Disclaimer: Anything miles/points/money related was written by Joe, anything hilarious added by Mary.
We wanted to minimize our luggage for
the trip since we had so many flights and airport trips throughout the two
weeks. We decided on our two rolling
carry-on suitcases, a MacLaren stroller, backpacks for Joe, Mary and Annie, a
camera bag and one additional small bag for odds and ends. We also packed a good amount of “leave
behind” clothes for the girls and Joe, which made them look homeless many days,
but allowed us to decrease our luggage throughout the trip.
We were mostly packed by December 30th
in case there were any last minute things we needed to take care of and we were up
and ready to leave around 7:30am on New Year’s day. We had pre-packed the car and loaded up the
girls, who ate breakfast in the car. We
made it to Narita in only 50 minutes as there was almost no traffic on the
holiday morning.
In one of the best decisions of the
trip, we had arranged airport parking with a company through Tokyo American
Club. We provided them our flight
information a week prior, gave the parking company a call when we were 10
minutes from the gate, and someone met us at the departure terminal to take our
car and park it for us. They would also
come pick us up at the gate upon our return, which was great since we were
coming in on a redeye. The parking cost
was only 9,680 Yen, which is about $92.
In a city where everything is so expensive, this is one of the best
deals out there.
We arrived at Narita with plenty of time for a stop in the ANA Lounge Business Class Lounge. There were some good food offerings and despite eating breakfast in the car, Annie and Lizzy devoured huge portions of yakisoba noodles. In addition to the serve yourself spread which consisted of salads, yogurts, sandwiches, sushi and a few other things, there was also a walk up window where you could order various made to order noodle and curry dishes.
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| Airport lounge chicken curry: surprisingly delicious! |
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| Carbo loading |
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| Yakisoba noodles, which Annie calls Kyoto Noodles" since she once had them there |
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Getting ready to board!
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We were kind of dreading the long haul flights in the week prior to the trip, so Joe changed some things around and put Annie and me in business class and he stayed in coach with Lizzy. Joe and I had flown on the Singapore A380 in business class for our pre-move trip and it was amazing, so that completely changed my outlook on the trip down to Singapore. We went from sort of dreading the 8-hour flight to looking forward to it. Keeping Annie and Lizzy apart on a plane makes it significantly easier, so Joe was happy about the scenario as well. The NRT – SIN coach tickets were 15,000 miles each and even though the business class tickets were 36,000 each, the miles were well spent because of how much better business class is on the Singapore A380.
Annie loved the seat and
all the attention from the flight attendants.
She received a small Singapore Airlines bear, which she named Annie (the
name of every single thing she has ever named) and had it with her for every
moment of the rest of the trip. She and Lizzy also received small activity packs with colored pencils and paper and that kept Annie busy for the first hour plus of the flight. When the flight attendants came around taking drink orders before takeoff , I thought it was so cute when Annie politely asked for a milk. She also requested an apple juice "for later." :) Her class had just completed a unit on airplane travel so Annie had lots of knowledge to share with me - as we ascended she told me "The control tower is watching us, mommy!" She also mentioned a few times that the pilots fly the plane from the cockpit.
Very much into "rules" lately, Annie was hesitant to do anything until I did it first. She would ask, "Are YOU going to put your tray up? Are YOU going to put your slippers on? Are YOU going to listen to your headphones?" It was very sweet and reminded me of myself at age 13 on my very first commercial flight with Amanda (Columbus to Tampa). I vividly remember being so excited/nervous and asking her what drink she was going to order and then ordering the same thing for myself. It was ginger ale. :)
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| The flight attendants are called "Singapore Girls" and are they are the cutest!! |
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| A little bubbly for Mommy! |
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| Busy with her activities: sticky notes and Crayola color wonder pages |
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| Appetizer and a happy little girl |
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| Kids' snack box |
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| We were able to pre-order our meals online using Singapore's "Book the Cook" feature. Annie ordered spaghetti with chicken meatballs |
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| Dinner and a movie... doesn't get much better |
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| Annie had to bring her Avengers Pez and her 787 Dreamliner toy planes |
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| I ordered the vegetarian meal because airplane mean generally grosses me out |
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| Mozarella salad |
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| Risotto |
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| Tried to get her to take a nap but she was too excited |
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| The Singapore Girls even brought Annie some mini-sized slippers |
Lizzy and Joe sat on the small coach
section on the upper deck and did pretty well.
Lizzy was a handful while we waited for the flight to get in the air,
but once she got her movies and food, she was pretty good. She only needed one diaper change and fell asleep
about 7 hours into the flight and slept for about 90 minutes through
landing. We had a meal, watched all of
the Little Mermaid movies and did some coloring. All in all, she was kind of annoying but
overall well behaved.
We moved through customs quickly,
grabbed our luggage, got a cab, and headed to the Westin Singapore.
