difficult/impossible to use when you need them for a family of four.  Joe has stopped flying Delta in large part due to how difficult it is to use the miles, but we still earn about 300,000 a year through various credit card related activities, but we may need to rethink putting any spend toward Delta miles.  Since we were considering Hong Kong, we turned to our Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which are a transfer partner of British Airways, which partners with Cathay Pacific.  We checked availability on the British Airways website, and to our surprise, found pretty good availability from Tokyo to Hong Kong despite being “Golden Week” at both locations.  After tinkering around further, we decided to add Taipei as the second destination since it is only a two hour flight from Hong Kong.

Our new philosophy with miles and points amid all the massive devaluations is to use them any chance we have, and occasionally splurge to try out some of the premium cabins we couldn’t otherwise afford.  We ended up booking the following itinerary using Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to British Airways Avios:

Tuesday, April 29            Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Taipei (TPE)

Friday, May 2                  TPE to Hong Kong (HKG)

Wednesday, May 7          HKG to NRT

For the first flight, I will fly with Annie in first class, while Joe and Lizzy will try business class on the upper deck of the Cathay 747-400, which won’t be around much longer as they start to retire those gas guzzlers.  Annie is already excited and Lizzy doesn’t know or care, so it seems like a fair way to distribute the seats.  The two tickets in First Class cost 60,000 Avios plus $97.14 in taxes and fees while the two Business Class tickets cost 40,000 Avios plus $97.14.  To be clear, this is by no means cheap or a great (even good) redemption for such a short flight, but we wanted to the chance to try out these cabins.

We will fly economy from TPE to HKG for the 1h 50min flight, and then all take business class back to Tokyo from HKG.  Ideally, we would have liked to have taken First Class from HKG in order to try out the lounge in Hong Kong, but availability wasn’t there on the days that made sense.  The four tickets in economy cost 18,000 Avios plus $148 in taxes and fees while the four Business Class tickets from HKG back to NRT cost 80,000 Avios plus $139.34.  Again, this was not a great deal by any stretch, but it isn't always possible to maximize miles!

Next up was the hotel planning.  As we have said before, with the hotel status we have at Starwood and Hyatt, we do try to book there because we feel we get good value from the perks offered.  We ended up picking the Grand Hyatt Taipei over the W Taiepi for our three nights there.  The first night was booked using our annual free night from having the Chase Hyatt credit card, which comes with a $75 annual fee.  We booked the second and third nights using free night certificates earned from the recent Hyatt promotion, where if you stayed five nights, you received one free night at any Hyatt category 1-4.  The all-in refundable cash rate for the days we were staying was $897 for the base room, so it was a solid use of the free nights.

We then looked to Hong Kong.  Without getting into the details of the loyalty programs, we usually look to Starwood for the longer stays at one location since we qualify for Starwood Platinum status by staying 50 nights a year whereas we qualify for Hyatt Diamond by making 25 stays (regardless of nights stayed).  We received a certificate (that expires July 31^st) from Starwood for requalifying for Platinum last year that gives you 35% off a points stay up to five nights.  Another great thing about the Starwood program is that when you stay five nights on points, the fifth night is free.  Since we were staying for five nights, we tried to make this work, and lucky for us, things lined up perfectly.  We booked five nights at the W Hong Kong.  With the fifth night free and 35% off, it was only 10,400 points per night.  The all-in refundable cash rate was $410/night, so while this wasn’t an amazing deal, it was good enough under the new philosophy of using the points whenever possible.

Next up is trying to figure out what would be fun to do in Taipei and Hong Kong, but that should be a lot easier than this portion!

Bangkok to Tokyo in Thai Royal First

From Koh Samui we landed in Bangkok around 6pm, got off the plane and piled on to the overly crowded bus that was there to take us to the terminal.  Joe was glancing out the window of the bus and saw a Thai employee on the tarmac holding a sign with "MARY BECHERER ANNIE BECHERER" so we shoved our way out of the bus and went to meet the lady.  Since Annie and I had Royal First tickets from BKK to NRT, we were getting the Royal treatment and Joe and Lizzy were allowed to schlep along since there was room in the car.  We didn't know there would be ground transfers at the tarmac so it was a bit clumsy getting on and then getting off the bus, but that was our fault for not figuring that out beforehand.

We were the only ones in the car and it was a really fun experience.  The handler took us under the airport and held our hands through the transfer progress, getting our onward boarding passes, and taking us up to the Thai Royal First lounge.  It was awesome and set the tone for the rest of the night.  Annie and I were able to take in Lizzy and Joe as guests (you're welcome, Joe), so we were all able to experience this amazing lounge.  We were the ONLY people in the huge lounge when we arrived and were greeted by four employees who walked us to our private living room in the lounge. 

Empty when we arrived

Lucky we got one of the private rooms - eventually they filled up

The area had a couch, two chairs, a table, a TV with the Disney Channel (Pinocchio had just started), and a desk with a computer.  They brought us an iPad which had the menu and we could order whatever we wanted and as much as we wanted.  For normal people, this wouldn't really be that big of a deal, but for someone like Joe, it was like it was the best moment of his life.  (Pretty sure I wrote a very similar sentence about Joe's excitement over the $1 Auntie Anne's pretzels in Kuala Lumpur). We ordered steak, corn chowder, pad thai, and ice cream and desserts among other things. The food was actually delicious and among the best we had on the trip. In addition to the menu, there were also a couple of rooms with food set out that Lizzy wanted to go check out every now and then. 

iPad Food Menu - one of the coolest things ever... I would like one of these for the rest of my life, complete with private chef

Pad thai, corn chowder and steak

Buffet

Lizzy would occasionally wander around with some of the employees. They couldn't get enough of this spunky little blonde

While the food and private living room were amazing, the highlight by far was the included spa services.  It was the first time in our lives where we wished we had a longer layover.  If we had more time I totally would have done it all - facial, mani pedi...  Joe stayed with the girls while I got a massage at the spa in the lounge.  I enjoyed plenty of massages during our time in Thailand, but this was the real deal. It felt SO great and nearly put me to sleep.  After my massage was over the masseuse told me I had five minutes to shower. 5 minutes!? This felt just a little rushed as my entire body and scalp were covered in massage oil.  I showered as fast as I could but was still putting my clothes on when the spa attendant knocked on the door signaling my time was up.  She gave me 5 more minutes as I clearly wasn't ready and then I found a separate area to finish getting ready.  When I was done, there was only time for Joe to get a half hour neck and shoulder massage. He wasn't allowed to use the fancy first class spa and had to rough it in the slums of the business class spa.  It was the first massage of his life and given by an 80 pound Thai woman.  He said the it was the most painful thing he had ever experienced and thought it was certainly more painful than child birth.  Lately I have began to wonder if my former cross country runner/war hero husband has the lowest pain threshold known to man. Perhaps he has been making up stories Uncle Rico style about his one time athletic prowess. 

Gorgeous treatment room (with no sweaty towels or lizards on the wall like all my previous massages in Thailand). Wish I had more time to enjoy it!

Joe finished up his torture session and we realized that it was getting pretty close to departure time and a lounge employee was ready to take us to the gate.  The girls were getting pretty tired and fussy by this point as it was well past their bedtime.  

The gate ended up being quite far from the lounge and thankful they had a cart to take us or we may have missed the flight.  We had to go through security and made it to the gate and were the last to board.  It was a bit stressful but we ultimately made it without a problem.  Annie and I were in First class, which was beautiful, and Lizzy and Joe sat in Business Class, which was also great.

It is great when the inflight entertainment is working at boarding, and even better when The Little Mermaid is one of the choices.

Ariel before takeoff 

Lizzy was soooo tired and put up a good fight trying to stay awake to watch the movie, but was asleep before the flight took off and slept in the flat bed until it was time to put the seat upright.  Joe said he slept almost the entire flight as well.

Loving life in her big seat

Getting tired

Really wanting to watch Ariel

Finally gave up

Had to put the seat up for landing, but slept right through it

Up in first class, Annie and I were pretty tired, too, although I tried to stay awake for a bit to enjoy myself! Since it was a red eye flight there wasn't any dinner provided, but that was OK since I was still stuffed from the lounge. I did sample some Dom Perignon...didn't love it. Is that bad??

Is that bad??

The seats were awesome and turned into comfy lie flat beds but I think Singapore Business might be wider!  Annie and I both got nice Rimowa amenity kits with some L'Occitane products, and we also received some "comfort wear" aka pajamas.  Most people that fly first class probably don't take the pajamas with them but you can bet I did! They are super soft and have a Thai Royal First logo on them - since they didn't have children's sizes the flight attendant offered me an additional adult set which I gave to Joe. Clearly I must have looked like the kind of person that wasn't going to leave a single free thing behind :). A bit prior to landing we were served a nice breakfast.

Nice Disney-branded activity set

Annie slept well in the big seat

We landed at NRT a little early, made it through customs quickly and collected our bags.  We had a very hard time figuring out where the parking company was going to meet us to pick up the car and after 10 extremely frustrating minutes on the phone with a bunch of people who didn’t speak English (we had used this place solely because they claimed they spoke fluent English) we eventually found the car on the departures level.  We were on our way and arrived home about 90 minutes later with 2 tired little girls who were excited to be home and to have their toys again.  Joe had about three hours at home before he had to head back to Narita to catch a flight to LA for some meetings.  He cleaned up the house and did some laundry while I slept with the girls.

It was an amazing trip with a few tough moments but countless amazing ones, so it was totally worth the effort.  Hopefully the girls remember a little bit of it and if not, we are happy to have it all documented here for them to read some day!

Le Meridian Koh Samui

Joe was too cheap to get a 4^th night at the Conrad so we moved to the Le Meridian Koh Samui for our final night in Thailand.  We had Mr. Samui pick us up at 3pm and drive us about 30 minutes back towards the airport to the final hotel on our trip.  Unlike the Conrad, the Le Meridian was located in a busy part of town right off the main road.  We knew just about anything was going to be a bit of a letdown after the Conrad, but it was only for a night so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  We checked in before 4 and were greeted by a number of very friendly employees who really liked the girls and walked us to our room.  Annie let one of them carry her for some of the way which was a bit surprising.

We booked a standard room and used an upgrade certificate to move to a pool suite, which shared a pretty large pool with 5 other units.  The room itself was very small, probably the smallest room we had during the trip, and by the time we got two cribs in there it was jam packed.  But, it worked for us since we had a nice private patio overlooking the shared pool area.   Three of the other five units were occupied during our time there, and while it was a bit odd initially having an another couple 20 feet across the pool sitting on their patio or seeing them lounge in bed, it was not a problem at all.  It would have been really, really fun to have had friends and family rent out all the units around the pool area and have a private pool to hang around in.  And it would have been really, really weird to come here on your honeymoon. :)

Eating some M&Ms and enjoying some welcome drinks upon arrival at the Le Meridian

Entrance to Le Meridian located on this street... reminded me of the North Shore a bit

View from our villa. If you look closely, you can see our across the pool neighbors hanging out in bed

Annie and Joe enjoying the pool

Looking into our room - gives you an idea of how tiny it was! There was a bathroom to the right with a semi outdoor shower

Like all the other places in Thailand and Malaysia, the room service menu was very reasonable and pretty good. I have to say, Thai food comes in way ahead of Japanese food for me any day.  We went swimming a couple of times, had dinner on our patio and walked around the resort.  

The resort was very small compared to the Conrad and had a small beach that went away at high tide.  There was a long pier, maybe 100m, that had a bar in the middle that let you get a good view back to the hotel, but the water was a bit rough and it was tough get the girls on it.  There was a pool overlooking the beach with a restaurant and a bar and some grass areas further towards the street that had various activities throughout the day like Thai Boxing and Yoga.

Beach front pool and dining

Pier with bar in the middle

Standing at the end of the pier looking back at the resort

We came back to the room and got the girls ready for bed.  As was typically the case, the girls fell asleep quickly and we followed suit shortly after.  We had the breakfast buffet in the morning that was good but nothing remarkable - probably at the bottom of the list for me on this trip.  We decided to venture out by foot and see what was in the area around the hotel.  To immerse ourselves in the local culture, we stopped at a convenience store and got the girls an ice cream.  

Best Friends

A face only a father could love

Big sister stayed nice and clean

She swung by a Thai tattoo parlor on the way to ice cream

We headed further down the somewhat chaotic road and found a small strip mall-like shopping area that happened to have a small kids play place.  It was 30 or 40 bhat (around $1 USD) per child for a half hour and the girls stayed for close to an hour and it was probably one of their most fun moments of the entire trip.  Not that it was a surprise, but it again reminded us that they don’t really care where they are as long as they get to do exactly what they want to do. 

Authentic Thai play place

Looks like Eden

Big girl

While out walking, we noticed there were tons of tourists riding around on mopeds, most of them without helmets and some with kids on their bikes with them.  Joe and I kept commenting to one another that it seemed SO dangerous. When we later mentioned it to our driver on the way to the airport and he told us that tourists frequently have accidents, get injured and total the bikes.  Within minutes of this conversation we drove by a man that had wiped out on his moped and was waiting for help.  Hard to imagine taking risks like that on a vacation, especially now that we have kids!  In yet another odd coincidence, we saw a flatbed truck drive by with a bunch of tourists sitting on makeshift benches in the back.  Joe asked me, "Can you IMAGINE anything more dangerous??" Before I could even answer, we came up behind a beat up SUV with people riding ON THE ROOF. 

We headed back to the hotel, did the typical swim and food at the room and finished packing up for the trip home while the girls took a nap. I headed back out to the main road to get a quick (and insanely cheap) manicure at the spa next door.  We checked out and Mr. Samui met us for our final transfer and we were to the airport in less than 30 minutes.  As mentioned before, the Koh Samui airport is really interesting and entirely outdoors.  It has a really neat shopping street between the drop off and the terminal.  We were flying coach, got settled into our seats and had a short flight to Bangkok where we had a 5 or 6 hour layover before our red eye flight back to Tokyo.

Massage "beds" at the spa next to Le Meridian

Exhausted at the end of a looong vacation. Love these sweet girls and this pic!!

Koh Samui Part 2

As usual, we are behind in finishing up our posts from our last trip.  Wanted to get this one done as we will be starting a short trip at the end of the month to Taipei and Hong Kong and would like to be caught up before that happens!

In our last Koh Samui post I mainly talked about the amazing villa we stayed in at the Conrad.  We found the rest of the resort equally amazing! We started every morning with breakfast at one of the restaurants, which was included for the four of us since Joe is a lowly Hilton Gold member, which comes simply by having the Citi Hilton Reserve credit card.  It was buffet style but they also offered a menu with different types of egg dishes you could get made to order.  I ordered eggs benedict every morning, something I've never had before and it was delicious. The buffet had a great selection or fruit, salads, baked goods, an omelet station, Thai dishes, freshly squeezed juices and smoothies, etc. But perhaps the best part of breakfast every morning was the view. Like the rest of the resort, the restaurant sat on the side of the cliff looking over the ocean. Joe and I could have sat there for hours leisurely stuffing our faces, but of course our two fellow travelers didn't like that plan. 

Eggs Benedict 3 mornings in a row? Don't mind if I do

Oceanfront dining

I gave Annie my phone and told her to take some pictures to keep her occupied

One downside to the resort is that it didn't really have a proper beach.  Not a big deal to me, since I usually prefer the pool over the beach, but the girls really love it.  To make up for this, the resort offered daily excursions to their own private island where you could enjoy the beach.  The ride was a little longer than I expected (15-20 minutes) and it was fast and bumpy; I don't think any of us were big fans of the journey.  Once at the island the staff set up some mats for us in the sand under some trees and we were free to explore.  You could also order a picnic lunch to take along with you but we never stayed at the island long enough for that.

She's on a boat

View of the Conrad from the boat on our way to the beach

Pit stop on our way to the beach to feed some fish

Feeding the fish. Alternate caption: Destroying the ecosystem?

Exploring the island with Dad

Really, really wanted to swim all by herself

The boat drops you off about a five minute car ride from the hotel.  There was a local family there with a little boy who came up to the girls and gave them a candy.  Luckily we had a package of fruit snacks on us to return the favor.

Between the extravagant breakfasts, boat trips to the beach and enjoying our private pool in our villa, there wasn't a whole lot of time in the day for other activities, which was just fine by us! We did spend a little time at the main pool where Lizzy downed multiple complimentary mocktails.

Steep golf cart path down to the pool

Main pool, loungers sit in the water

Main pool at night

Lizzy taking a dip at the pool in our villa. Hard to tell where the pool ends and the ocean begins!

Dad and his girls taking a ride back to our villa

There was a kids club (Turtle Club), but it wasn't heavily advertised and I had to call to ask anytime we wanted to use it as it was kept locked up.  Apparently you can leave your kids here pretty much all day for FREE but we really only used it twice as a place to take a break with the girls.  We weren't really clear at the time what the "rules" were and we didn't feel it necessary to leave them.

Turtle Club

Relaxing in a cabana by the pool

There was also a fitness center that I used a few times, and an amazingly challenging morning Yoga class.

Morning Yoga poolside

It was also fun trying to do some yoga with the girls back at the room.  They have lots of work to do.

One of my free drinks! Mojito mocktail, so yummy

Unlimited juice, this place is off the hook!

It's hard to be on vacation

We spent 3 nights at the Conrad Koh Samui and would gladly return to this resort again if we had the opportunity!